The mountain as a metaphor for facing obstacles, overcoming trials, perseverance, is not new. It endures because it is easy t understand and is relatable. Anyone who has ever hiked, or even taken a walk up a little hill can understand the metaphor. It is hard, it can be fatiguing and disorienting, it can make you want to give up, or doubt the view from the top is really worth it (spoiler, sometimes it’s not), and it can hurt. The truth is, anything we do that is new, or challenging, or for which we don’t have a guaranteed outcome is a little like getting over a mountain.

I recently finished writing a book (which you can purchase here), and while the process itself can easily be explained in the mountain metaphor, I think it is this part, the part of marketing and promoting and sharing that is really the part where I want to give up: I made it to the first peak and the view was great, it was a lot of work to get there, I don’t know that I can make it to the next one, I don’t know that I have the skills I need to summit the next part. I think, that a lot of us, in whatever it is that we are creating can experience this feeling. We can do one part, we can achieve that thing that is no easy feat, but the extra mile or two or three just feels like more than we are capable of.

When I wrote my first book I did the marketing thing and while there were a lot of people who were very supportive, there were a few who were mean. Like coming upon a fallen tree on the trail: you can turn around and go back or figure out how to get over, or around, or under to keep going. I gave up and turned around. I stopped writing for a long time. I was embarrassed and afraid that what I was doing wasn’t good enough. I am still afraid of that but I have learned that I can do things I didn’t think I was capable of doing, and now I am willing to try. That is the message I want everyone to take from this: you can do more than you think you are capable of, it might not turn out how you expect, but it is worth trying.

I was recently on a trip with a dear friend and we went for a couple of hikes. On one there was a big rock that could be climbed, but as an inexperienced climber I was not confident in the ‘how.’ Fortunately there was a gentleman on the top of the rock, playing a flute to the valley below, who was happily guiding people up and down. I said ‘yes’ I want to go, I trusted the guide, I was scared, but the view was great. Getting down made me question my choice to go up, but I trusted, put my foot where I was told, and I made it. What I learned was that I don’t have to have all the answers, and that if I am willing to learn from others I can do more than I am capable of on my own. That was a good lesson.

Later in the day we were on a trail that we would have sworn was a loop; it was not a loop as we learned two thirds in when the threatening storm was overhead, dumping water in pounding thunder and shattering lightening. Arriving at the wrong parking lot, disoriented, frustrated, wet, we said yes to the people who offered a ride to the right parking lot. The lesson here was appreciation, humor, and again a trust that I am not the only person who has to figure it out, I can receive help if I am willing to allow it into my life.

I know how to write, I don’t know how to sell books, but I have been asking for help, and I have been receiving guidance, even if it is a path I am not comfortable with. Whatever that mountain is for you, whatever that thing is that you doubt you can do, or that is not going the way you expect, or that has left you feeling like a failure, it’s okay, it really is; the guides are there, the help and support you need is waiting, you might not go the way you thought you would, you might not end up where you planned, but you can get over that mountain.

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