I recently passed a milestone by hiking or scrambling to the top of 250 Canadian Peaks. At the summit of that mountain milestone, I realized that I didn’t feel any different than I did standing on the summits of the 249 peaks before it. It was just another small, pleasurable dopamine rush that left me feeling my usual level of contentedness after having completed a challenging task.
When I first realized that I loved climbing mountains and hills, I tried to analyze what was so attractive about the activity. Hiking had always been enjoyable, as was being in nature generally, but summiting something always felt more satisfying. Time and place were important in my developing this hobby because up to that point in my life, I was spending most of my free time playing soccer. A military posting to Germany exposed me to the German and Swiss Alps, and a subsequent posting to Calgary planted me at the edge of the Canadian Rockies. In no time, I was hooked on scrambling.
As a military officer, and later as a healthcare executive, I discovered that many of the operational goals my organizations developed were fuzzy. Some goals were poorly defined, including even some of our military missions. Some projects had such long process and implementation periods that satisfaction could only be achieved through milestones. And for most business objectives, it can be difficult to know when you’ve been successful in achieving them, even when they are measureable.
But climbing a mountain is about as simplistic a goal as one can make. Climbing a mountain is difficult, worthy of being a goal, and, within a short period of time, often within a single day, one can set the goal (climb the mountain), develop a plan (climbing route, kit list, timings), execute the plan, and know without a doubt whether the goal was achieved or not.
Certainly, if the goal of the summit was not achieved – and there can be many reasonable reasons why it might not be – there are still health advantages to hiking, scrambling, and being in nature. But at a minimum, you will know if your primary objective was achieved.