This may shock you. Hiking is not just a hobby. It’s not just something I do. It’s actually something I am. It’s part of my identity. This insight happened this weekend like a lightning bolt in a blue sky. I walk fast but in this case… I have been terribly slow. I know I harp on about hiking ALL the time but somehow I had never connected the sections of the trail together into one through hike.
Let me explain.
I was relaxing in my cosy cocoon better known as Emanuelle the van completing my daily word games. The number of them has grown to 8. I do 8 different word games every single morning. I know my fellow Wordlers are out there, you’re just all a lot quieter about it since the Wordle obsession through the pandemic quietened down with our release from lockdown. Those of us still in the game, we’re the stayers. When we make a commitment we’re in it for the long haul. Anyway, a secondary part of that commitment for me is that I use the same word to start every single game. It’s not necessarily the most logical one for some of them but I promised myself and therefore I do it. I’m not telling you my word because it hasn’t come up in Wordle yet and I am hanging out for that eventual triumph. That said, I will tell you what my second word is, the one I use if none of the letters in my first word are useful. That second word is HIKER. Obviously.
I have a few projects on the go at the moment. All of them are exciting, all of them not quite ready to share (but soon!) and all of them, I now see, include walking as a central theme. I’m in the research stages of a book about hiking and somehow my conscious thoughts about this have been contained to turning 50 and ‘beginning’ to hike. But that’s not how it is at all, is it? I’d just submitted the final draft of my contribution to a very exciting project (watch this space!) and the words I’d written were still lingering in the corner of my thoughts. A connection I hadn’t yet made reached out and wove itself into my consciousness. Hiker. Walking. Writing.
I glanced around at everything I do and realised this has been screaming at me for years. I flicked back through random journals across the decades (there are a lot of them) and was met by countless references about going for a walk. I wrote letters to friends about it, told stories about making myself known to the neighbourhoods I’ve lived in, found photos of trails I’ve been on and recalled all the times I’ve elected to walk rather than travel in any other way. I’ve even written countless blogs either referencing or focusing solely on walking (pun intended). I have very little memory of writing them.
And look at the language I use with my work and hobbies. I walk with my clients on the path to increased self-awareness. I hike the trail with the Flamingo Flock every weekend. I step along the path towards publication with my books. I see a pattern…
I don’t just walk and hike. I’m not a casual stroller. I’m a hiker. Oh my goodness. I AM a hiker!
The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity.
It’s one thing to say ‘I’m the type of person who wants this.’
It’s something very different to say ‘I’m the type of person who is this.’
Those of you who have been with me since the beginning will remember that For What It’s Worth began with the theme of ‘coming home’. Leaving my career was no small step to take and the revelations AND devastations of that process continue to reverberate though me even now, nearly three years (already!) later. During that year I transformed my understanding of who I am away from ‘what I do for an income’. I can now say ‘I am a coach’ and “I am a writer’ without giggling or suffering imposter syndrome. I can say I’m a coach because I’m accredited and it’s my job (and it’s on my business card so it must be true!). I can say I’m a writer because I write, every day. I have one (unpublished) manuscript, short stories published online and more in the works. Evidence enough to give me the courage to own it.
Your life will be a blessed and balanced experience if you first honour your identity and priority. (Russell M. Nelson)
I tell this somewhat embarrassing story about my complete lack of self-awareness as a public service. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself to manage the hilarious yet spiky realisation that I still have so much to learn.
So there you go. I won’t force you to listen to my discovery of just how many books in my library are about walking (because I haven’t counted them all yet). I won’t reflect on my identity as a writer or as a coach. You probably get the point by now. Time to honour the identity of my sixth decade. I’m a hiker. It’s just what I am.
What about you? How do you finish this sentence? I am….