The People You Meet Along The Way: Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans...

Life, they say, is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. I don’t know about you, but it feels like everyone’s ‘busy’ making plans these days. I’ve recently even caught myself hopping on the ‘I’m so busy’ band wagon wondering how I'm going to fit everything on my 'to-do' list into a day. 

There’s a popular meme that goes, ‘You have as many hours in a day as Beyoncé.’ Whether you like Beyoncé or not, what the core message boils down to is that we all get the same amount of time - not the same circumstances or level of assistance - but we all get the same 1,440 minutes every single day. The difference between your life, or mine, or Beyoncé’s is defined by what we choose to do with those minutes. It’s up to us to carve out the time to make our own ‘bootylicious’ stuff happen. This involves honing in on why, what and where our priorities are, focusing on planning and time management, and building our 1,440 minutes around that.

I can almost hear parents around the world groaning that I’m venturing to write a blog about “planning” and “time management” in the same breathe as a reference to a Beyoncé meme - particularly as I think back to my youth and the herculean level of planning that my parents deployed in managing our family. Growing up, life was meticulously broken down into an orchestrated time-boxed schedule of school drop-offs, pick-ups, piano, ballet, gymnastics, badminton, soccer, grocery shopping, full-time jobs, after-school jobs etc. D-Day did not receive the level of planning as was scratched onto the calendar hanging in our family kitchen.  To all you parents out there (especially you Mom) – chapeau. I have no idea how you do it.

I don’t have to worry about school drop-offs and pick-ups but I do have a full time job, and live a life directed by commitments, choices and decisions – some of these are mine, some are not. I’ve spent nearly two decades shaping a career as a consultant harmonized with an inherent sense of wanderlust and sprinkled with a touch of “fear of missing out”. Like you parents out there, I’m learning – through trial and error – the art of multi-tasking, learning when to say ‘yes’, when to say ‘no’, and smiling bravely through the realisation that there are 24 hours in the day and I've planned for 30. These are the ‘not so bootylicious’ evenings that I’m in the gym after a long day in the office, gasping for breath on a treadmill while reading emails and deciding what to reheat in the microwave for my 11pm dinner.

Here’s a recent example. In April I’m traveling to Nepal to climb a 6100m / 20295ft mountain and volunteer for a charity to help put the finishing touches on the building of a local climbing school. As I’ve spent the past few months diligently planning and managing the activities around the trip, I can’t help but reflect on my first visit to Nepal about 20 years ago. I packed a ‘you only live once’ mentality along with a small backpack, begged and borrowed for the flight ticket, kissed my parents good-bye and off I went. How things have changed. 

Now that I’m older and ‘busier’ with commitments involving suitcases with wheels more so than backpacks, it’s more a case of making choices about what I truly want to do and why. I consider how I can carve a chunk of time to do it, and then come up with a plan that fits into that time slot that doesn’t compromise my objectives or the intimacy of the experience. This means bypassing the all-inclusive margarita-themed holidays to Punta Cana and focusing instead on preparing for the adventure I’m saying ‘yes’ to.  Sounds simple right? Ha.

I’ve wanted to go on this trip Nepal for a number of years but other priorities moved it to the back-burner. This year I spent time speaking to family, friends and colleagues to figure out how to prioritise the time out to plan the trip and set the wheels in motion make it happen. 

Managing work, personal commitments, relationships, fitness, finances, and taking time out for myself - there are a lot of 'moving parts' and it's been easy to become overwhelmed. As tempting as it is, I’m not going to give you the “sunshine and unicorns” version of this story. I have been overwhelmed. Crippling anxiety, moments of defiance and stubbornness that exacerbate every negative Taurean trait running through my body. Questions like, “Have I made the right choices?” “How can I make the time?” These are the moments that challenge me, that I learn from and that keep me true to my purpose and passion-led ambitions. 

But here’s the harsh reality. There is no simple solution to making more time. I can’t solve your lack-of-time conundrum – it’s entirely down to you. But I might get you excited enough to resolve to solve it yourself. To set your plan in action and kick-start the conversations with the people in your life – your family, your colleagues, yourself – about how it might be possible to pause the racing rhythm of life for long enough to plan do something different and memorable that satisfies and rewards in equal measure.

For your treadmill reading pleasure, here are four quick reflections from my own experiences in deciding what stays on the calendar and what goes… and how to manage all the bootylicious stuff that happens in-between.

Discipline: Be disciplined in your focus on attaining your goal.

A focus on the end goal is a bit like having a personal GPS. Once you type your destination into a GPS, it cleverly spits out step- by-step details in how to get there. If only there was a GPS of life – but that would take out the adventure wouldn’t it?  I’ve learned to manage goals by breaking key activities and events down into priorities: What needs to be done today? What can wait until tomorrow? What can wait until next week? A therapeutic 15 minutes is spent every morning prioritizing so I know what’s on my plate for the day ahead. There are plenty of apps (e.g. Toggl, Workflow, Shift, RescueTime) that can help with this if lists aren’t your forte. I keep it simple and use the ‘Notes’ app on my phone and a good old-fashioned pen and moleskin notebook. My recommendation – find a simple solution that works best for you and stick with it.

Before every expedition, I spend time thinking about my end-goal and the detailed activities and steps (real and proverbial) required to achieve it. “Is it the summit? Is it to raise money for a particular charity? Is it to improve my skills and fitness? Is it to experience a new part of the world?” I write down the activities required to achieve the goals in a step-by-step list. As a highly skilled procrastinator I’ve found that without this rigor and focus I’m easily distracted and diverted - the dishes in the sink, the floor that needs vacuuming or the trip to the grocery store that just can’t wait. Just as road congestion and construction requires the GPS to recalibrate, I’ve learned that my daily ‘to do’ list helps me to keep sight of goals and focused on the steps to get there irrespective of the detours that pop up along the way.

Commitment: Don’t give up when you’re forced beyond your comfort zone or when setbacks or disappointments happen.

‘There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.” A great quote by author Ken Blanchard.  

If I was only ‘interested’ in climbing mountains (assuming this was my goal), I’d deprioritize training, planning, and expedition preparations, only focusing on climbing when it was convenient. I’d give up on the goal with my first shiver in the freezing temperatures or the first rain on a training run. Commitment to a project like climbing a mountain means that even when exhausted from a long day of work, I still go to the gym for the days training or I continue with my run despite torrential rain. It might not be the most productive training session of all the time but it’ll do wonders in keeping me relentlessly focused on my end goal - even when things get uncomfortable.

Those people who are successful in the mountains – and in life more broadly – are those who are unrelenting in the pursuit of their goal. Sure they experience setbacks and failures like everyone else, but what sets these people apart is their ability to get back on track and learn from their mistakes. Success and commitment to achieving a goal is about the ability to do this time and time again.

An example is the incredible story of the 69-year old Chinese double amputee Xia Boyu. Last year Mr. Xia summited Mount Everest on his fifth attempt. In 1975, his team were trapped in a storm near the summit. He lent a teammate his sleeping bag and subsequently suffered severe frostbite, losing both his feet. 1996, he was diagnosed with lymphoma and, after recovering from cancer, he attempted to summit Everest three more times…. In 2014, the climbing season was cancelled due to an avalanche on Everest. His attempt in 2015 was called off after the Nepal earthquake. Then in 2016, Mr. Xia's dream seemed within reach - the team was just 300ft from the summit when a blizzard forced him to turn back… Then last year in May of 2018, on his fifth attempt, Mr. Xia achieved his dream of reaching the highest point on earth and becoming the second double amputee to ever do so. It’s an incredible example commitment and the relentless pursuit of a goal.

Courage:  Learn to say ‘no’.

Learning to say ‘no’ takes courage. Saying no is one the most challenging things I’ve had to learn in harmonizing a career and personal ambitions outside of work. Over the past few years, I realized that my people pleasing tendencies were creating stresses and inefficiencies which were impacting my work, personal life and the enjoyment of time spent outdoors. Thanks to some great coaches and simple exercises in knowing when to say ‘yes’ and when to say ‘no,’ I've begun to preserve my most valuable resource – time – while growing personally and professionally. By saying ‘no’ to some things, I’ve realized that I’m actually saying ‘yes’ to other things – for example, a step toward a professional or mountaineering goal. Saying ‘no’ to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill these commitments.

There are literally thousands of articles and books written on different ways to say ‘no’ and offering tips and tricks to help convert your ‘no’ into a ‘yes’. A few highlights include:

• Value your time. Know your commitments, and how valuable your time is. Then, when someone asks you to dedicate some of your time to a new commitment, you’ll know that you simply can’t do it. And be upfront in sharing that – don’t wait until the last minute.

• Know your priorities. If you do have some extra time, ask yourself whether this new commitment is how you want to spend that time? If it’s not, then say ‘no’. Pretending you can do everything in equal measure creates artificial pressure and ignores the pleasure of impassioned action and discipline. There’s a lot to be learned from giving some things up and giving your all to what you love.

• Practice saying no. Practice makes perfect. Saying ‘no’ as often as you can is a great way to get better at it and more comfortable with saying the word – it’s actually quite empowering.
  
  
  

Creativity: Look for ways to overlap things.

Asking for the time off to climb Everest was a nerve-wracking experience. I’d already considered all of the reasons why my boss might say ‘no’ and hadn’t considered why he might say ‘yes’. As it turned out, he was an ‘arm-chair adventurer’ and connected with the vision behind my request. We spent the rest of the meeting discussing the leadership qualities of adventurers like Shackleton and how these qualities aren’t dissimilar to those we see exemplified by some leaders in business today. We talked about discipline, commitment and courage inside and outside of the office. My boss suggested that I present at a team meeting on ‘leadership lessons learned’ following my expedition. I obliged and a few months later  was amazed at how much I’d learned from my experiences - the preparation, expedition logistics, and the challenges we faced individually and as a team.

I started building a portfolio of ‘lessons learned’ on a range of topics including team building, objective setting, risk management, decision making, communications, reframing success, and leadership. Rather than seeing the time-off work as a ‘career limiting’ move, it became ‘career enhancing’, gave me confidence, independence and purpose. It tapped into my love of story-telling, adventure and problem solving - and I became a more authentic, effective consultant as a result.

A few years later I organised a trek of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to support one of our firm’s Foundation charities and as a continuation of my goal to creatively harmonize my personal and professional interests. The expedition raised $40,000 to support a charity funding critical research into issues impacting the health and wellbeing of women and babies. The news of our success spread across the firm. Today, five years, later I’ve organised multiple Kilimanjaro treks and have also added Everest Base Camp to the charity challenge portfolio. We’ve raised nearly $400,000 for our Foundation charities, are on-track for another $150,000 this year and have a waiting list booking into 2021. Equally importantly, over 100 colleagues have become friends, have learned about fundraising and have experienced a great adventure together, forging friendships and memories that will last a lifetime. A bit of creativity and a passion for bringing colleagues together to learn from each other in an environment far removed from the office has been more fulfilling than I ever dreamed possible.

Choices and priorities - one month to go…

Over the past few weeks I've consciously reminded myself to breathe – to inhale, exhale, repeat - revisit the to-do-list, re-baseline dates, re-prioritise and let my body catch up with my brain. I’ve focused on deciding what things on my list relate directly to achieving my goals and which are just ‘nice to haves’. I’ve realised that this discipline and rigor are critical in this so that I don't find myself on a mountain without a sleeping bag or return from an expedition without a job.

One of my most valuable learnings has been the appreciation that everything I do – every choice I make, every activity I prioritise - has a cost and consequences. I'm learning that life isn’t ever going to be perfect. I’m never going to be entirely ready, there is never an entirely ideal time, not every problem can be completely resolved and fear and anxiety never entirely leave. But it’s down to me – to you – to make the choices on how to live a life fulfilled. Inevitably, I’ll still find myself having those not so bootylicious OMG moments, reading emails on the treadmill and reheating microwave dinners at 11pm… But thinking back to our well-used family calendar, the sooner I make peace with this basic fact, the better I’ll be at making decisions that work for me. It’s entirely down to me to build the life I want to live today. And that’s an incredibly empowering realisation.