Leaving for Everest Base Camp as fit as can be!

Leaving for Everest Base Camp – it’s time to pack my bags and go!

At the time of writing I’m about to hop on a plane and head over to a once in a life time opportunity – trekking to Everest Base Camp on the Tibetan side.  Literally, like in 2 hours time I will be on my way.  I’m a little nervous, actually I’m a lot nervous – I’ve been training and preparing for this for 12 months.

So how is this relevant to you?  It all comes back to goal setting, New Year’s resolutions, making a plan to get you to a place you want to be.  It was put to me I needed a BHAG – a Big Hairy Audacious Goal  (The term ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goal’ was proposed by James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1994 book entitled Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies) and trekking to Everest Base Camp had been a dream of mine for around 20 years – although I’d forgotten this (I’m not sure when) as I produced 3 wonderful children and developed a business, and got horrendously busy.  When you take on a BHAG it has to be a bit scary and this trek was more than a little scary as I’ve never been to altitude, or Tibet.  I haven’t left my kids for more than a few days and now I’m off for 3 weeks.  How would I pay for this?  How would I find time to train for it?  Would my husband be happy to support me and my BHAG?  I had a lot of questions to answer but you know what, when you get a BHAG you focus on solutions, not problems – and you make it happen!  (Granted it is easier when Hubby says ‘go for it)!

This BHAG is not only a physical journey although preparing for the physical is a very good place to start.  There is a lot of mental preparation and culturally things are going to be very different from Hobart.  Should you be wondering where to start on such an adventure start with the destination – what do you need to be like in 12 months time?  For me I realised I had to be fitter than I’ve ever been and able to hike up to 10 hours a day, with every diminishing supplies of oxygen (Everest Base Camp has about half the oxygen in its air compared to Hobart), regardless of weather, regardless of my health status for 10 days.  The culture would be different, the food different, no technology, no shops.   I would be travelling with about a dozen likeminded women from Sydney who I really do not know.  So there’s the destination, the journey has to be chunked into bite sized pieces over 12 months, and now I’m off on this adventure and I’ve loved every step of the journey!  So find yourself a BHAG and I promise you it will change your life.  Be Brave!