Lets face it life hard enough without having to live and become stagnant in a constant state of regret over lost opportunities, loves, and chances to speak you mind.  If you want to change you life and make the most of it, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  Here's that comfort zone thing again.  Here's a few - 25 or so - uncomfortable things to try to ensure you will no longer let regret play out in any part of your life.

1. Speak you mind and address it early when something is bothering you. You'll usually only get one chance at making a lasting impact.  

2. Gather the courage to stick to the things that are important to you.  We all are so easily swayed by what others think.

3. Ask yourself if you are who you wanted to be when you grew up.  If you aren't there yet, keep working on it.

4. Let go of all those things that don't matter in your life.  When you are 20-something, everything seems to be important.

5. Make sure you are living life outside of social media instead of painting an imaginary  picture of your life on social media. Use it as a means of communication of where you are in your life.

6. Check the drama queen act at the door.  Let your overreacting self take a break once in a while.

7. Talk about the world, politics, hobbies, food - anything except other people and your judgements of them.

8. Stop telling yourself you are fat. When you die, no one is going to care how 'fat' your were.  They'll care about you as the person you were. 

9.  Be interested in other people and mean it.  Learning about others is fascinating and a great way to learn about ourselves too.  Learn the art of active listening. 

10. Stop trying to be anything other than a kind and empathetic person.  Being kind will bring you lots of joy and satisfaction in your life.  No one cares about your opinion if you aren't being nice to people.

11. Give yourself some room to breathe and mess up.  Pay attention to things in the moment and allow yourself to enjoy them.  Learn the lessons from the past, then move on. 

12. Read. A lot. Don't limit yourself to what's on the internet - they actually still print books!

13. Be nice.  The easiest way to do this is to always put other's feelings before your own.

14. You aren't going to trip and fall into your soul mate: you need to go out and find them.

15. Don't spend money you don't have: give money away when ever you can: set yourself up for financial success early and you'll be glad you did.

16. Trophies don't make you a better person, habits do.  Work on being better everyday and you will become the person you see yourself being.

17. Draft a mission statement for yourself as a person.  Use it to help you make decisions and guide your life.  Define your core values and make them realistic and authentic.

18. Don't cross people and burn bridges.  You think walking out of a situation today isn't going to impact your life in 5 years from now?  Think again.  Keep it classy and you'll never have to worry about your life choices coming back to haunt you.

19. Ask people to be honest with you.  Regardless of whether you agree or not, hearing people out is important.

20. Pay attention to when you feel uncomfortable about something: there's opportunity to learn and grow there but many people gloss over it.  Feedback is a primary function for personal growth and self awareness.

21. Don't blame others for your shortcomings.  Identify and accept responsibility for yourself at all turns.

22. FIND YOU PURPOSE and you will find pleasure.

23. Create a home for yourself that you appreciate no matter where you are in life.  Whether it's your parents basement, a high rise apartment or a van.  Plant your roots and be happy with what you have. 

24. Forget what you see online: real life is happening right in front of your eyes.  Go out and live it.

25. Make sure you get the most of your life by never holding back on love, thoughts, ideas, desires or dreams.

Whether you've just turned 20 or are about to roll over into your 50's, there are lots of ways you can turn your life in a new direction at any given moment.  The first step is to make a list like this one of all the guiding principles you want to use in your life.  What do you expect from yourself?

Always expect the most from yourself.  Don't put that responsibility on others.  When you expect things from other people, you'll almost always be disappointed in the results.  When you expect things from yourself, you have an opportunity to become someone new at every turn.

More on resilience breakthrough's next blog.

Krissy
chasinrainbowz via Instagram
Escape-And-Explore via Facebook

​[email protected]

I remember the very first session I had with my life coach when I was trying to redefine what I now refer to as ‘My Beautiful Mess’.  Everything ended so abruptly for me that I wandered in an emotional haze for some time before the gravity of what had occurred hit me. I do recall that session where he asked me what outcomes I had hoped to achieve while working with him. I had no clear idea what he meant and had trouble verbally expressing it.  Then he asked me to draw it – I’m extreme organiser and planner, so diagrams are my thing.  I drew a person holding a bunch of balloons of various length of string and in each of those balloons was a word that I felt was a value important to  me and what I thought defined me – along with a percentage attached to it on how much I thought it signified to me … it was a complex diagram – I still have it and now it looks like the ramblings of a crazy person.  It took me a whole week to do. 
 
I proudly strolled in the following week with my life’s mathematical representation ready to explain it fully to him.  His remarks before I got that chance on looking at it was just to say … ‘Why don’t you just let go of the bunch of balloons, then we can see what happens.’ – So I began that process of letting go of those balloons. Some I still held on tightly to, but Pete’s remarks were always the same, ‘How much are you prepared to give up to get through, let them go, they’re just old balloons, and the new ones you inflate will lift you higher, you have to put trust in that.’ …  and he was right. 
 
I understand through that process how difficult it is and can be to let go of treasures, items of comfort and support.  There are things we should keep, but a lot we can do without.  A major part of my job in the industry of Outdoor Education and Recreation working with participants and clients is to ask of them what I did with my coach, the exception being that I worked with Peter for several months in a very different environment.  Outdoor Education and Adventure Therapy programs are designed around allowing people with some preparation to arrive in a wilderness setting, handover everything they don’t need and have it replaced with just equipment they need to be self-sufficient in a group or by themselves for a period of time.  Resistance to giving up certain items is common – phones and sugar, surprisingly are the most common – go figure. 
 
Working back along the Snowy River in Victoria for the last month has been a stark reminder of another era of letting go and handing over of my life to another purpose more recently, which was far more challenging than working with a life coach for months.  This time it was a life changing lesson that happened over just 14 days and it’s been great to be back here to revisit and reflect on that experience. 
 
Part of my old Internship with one of Australia’s leading Outdoor Education companies was for every intern to complete and experience a program run by the company designed at an instructor level to experience what our participants experience.  A ‘Course Experience’ as it’s known for instructors by instructors who know every trick in the book to push and challenge.  A unique bonding session, so to speak to put us in the place of those who we take outside their comfort zones.  Our experience didn’t start at an issue site in the remote wilderness, it started at our national base where we were hyped up into thinking that we were all going FWD’ing for training after watching a video on the risks of driving on dodgy fire trails, which we all do regularly and love. 
 
We headed outside to see our entire FWD fleet lined up, yeehaa’ing to each other with excitement, only to see that as we got closer, the cars drove off and all that was left was a person dressed up in a white rabbit suit, 8 old tyres, several big logs, a frames that would represent those several cars.  We were then to chase the rabbit around a circuit of several kilometres including through the Murrumbidgee River with each of us holding a part of the car in formation  … this planned to go on for 7.5 hours, no breaks just laps … A simple activity designed to see what happened to a high functioning team of people who are given a task with no perceived outcomes.  I tried desperately for the first few ‘laps’ to try to co-ordinate the group, problem solve how I thought we could maybe trap and ambush the bunny etc … before I realised that there was no solution to this exercise, the point of it was for me a realisation that once again, I was not in control of my destiny for the next 2 weeks.  In ‘participant mode’ I had handed over my belongings and been issued my group gear and now it was time to hand over everything I had to trust my senior instructors – I would go where they told me to go and do what I was asked to do and each evening I would be asked to critically evaluate to my peers my performance for the day and they would provide me with critical feedback for self- awareness, growth and improvement. Peer coaching on leadership and personal development.  Exactly what we expect and ask of our participants.
 
That experience was one of the fondest memories I’ve had in my career.  Open mindedness was key to this and trusting that people who knew much more than I did would allow me to discover again for myself some unique insights into my character and values definition.  Reflecting on this I still ask of my participants and clients on every journey we take together in an expectations session before we head out to just be open minded about the experience and put their faith in a new experience that is foreign to them.
 
It’s been very refreshing to work back here in Victoria from the Alpine National Park and Snowy River National Park where that journey took place and see some of those places again that prompted a memory of something that I had rediscovered about myself on that course experience, and then realising the importance of why as outdoor professionals we should continue to put ourselves outside our personal comfort zones to reflect on how our clients and participants experience what is somewhat ‘normal’ for us. 
 
During a break from ‘the office’ on the river,  I wanted to explore a little more of Victoria and heading to the High Country for some solo hiking for a few nights.  I had an amazing weather window to summit Mt Feathertop, Victoria’s second highest peak, so I took it.  The hike in was relatively moderate and the weather was stunning.  It was great to see so many other people out enjoying the 12 km hike in from Mt Hotham to Federation Hut near the base of the summit, but oddly that’s where they stopped – at a hut, in a campground, with a toilet.  Alpine Huts are generally used as emergency shelters and there is a regulation of no overnight camping in them unless there is extreme weather.  This one was equipped with a water tank that was empty and a small drop toilet block.  I love the conversations that can be had with other track travellers in general when I’m solo hiking and on this hike people would say, ‘We’ll catch up with you again at the campground at the Hut’, - no chance – I was planning on camping on the summit.  After going on an off track mission to find a natural water spring that was noted on my topographic map, I set up camp on the summit – alone.  It was magic.  The perfect night, no cloud, almost no wind, sensational sunset and sunrise and a meteor shower at 4am.  That night my tent became my emergency shelter – I slept under the stars – proudly knowing that, on that night I was the second highest person in Victoria, just in case someone was doing the same on Mt Bogong (Victoria’s highest peak).
 
Sitting up there preparing for the night, many of the campers at the hut headed up to see the sunset. Most stopping for a chat to remark about what a great set up I had and how they ‘wished’ they could be up there too …. This was something that struck me.  There were less than a kilometre away.  They were all so close to being up there, they had already walked up for the sunset.  So why did they choose to stay at the campground?  Why not walk the extra 10 percent of the way? It’s right there, and it was all for the taking. I couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t want to.  They weren’t there for the Hut or the water, the tank was empty.  Maybe it was for the company, maybe it was because there was the convenience of a toilet.  Maybe it was for a perception of comfort that the hut, toilet, tanks represented. Who knows.
 
One conversation with a gentleman and  his wife centred around how sometimes people just find it too hard to step a little further and want to hang on to what might not be so important in the grand scheme of things.  His final comment to me that night, ‘but I think you’ve got the right idea up here experiencing this, most people need to realise that they can’t take all that stuff with them when their gone.  This is where life is not in those things that they have.’.
 
It just brought home to me again how giving up a little more than the person next door is prepared to and taking a step further away than from where your feel you might be comfortable will always bring you closer to some of the most enlightening moments you’ll ever receive and the most unique experiences you’ll ever have. 
 
This year to date I’ve slept in some of the most iconic sites in Australia, namely Victoria and Tasmania and hiked to some of them for almost a day to see the sunset and rise, and that is a really special experience – why because almost every time, I’m the only one there.  Working in some of the most scenic locations in the great outdoors of Australia offers me lots of opportunities to know exactly where the roads less travelled are, and my experience allows me to depart from the maddening crowds, for a much deeper connection to these unique sites and what they offer us personally.  So if you’re keen to experience a unique sunset and sunrise location and prepared to let go of your comfort zone, take a step further with an open mind contact www.escape-and-explore.com
 
The next few months takes me back to the Blue Mountains and Wolgan Valley in NSW, Grampians in western Victoria and down to towards the Southern Ocean in Western Australia for coastal expeditions.  A few short stays at home in Canberra will be welcomed for recharging all the batteries – literally. 
 
So what happened to that bunch of balloons and where did they drift to.  I have no idea, but after I let them go, I realised that those were the balloons that other people had probably given me to hold and they were heavy.  My new balloons regularly pop after I inflate them, which is fantastic, I’m constantly filling up new ones with ideas to take me away.  Some may see that as an inconvenience, but it’s a small price to pay for fresh air and freedom – to explore, everything that is possible. I caught up with Peter last Christmas on the Gold Coast.  He asked me if I remembered him telling me that if I could explain to people how to let go of the balloons I might be able to help a lot of people.  I remembered that comment and now understand how important it was and is. 
 
Krissy 
chasinrainbowz via Instagram

​On a recent Instagram post @chasinrainbowz I noted how surprised I was to find that my work colleagues consider me to be a strategist. I was initially a bit shocked – everyone would tell you that I’m a consummate planner of incredible detail with my work as I need to be for safety, but a strategist? I often have heard comments like, ‘if we want something done we know you’ll get it done’ - planning comes naturally to me, so does leadership - but in my line of work, plans are great but you need contingencies for flexibility. I’m a great goal setter and achiever of those I set, but I wondered how much I actually knew about strategy, and how I use these skills personally and professionally. Initially I thought the word ‘strategy’ was one that most people would associate with manipulation and winning. Maybe there is in a ‘game of chess’ sense, but in life, there’s a different perspective to it. This blog was always going to be about placing the things I’ve discovered and are important to me, so here’s what I know about strategy.

Strategy is choosing where to play and how to win, just not winning in a competitive sense for egotistical gain. When I was refining myself trying to decide on a new career path, strategy was essential. That was about choice, trade- offs, focusing efforts and choosing a single path of action amongst alternatives. It’s about knowing which opportunities to pursue and which to ignore. About creating value, vision and differentiation for an outcome. Now my profession as an outdoor guide and leader is all about delivery of an outcome or an experience, that hopefully will transfer into life for those who choose come on that journey, their own journey.

If we want to continue on the 'chess game' theme, tactics and such moves are hands on skills. Strategy is a thinking skill, a skill you can grow and develop. Various personality tests and types can mean allowing people to see where they might have a predisposition to certain traits, but these tend to box people in and I’ve never been a great fan of them as a tool for allowing people to reach their potential.

Strategists use time as their greatest tool, they create time, time to think. This is something that I’m personally not negotiable on. I get up every morning between 0400-0430, to watch and photograph a sunrise, exercise, read and think. It’s the only time on the day that is truly mine and I protect that time fiercely. My morning routine of ensuring I see the sun come up everyday also aligns with my values of its importance - those layers another time. It’s my brainstorming place and when I’m out solo hiking or hiking with clients, solitude with no distractions and 'think time' magnifies incredibly. It’s a critical element in any journey. There’s no on/off thinking button or clock to watch – it’s there all the time. In spaces where there are no clocks or distractions, the ability to see the big picture comes into play. I’m not talking about views from lookouts. Most participants and clients I’ve led and spent time with in the outdoors tell of a single trend – the ability to see the forest from the trees and start noticing macro trends in their lives. They begin to ignore the noise. And just like I said I personally noted in my last blog after I put my life on hold, remove the clutter and clanging - clarity.

Once you master ignoring the noise, the critical thinking begins to unfold. The differentiation between where your trends are and where the fads in your life are. Acknowledging personal bias, identifying and questioning your own assumptions, thinking outside the box, finding new angles to solve problems and seeing things from a different perspective. Expedition hiking makes this happen is a very fluid way, with sometimes a lot of resistance. It's a very needs based and for some people that results initially in either fear or frustration. Again, essential in growth zones. Resistance from pushing that trend of ‘Comfort Zone’ therapy into the Goldilocks Zone, the zone where people perform to their own optimal performance through challenge in a safe yet adverse and foreign environment. I continue to do this myself every time I put on a pack, sometimes it's by myself, sometimes it's with others.

According to ‘Dr Google’, master strategists spend lots of time with other strategists who are high up the ‘stratosphere’ than them to brainstorm. This isn't rocket science, there's a space theory in this and I love big space. Big space has big thinkers in it. I remember seeing the first Shuttle Launch - that hooked me too, but that's another story. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is human nature. Mentoring - that good ol' saying, 'if you think you are the smartest person in the room, change rooms.'

Long term thinking is another key. Not months, but sometimes years. I’ve grown to acknowledge recently how I consider how the events of today will impact that time frame and where I will be in my industry in the long term. Futuristic, but decision making about where I want my visions to go plays into seeing the trends, gathering information, predicting and foreseeing obstacles and planning ahead for overcoming those obstacles is always positive momentum and positive momentum is always momentum with purpose.

So how does this transfer with what I can allow my clients and participants to achieve in the outdoors? Simple.

Allowing people the opportunity to gain the skills, knowledge, and attributes needed to quickly assess a situation and multiple opponents, in that game we now call 'Wild Chess' (like the weather, time constraints, pack weight, etc), understand their psychology, wants versus needs, their strengths and weaknesses, their physical, emotional, and resource limitations, and how to use every bit of knowledge, math, science, available resources and tricks to maneuver or manipulate them into creating the best possible outcome at the most appropriate time - in an environment that is completely new to them, where there is no old way of doing things, just new experiences.

Sometimes out here in the wild places of the world you don’t win. Rarely does mother nature give it to you, but that’s the beauty of it, it takes time to master strategy and in the wilderness, time is the only guarantee that you do have.

With groups of participants I will manage the risks by first filling in my own facts boxes then create a set of alternatives, circumstances and expedition routes about where we could go and why any of those alternatives should be fought for. That’s when I hand my information over and allow the group/individual or nominated leaders to then take over the strategic thinking by asking the right questions. How will we get there (or win)? What is a stake? How will we define our success (how much momentum did we achieve)? This process allows them to think of all the angles, gather information through anticipating any questions so they can plan it as a team or individually, to hopefully ensure they become clear about what they need to execute that plan. To be clear this is still just a plan, the outcome is theirs to gain. Personal potential development through this process and the opportunity to witness this process within group or personal dynamics in Outdoor Education is a privilege. The process and that evolution through personal growth and potential is why we do what we do. The term 'Leadership Development' is a big concept at the moment and it has it's place certainly. However from my experience, you mention 'Leadership' to some people and they will run a mile and emotionally close off - they just don't want to play the leadership gig. I've stopped using the word 'leadership' a lot and now use 'management' with my profession as personal management to increase potential is for everyone. Essentially they're exactly the same thing just on different scales, just that personal potential development is more attainable and practical for more diversity amongst participants and clients. Not everybody wants to lead, not everyone should and not everyone can. But everyone can play as much as they need or want to in the Goldilocks Zone.

Strategy is what a strategist does. Recognizes the truth, assesses limited resources, find the strengths in those resources, and applies that strength against opportunities and weaknesses in whatever is between you and your desired outcome. Knowing that things never going according to plan, anticipating that, and achieving optimal results despite internal politics, unintended consequences, mistakes, skilled resistance, and an unexpectedly hostile environment. Strategy is knowing how to change the plan when things need to change. It’s dynamic and alive. Just my kind of place. So yep, I guess that they’re probably right – I’m a strategist, but I chose not to label myself as a Master Strategist …. that takes time, and out here in my world, I have plenty of that.

(the Goldilocks Zone is an term used in astronomy and astrobiology to refer to the perfect habitual zone for a planet to exist within its circumstances in distance from the sun - not too far away (cold) and not to close (hot) - right in the peak activity spot of the adventure zone)

Krissy
@chasinrainbowz via Instagram

I am in essence a navigator. My first sailing instructor brought this to my attention one morning on the ocean while I was learning to find my way around the ocean. "You're a natural navigator, you have an instinct for wanting to see what's going on in the surroundings before you brush you're teeth. You should pursue that." With those words I realised that I had been navigating my whole life, collecting maps, watching the sky and stars since I was a child, fascinated by all of it. I had a vivid imagination as a child and grew up on quad bikes and horses roaming around and camping in unusual places on our family property. It was the perfect childhood. I had intended to become a Park Ranger working in the great outdoors and environment but the short of it is that I ended up in a Radiology department in dark rooms looking at MRI images for 12 hours a day ... that's another story. My world became, over the years smaller, much smaller - through things that I didn't need, life clutter. Things that I thought would make me happy, things that other people had, things that I was expected to have, things that made me feel protected with comfort. I had stopped growing, searching and exploring. I'd stopped navigating and had become a collector. I was lost ... and navigators aren't supposed to get lost.

In May 2015 my life almost ended, twice. In May 2015 I was given an opportunity to evolve. The following 12 months would be the most difficult, testing and uncertain times I had ever faced - to navigate back to my place, where I was performing my best. I knew one thing. I would not go back to the place where I had come from. This meant challenging every aspect of my perceptions about myself, my potential and personal performance. I had a big goal and to achieve it would mean giving up everything I had ever worked for and start from the beginning. My journey of a thousand miles had started with a single step. Create a new horizon for myself. Become and outdoor leader and live with simplicity and integrity. It started with an application for an invitational internship with leading outdoor education company, leaving my house full of belongings in a shipping container, buying a $29 Aldi tent and living on the banks of the Coxs River in the Blue Mountains without water or electricity. I’ve opened that container twice since May 2015. The beginning of the importance of myself again had started. I had almost no money, no car and at the time no ability to drive due to medical restrictions. It was also the most exciting time of my life - the walls were down and I could see again, everything with much more clarity.

What I hadn't planned on was what I would do when I got to that horizon. Late last year after working in the field for 12 months, sleeping on the ground and under a tarp for almost 300 days I celebrated all of my achievements with a month long explore of Tasmania, a holiday. It started with a big bang ... that's another story.

Tasmania is stunning and being out there in the wilderness by myself, more than qualified and prepared to take care of myself  was something that I doubted I could have ever done before. To solo hike these remote regions carries it's own set of risks and to be able to make sound judgements about your own survival in extreme and remote places is something I've become very proud of. Yet, I was really uncomfortable out here and being comfortable with being uncomfortable is something I always encourage of myself and my participants in the adventure activities I run. This time it was different, unsettling. Looking at the stunning mountains on the horizons in the Southwest National Park I realised that I had reached my horizon. That journey had taken me to places that I'd never dreamed I be capable of going as far as my potential, but I was there and now I needed a new horizon. I also realised that while on that journey a lot of my personal exploration had been things I needed to do to get here, and this time the horizon would need to shift as I walked towards it. I actually for the first time in almost 3 years felt lost again with nowhere to go …. And navigators hate getting lost.

So the journey begins again, to see what I find next.

A friend in Tasmania with some insightful knowledge suggested a website, a place to store my things. My important things like what I find when I go out exploring, my knowledge – I don’t have any other conventional home. A place to negotiate where my horizon might be, depending on where I might be. A place to furnish with photographs of extraordinary places. A place to throw out my waypoints, stepping stones to new opportunities and directions. I live and work with a compass in my pocket but I have a tattoo on my wrist “TRUE NORTH”. Magnetic north changes depending on where you are in the world, but there is only one true north. This site and blog is about my continuous navigation towards my true north through personal variation, challenge and seeking new perspectives.

Krissy
​@chasinrainbowz via Instagram