NAVIGATING LIFE.

So I wanted to share with you the correlation between hiking, navigation, compass work, and life. You see, soon I'm heading off to Karijini National Park. Karijini National Park is quite a famous and beautiful national park in Western Australia, and I'm going to be heading off with a group of mates, and we're going to be using a compass for the very first time to navigate our way on our hiking trip, in the past we've always used trails, but this time, we're actually going to navigate. And I was thinking this morning, the similarities between navigation, hiking, compass work, and life. Let me explain.

KNOW WHERE YOU ARE AT. (WHAT IS YOUR LOCATION?)

Now, number one rule for navigation is to know where you're at. You've always got to start knowing where you're at in the beginning, and that is also so true when it comes to life. One of the things that I find with my coaching clients is that we always get them to kind of get a really clear picture of where life is at at the moment. Where do they believe they are at in life, whether it's relationships or health or money or career. What's the picture that life looks like right now?

So we're going to start with number one, where you're at.

KNOW WHERE YOU WANT TO GO. (WHAT IS YOUR DESTINATION?)

Then number two, you've got to decide where are you going to go, what's the destination? Where are you heading on this current journey, where are you heading on this life journey?

Sometimes you kind of know where you're heading, but you can't necessarily see it. You know that it's over here and if I was here looking across, you can see there's a number of mountains in the way, so I can't see the final destination, even though I know that it is over here, and I know what it's going to look like when I get there.

So, we start knowing where we're at, we know where we're going to go, just like life. But then we need to get our compass out, this thing, this compass, is going to keep us on track, it's going to help us stick to plan, but secondly, it's going to make sure that we always keep true north in perspective.

KNOW WHAT MATTERS MOST. (WHAT IS YOUR TRUE NORTH?)

So many of us head out on a journey in life, and we lose track of where north is. We lose track of where in our core values are, what our core purpose is, and so sometimes we get distracted by the shiny object, we get distracted by the noise that's in the bush, or we get distracted by the waterfall, and we head over in some direction that we weren't meant to head, and we wake up one day wondering how we managed to get here, how do I get in this situation, how do I get in this relationship, how do I get in this career, how do I get in his financial situation? And often it's because we lost track of our true north.

You see, when it comes to using a compass and a map, you put the compass on the line of the direction that you want to head, and you align the vessel until the little direction kind of arrow is sitting in alignment with true north. And the whole time you're trekking, you're keeping that compass, that true north, in its right position whilst you follow in the direction that you need to head. So many of us lose track of our true north, and that's a rookie mistake when it comes to hiking in the bush.

So we know where we are, we know where we want to head, we've got to have true north aligned, we've got our compass pointing in the right direction, and then we need to head off.

SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO GO OFF COURSE TO GET TO WHERE YOU WANT TO GO. (WHATS THE NEXT THING, FOR NOW?)

Now as I said before, sometimes we can't see where the final destination is, so when it comes to navigation, what we do is we plot our first point that we need to navigate to, and then from there we can plot our second point and our third point and our fourth point to eventually get to our destination.

And that's so true with life. Sometimes the final destination is not the total direction that you head. In the beginning, you need to head in a certain direction which may not be the ultimate destination, but it's the first step, there's the thing for now, there's the direction for now. And when you get to there, you set the new direction.

Some of us get paralysed because we can't see the final destination. We know it's there, but we can't see it. And so we get stuck here waiting for it to show up so we can see it, but it's there, you've just got to plot the next thing, the next point on the map.

Whats your next thing for now?

REMEMBER LIFE HAPPENS. (WHERE COULD YOU BE MORE FLEXIBLE TO SUCCEED?)

Lastly, sometimes we can see the destination, you know if the destination was the top of this mound here, and we were here, we can see it, but what we can't see is that between here and here there's a great big river. And isn't life sometimes like that? Don't we sometimes head off in a direction, or we can see where we're heading and it all kind of looks clear, and then we come down a ridge, and all of a sudden there's the river, there's the loss of our job, the loss of money, the loss of our health, the loss of a loved one. This unexpected thing shows up when in the beginning, we thought it was just going to be a clear path. And we get stuck there too, we get stuck on the edge of the river going, "I've got to head this way, but I can't."

Well, there's always a way around, and sometimes it's a long way around, and sometimes we just need to put the effort in to cross the river, we just need to push through it.

So I hope that makes sense, and connects the similarities between navigating on a hiking trip, and life. Number one, know where you are. Number two, know your destination. Number three, create alignment between the two, always keeping in mind your true north, keeping focused on that as you move through, so you avoid distractions and don't end up missing the destination, ending up somewhere else.

Number four, realise that sometimes you can't see the final destination, and you need to just move to the point for now. And then the next point for now, and then the next point, and then the next point. Sometimes being on track means you've actually got to deviate from the original course.

And then lastly, sometimes it all looks good, it looks like it's going to be smooth sailing, but on the way there, this river pops up, this unexpected thing that we call life.

Stay true to your true north, head in the direction that you really, really want to head, you're worth it.

YEP, YOU'RE WORTH IT!