Having Fun With Visualizing Your Journey

Having Fun With Visualizing Your Journey

Have you tried having fun visualizing your journey? These questions popped into my head (feel free to answer them for yourself, too):

  • How often do I look at where I want to go? – Often.
  • How often do I look where I have been and how far I have come? – Far less often.
  • Then there’s the other part: Enjoying the moment of where I am right now. “The power of now,” as Eckard Tolle calls it.

Let’s have some fun here. I started writing and publishing the Brilliance Nuggets on September 9, 2021. This one is number 38. I committed to writing 365 of them. That means I just passed the 10% mark.

How Can You Visualize Your Challenging Journey in a Fun Way?

How can one visualize this journey – or any journey – in a fun way?

Being a hiking enthusiast, I recently compared my Brilliance Nugget journey to hiking the Appalachian Trail (A.T.). See whether you can follow my adventurous visualization technique here:

  • The Brilliance Nugget journey: Write one short blog each day. Do this for one year.
  • The Appalachian Trail is 2,193 miles in length. If we were to take one year to hike the A.T. by walking an equal number of miles each day, it would come out to 6 miles/day (2,193/365= 6). [Actually, people hike the trail in 5.5-7 months but never mind that.]
  • Imagine we had hiked the A.T. now for 38 days (since I have written 38 Brilliance Nuggets so far) at 6 miles per day. We would have walked a whopping 228 miles by now.

Where would we be? What experiences would we have had? I’m glad you asked… 🙂 There is a website that lets you see exactly where one is on the A.T. mile-by-mile.

Using this visualization, we would have started at Springer Mountain in Georgia. (I say “we” because you are part of this journey!) Last night we would have slept at Tricorner Knob Shelter in North Carolina. Tonight, we would arrive at Cosby Knob Shelter in Haywood County, North Carolina.

Yes, we would have already made it to another state! Looking at the map, it hits me: We would have already PASSED the Smokey Mountains! That means something to me because I hiked the part of the A.T. that runs through this amazing National Park when I lived in Knoxville, TN, in the early ’90s.

In our visualization, we already hiked through Georgia, and Tennessee, and pressed on into North Carolina. Impressive, huh? How does this feel compared to saying, yes, I wrote 38 Brilliance Nuggets?

By the way, the A.T. is not flat. Look at the map. It follows the peaks and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains! I remember my friend Marek inviting me to a hike in the Smokeys. “It is all downhill. We start at Clingman’s dome and end up in Cades Cove.” Yeah, why am I going uphill then much of the time? Yes, Cades Cove (~1800 ft) is at a lower elevation than Clingman’s dome (6643′). But the 23.9 miles we hiked that day consisted of seven gaps, four knobs, and three mountains. Most of that trail is on the A.T. until you descend into Cades Cove.

Somewhat similarly, some days writing the Brilliance Nugget was fast; on other days it was slower.

What Can We Take Away From This Fun Analogy?

Other than having fun with this analogy, is there something else you can take away from it?

Sure. Often we push on so hard that we don’t even notice or take in the accomplishments or experiences along the way. We pass through the “Smoky Mountains” and don’t even realize it.

A.T. hikers experience the joy and challenge of hiking every day. They enjoy great views, seeing bears and other wildlife, and meeting interesting people. they go through exhaustion, exhilaration, and tranquility. They help each other along the way.

How does this compare to my Brilliance Nugget journey? I am writing each day. Friends are commenting and discussing what I wrote. I have found “my voice”; my writing style – and I’m playing with it. I made training videos for my virtual assistant, who helps me post the nuggets on social media. I completed an online course that teaches others how to increase their impact, freedom, and legacy using their brilliance. The launch of the course is about to happen.

There Will Always Be More Steps, More Miles, More Shelters (Goals)

There will always be more steps, more miles, more shelters (goals) to go to. But we need to stop sometimes and look at where we have been. How far we have come? And let’s appreciate the company and the laughter we have shared with others along the way.

Probably, we got some blisters, too. But so what. It is part of life. If it was that easy, I might not do it anyway. I would not find it interesting. I need the challenge. There wouldn’t be books upon books, stories upon stories, about a 2-mile hike (unless it was quite spectacular!). But a 2,200-mile hike? Absolutely!

I’m Curious

What fun analogy could you come up with to measure and enjoy your progress on a challenge you have taken on?

Stephie Althouse

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