Don’t Say You Like Trekking! Do It.

I dreamed of Mount Kailash ever since I learned about its existence. Very often, my admiration for the mountain exceeded that of Mt. Everest, solely because I was drawn to the mystery around it. And for the longest time, whenever someone asked which was my dream trip, I’d always say, it is a trekking trip to Mt. Kailash. Then they used to ask me, “How many Himalayan treks have you done so far?”, the answer was None up until May 2019 and it is 2(Easy Treks of Kheerganga & Triund) as I write this post in September 2020. Their response would be, “You’re not serious enough your dream trek, Kiddo”.

To be honest, they were absolutely right. The trek to Mt. Kailash is one of the most demanding and challenging treks ever. With an average altitude of 5000 m throughout the trek, it truly tests your mind and spirit. So, I can’t just randomly wake up one day and decide I will trek up to Mt. Kailash. That would be suicidal. It takes years of patience and preparation to attempt a feat like that. Was I preparing for it? Maybe. I had done countless treks in the Western Ghats and many bike-trips that tested my patience. But it isn’t the same.

Is trekking in the rolling green hills of western ghats enough to trek up to Mt. Kailash? No. But it’s a start. I still need to train in the Himalayan terrain and climate as well. But trekking is a definite step in realizing that dream and I will soon attempt more Himalayan treks. You may be wondering if this is me saying or did I take action? It’s both Yes & No. I was determined to do more Himalayan treks this year but COVID happened.

But that hasn’t hampered my determination at all as I find this as a temporary setback in my grand journey towards the dreamy Mt. Kailash Trek.

A Behavioral Pattern

So up until I started trekking in Western Ghats, the dream was just a dream. It wasn’t backed by any action to actually achieve it. It was just talk. But I observed a strange pattern as I was spending time at home and not traveling for the past 6 months.

I realized, I was doing this talking in a lot of other areas of my life.

I wanted to be a better investor. But until I read the books by great investors and actually put my hard-earned money buying a few companies’ shares, It was just talking and dreaming.

I wanted to read more books than last year. But until I consciously set aside time to read, in an otherwise busy schedule, It was just talking and dreaming.

I wanted to become a better writer. But until I actually wrote consistently day after day, week after week, It was just talking and dreaming.

I wanted to improve my fitness. But if I had spent time binge watching social dilemma on Netflix having loads of chips and Pizza, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.

Similarly, don’t keep saying you like someone. Go show it or express it. Don’t say I am thinking about this business idea (which I do a lot), start it.

The point I realized was until I took concrete steps to “DO” things, I was just kidding and building these castles in the sky. Once I started doing things, a feedback loop kicked in and I could improve on the go. It’s about taking those first steps and letting inertia make the subsequent steps easier.

No matter what you tell the world or tell yourself, your actions reveal your real values. Your actions show you what you actually want.

Derek Sivers

So, what is it that you say you want without actually acting on it?

Hope this blog post inspires you to take that first step, TODAY.

Thanks for sparing your time reading it. Hope it was worth your time.

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This is post No. 19 of the weekend blog post series I started writing 4 months ago. If you’d like to check out the other posts, click here.

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