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‘Find somebody to lean on.’ And other pieces of wisdom I picked up on my hike.

By Jessica Swannie

Updated October 13, 2019 2:07 PM

This is part of our Hiking Guide series rolling out this spring and summer.

Growing up in Buffalo, I always vowed to spend every warm day outside, as balmy afternoons were scarce in the frozen western New York tundra. Now, Charlotte’s longer warm weather season gives me even more reason to spend time in the sun. One of my favorite ways to inhale the crisp North Carolina air is via gasping breaths on a steep trek up the side of a mountain.

Painful? Yes.

Exhilarating? Absolutely.

My boyfriend and I came across Ely’s Portillo’s article on Grandfather Mountain and decided to plan a spur-of-the-moment hiking trip. Ely made the hike’s unique wooden ladders and strenuous terrain sound fun. (Ely, the ladders did not actually look that fun, especially for someone with a crippling fear of heights.) That said, the hike proved one of my favorites, and reflecting on conquering my fears, I found life lessons hidden in the sweat and sobs.

As it turns out, hiking a mountain is very similar to overcoming obstacles in your career. There will be times when you feel like you’re never going to reach the top, but every difficult opportunity makes you stronger and more prepared to scale the next boulder in your path.

At the end of it all, whether you’re standing on the peak of a mountain or sitting at the top of an organizational chart, you likely experienced the same life lessons to get there. Here’s what I mean:

Embrace the unexpected

I’m a planner by nature. Every once in a while I let my guard down and trust that not every day requires a meticulous agenda. During my recent trip to the mountains, I applied this concept by granting my boyfriend approval to pick the destination and the hike without my input.

And then I remembered why I plan everything.

About 20 minutes in, I found myself scaling a ladder on the side of a rugged rock formation only to realize worse adventures lurked in the shadows. By the time we completed the hike, I’d reached the top of about eight more ladders and un-gracefully ascended sharp boulders to reach one of the two peaks we explored.

But the views proved more than worth the trouble.

I’d compare this experience to a Monday. Post-Sunday-scaries, you’ve arrived to your desk with a coffee in hand, ready to conquer your carefully-written to-do list from Friday. Upon scrolling through your emails, you realize your two afternoon meetings grew to five, beginning in less than an hour. Each one presents a new project, and you watch your plan for the week soar out the window, replaced with a rigorous to-do list and several follow-up calls.

Similarly, if you’re starting a new job, you may find within the first month that the job description did not accurately depict the role. Whether you’re excited about the changes or worried about the new responsibilities, you never know how you’ll end up four months from now. Maybe you’ll find you truly enjoy an aspect of the role that you would’ve never experienced otherwise.

You can do this.

Get back up again

While you won’t find proof of my bruised tailbone or cut-up elbows on Instagram, I promise you, they’re there.

As much as I wanted to portray the role of the graceful hiker, gliding effortlessly down slippery boulders and hopping over tree branches Indiana-Jones-style, I more closely resembled cartoon Lizzie McGuire – awkward and clumsy.

No matter how many times I fell (too many to count), I stood back up. While this could attribute this to the fact that I didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the ten-year-old kid effortlessly roaming the landscape behind me, I’d like to think it was my unwavering bravery and ability to “brush it off.”

While my career doesn’t put me in a position where I physically slip and fall, I find I’ve needed to “get back up again” after a tough day. Did I send emails with errors? Yep. Did I made mistakes tough to reverse? Check.

But I’ve found success in my role isn’t directly correlated with the amount of failures I experience, but rather how I handle them. I never make the same mistake twice – I get back up and learn from each situation.

Face your fears

As I mentioned earlier, I did not carefully plan this hike, and the ladders served as an unwelcome surprise — especially the old wooden ladder teetering on the edge of a cliff with a straight drop into the green and grey abyss.

Given my paralyzing fear of heights, I would only describe the obstacle as: “nope.”

Did I cry? Yes.

Did I climb the ladder anyway?

You know it!

And in that moment, shaking in a little tear-filled ball on the ground beside the last rung of the ladder, I felt invincible (felt – not looked).

There will be times at work when you’re given a new project, and you’re not sure whether you’ll ever complete it. Maybe you think your boss held too much faith in your abilities assigning it. Maybe you aren’t prepared to speak in front of the board of 12 people to pitch the idea you’ve spent months perfecting.

Maybe you took a leap of faith on a new role, and you don’t know whether it was the right move to make a rash career change.

The only way you’ll discover the true limit to your own abilities is by giving it a try. Fear is a mental game and requires far more strength than just physically climbing the mountain.

Face your fears – I promise the view is worth it.

You won’t be great at everything

This is a tough one for me. Having graduated from an Ivy League school, I’ve held myself to a standard so high, I could never possibly achieve it. I vowed to get an A in every course – even math, which I should’ve known was a poor goal from the start.

On the hike, I wanted to feel like my gym time paid off. I longed to scale the side of the mountain with the force of a great typhoon and reach every peak with the strength of a raging fire (Mulan, anyone?), but unfortunately nature had other plans.

Turns out I’m not athletic and I do not move as swiftly as the coursing river.

But other people on the mountain did, and at first, I let it discourage me. After angrily climbing over rocks for a few minutes, I realized I should use their expertise as a tool. I started to watch how they used their upper bodies to pull themselves over steep boulders and allowed them to give me a shoe-boost when my little legs couldn’t find a good hold to reach the mountaintop.

I hate to be a dream crusher, but you won’t be good at everything you do at work, either. Some people will ace that proposal, some people will get along better with the boss, and some people will earn the promotion you want.

Instead of getting angry with the circumstances, change the narrative in your mind. How can you mimic what they’ve done to succeed?

Take a moment

When’s the last time you sat still and just enjoyed the view? As a millennial who works one full-time and two part-time jobs, all I can think about when I have a few moments to myself is how I’m wasting them by doing nothing.

After spending all morning climbing the side of a mountain, I only thought about how many hours it would take us to get back. Would we make it to the hotel in time for check-in? Would we have time to refresh before dinner? Would we have a two-hour wait for dinner if we showed up later than my originally-scheduled time (I’m a blast!)?

But as I sat on the peak, with the chilly breeze blowing all the colors of the wind through my hair (I’ll stop the Disney references now), I realized how truly at ease I felt enjoying the peaceful silence. I noticed the tranquility of the space and traced my eyes over the mountain peaks in the distance, noting the greens and blues. For once, I wasn’t thinking about my next project or my itinerary. I found space to just breathe.

Find somebody to lean on

Within seconds of reaching the first ladder – and every one after that – I realized I wasn’t going to get through it alone. After three minutes of repeated incomprehensible, blubbering complaints and pleas to turn back, I finally accepted my boyfriend’s help. I listened to his encouraging words and let them lead me up the ladder.

And then I let a stranger boost me onto a boulder to reach the first mountain peak instead of potentially hurting myself.

Monday morning, instead of brushing off the offer for assistance on a big project, I accepted my coworker’s advice. I asked for help. And I completed the project more quickly and to a higher standard.

Find those people you can lean on – the coworkers who will save their work for the afternoon to help you complete a time-sensitive project. The ones who will offer you encouraging words when you feel like you’re about to break down.

Find the ones who make the rough days – and the rough hikes – not only bearable, but also worth it.

Photos by: Jessica Swannie

This story was originally published July 2, 2018 at 9:05 PM with the headline "‘Find somebody to lean on.’ And other pieces of wisdom I picked up on my hike.."