Adventure is often something we do to keep ourselves sane in a world littered with overwhelm. However, too often they’re delayed and we find an excuse to stay at home. Explorer Rich ponders why we procrastinate something we know will be good for us.

 

I’ve been hiking for most of my life. I still remember the first ‘real’ hike I went on. It was Christmas in the late 90s and I was staying with family in north-east Victoria. They planned to hike the Razorback up to Mt Feathertop, the second highest peak in the state (1,922m).

I was seven years old, and I remember hushed voices discussing whether I could come along. I was tiny, but there was no way anyone wanted to piggyback me up or down the mountain if I failed to keep up. I pleaded with them to let me join the hike. I couldn’t stand being left out of such an adventure. I finally got a ‘yes’. I promised they wouldn’t regret it.

I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face as we collapsed into the car at the end of the day. My feet were blistered, I was thirsty and hungry, but I was hooked. ‘I want to do more of this’, I thought. Since then, I’ve tried incorporating outdoor adventure into my life as often as possible.

 

 

Sometimes I forget just how much I like it. Sometimes I think, ‘There’s no point going anyway’. So I don’t. I’ve noticed those around me falling into the trap of procrastinating trips too. They know they’ll have a good time, but for one reason or another, it just never gets off the ground. 

What stops you from getting out there?

For me, planning and packing are the things that fall into the ‘too hard basket’. I can’t stand thinking about what food I have to take and how much I’ll need. This has usually resulted in either taking too much or too little (the latter causing me to hungrily make my way back to the trailhead and demolish the contents of my ‘snack door’ in the car on the way home).

I often hear people say, ‘I want to do more of this’, or ‘I’d like to start that’. When I ask them what’s stopping them, they stumble. For those who provide a comprehensible answer, it’s usually that life’s too busy. They have work and social commitments to adhere to. Sometimes it’s because they don’t know where to start, what gear to buy, or where to go, even after watching countless YouTube videos and scrolling their socials for inspo.

I’m guilty of this myself. For years, I wanted to try bikepacking. I loved cycling. I loved hiking. Surely combining the two would be a cakewalk, right? Nope. I couldn’t seem to take the next step and buy the few pieces of equipment that’d allow me to carry the gear I needed for multiday trips on the bike. Eventually, I was gifted a 14L saddle pack, which got the momentum going. But why couldn’t I take the leap?

 

 

Everyone has their reasons, and they always seem so convincing at the time. Inevitably, Monday rolls around and routine hits hard.

You wish you’d pulled the trigger on that weekend in the mountains or that multi-week trip through another country. They’re the reason you earn a paycheck, they’re what adds colour to your world.

Instead, you get lost in the excuses and trivialities of life, paralysed by choice and indecision.

Why do you need perfection before action?

Think about a recent adventure you’ve been on. I’m confident you were either planning another adventure while on that trip, or started planning it the moment you got back. When you’re out there, you don’t want it to stop. You want to find new challenges and places, create new memories and learn new skills. It’s a positive feedback loop of adventure!

 

 

But too often you let that feedback loop dissipate. It gets dissolved in the washing machine of life and you return to the normalcy of daily duties. You go back to thinking that things need to be different for you to get outside and do something out of the ordinary. You tell yourself that you need more time, people to come, the latest gear. Why is that?

Nobody Likes to Lose

Excuses can arise for a variety of reasons. The first may be that you’re conditioned to feel losses more intensely than gains (something psychologists call loss aversion). Not going on that trip means you never set yourself up for negative feelings if the trip doesn’t live up to expectations or you ‘fail’.

Perhaps you know what your weekend at home will look like – it’s predictable and usually pretty fun, so not straying outside those boundaries will mean you don’t lose. You haven’t lost…but you also haven’t gained much either.

I’ve noticed this phenomenon creeping into people’s lives more and more. Our collective desire for control is so strong that the very thought of uncertainty sends us into a tailspin.

Ketchup…Catsup? Choice Overload & Decision Fatigue

Another reason might be the sheer number of choices you face when deciding what to do with your time (AKA the paradox of choice). You don’t want to make the wrong choice, so you often make no choice (which is a choice in itself!). The times you do make a deliberate choice, you feel that tinge of regret creep in for the option you didn’t choose.

I see this in people (ahem, me) all the time when buying gear. It’s possible to get bogged down for months researching the best gear to buy. But is it really necessary for a weekend warrior to have the best of the best? Isn’t it possible to MacGyver your way into something and still have a good time?

 

 

Type 2 Fun

These trends have resulted in the pursuit of perfection before action. You can no longer step into an activity without knowing that everything has been thought of and perfectly planned. Yet, the very essence of outdoor adventure is the many misadventures that happen along the way. It’s usually the Type 2 Fun you recall most fondly. Those dirtbag trips will be the ones to stick with you because you had to do it the hard way. You had to earn that feeling of satisfaction.

How To Avoid the Procrastination Trap

So, what can you do to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of procrastination and watch that dream adventure fade into oblivion?

Introspection

Thinking about your own tendencies is a good place to start. What are the reasons you tell yourself not to go or to keep pushing something aside? Perhaps there are insights to be gained by delving into these. Observing yourself in these moments sets you up to choose differently next time.

Make the decision!

Know that there’s more than one right choice! It’s easy to get bogged down in decisions and trying to make the right choice. There’s no YouTube channel or social media influencer who can take away the fear of the first step. Nelson Mandela may have summed this up better than anyone when he said, ‘May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears’.

Gratitude

It’s easy to forget how quickly a life of adventure can be taken away. Perhaps you’ve experienced this fragility yourself through an injury or a relocation that meant your local trail was now hours instead of minutes away. When you’re no longer able to do something, all those incidents of procrastination and indecision suddenly weigh heavily on you. Complacency can be a killer. The antidote? Be aware of and grateful for what you have and what you can do.

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Belangoloopy – Paddy Pallin Intro Rogain

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Belangoloopy – Paddy Pallin Intro Rogain, NSW Rogaining

It might seem like an oxymoron to embrace the preciousness of life by pursuing activities that put you in more danger, but in the words of philosopher Anais Nin, ‘Life shrinks and expands in proportion to one’s courage’.

 

Outdoor adventure is a beautiful thing. It can make you feel both miniscule and gigantic in the same breath. It can relieve stress, make you happier, and put life’s struggles into perspective. So next time it comes calling and there’s a nagging voice inside your head that says Maybe not this time, think about what that really means. Adventure (and misadventure) awaits.

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