When Your Confidence Gets Crushed

​In this episode, I explore a few strategies a hiker can use if their confidence hits rock bottom after a recent hike (inspired by my own recent events!).

​Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode,

[0:03] we are talking about a situation which I really, really, really hope you don't get into. And I really, really, really hope that you don't have to experience this. However, I know there are a lot of hikers who unfortunately fall into this situation and it's not much fun, can be a little bit tricky. And I want to talk through a few ideas and a few strategies which can help. And ultimately what we're talking about today is when you get yourself in a situation where your confidence gets absolutely crushed.

[0:34] Now, the type of hiker and the type of situation that this may be relevant for in the hiking community, just to kind of give you the overview, is typically I see this from hikers who have been used to doing a certain level of activity, a certain level of difficulty recently. So maybe you've been following a training program and you've been slowly building up your hiking, but you've been doing it in a way which is slow which is controlled which is gradual and bit by bit by bit as you improve your fitness you've been increasing how much hiking you're doing or this sometimes happens from people who may be regular hikers and they've got a certain range of hiking they do in regards to distance or difficulty or pack weight or whatever may be and all of a sudden they decide you know what i'm going to go on a hike which is just a big jump up in difficulty, you know this may happen you know if you've been a bit restricted on trails due to time or weather and for like last couple of months you've been pretty short on hiking and then all of a sudden the weather opens up and you're like yep i'm going to do a backpacking trip or maybe you've been doing your own hiking and then a friend asks them to come out and do a challenging adventure maybe a last minute booking slot opens up on a tour that you really want to do or a bunch of other things and essentially the situation is you've been doing something which is well within your levels well within your confidence range well within your comfort zone then all of a sudden you step into something significantly more challenging.

[1:55] Now, in these situations, sometimes when we just jump up into things and we step into something that is outside our comfort zone, sometimes everything will go fine. Sometimes we'll surprise ourselves. Sometimes we'll perform really well. And we'll be like, you know what? That was a challenge, but it was all good. But sometimes it can go the other way. Sometimes when we're like, yeah, you know what? I'm going to step things up. I'm just going to give myself this challenge and see how it goes. Sometimes it can feel like everything just goes wrong. You feel tired, you struggle, you get aches and pains, things just don't work out for you, and it can be absolutely crushing physically and mentally. And this is ultimately what we're talking about today.

[2:37] Now the inspiration for this particular episode actually has come from my own personal experience just over the weekend from when i was recording this podcast now this isn't me talking about a hike and recently probably like a year or two ago i did a series of podcasts talking about you know how i was training preparing for a martial arts fight and i went through the whole training journey to step into my very very first mixed martial arts fight and talked about a bunch of stuff there, And recently, I've been doing the same process again. I've actually sort of signed up for another 20-week process. I've been training and developing myself to step up into another event. And ultimately, at the time of recording of this podcast, I'm about 14 weeks into a 20-week process and 14 weeks into a 20-week training journey where I've been going through a lot of things. And over this time, I've been progressing. I've been pushing myself. I've been getting better. My confidence has been going up and up and up and up. And I've been feeling like, you know what? Things are starting to come together. And I could see myself in six weeks time being where I want to be.

[3:38] And just last weekend or just last week, an opportunity came up for me. And ultimately, the opportunity was me to go to a weekend event. And this particular event, it wasn't a planned part of our training journey. It wasn't a planned part of the route that I was planning to take. It wasn't sort of something that was like always thought about, always, you know, always going to step into, but it was just an opportunity that popped up and someone was like, hey, would you like to go to this? And what the event was, was I was going to go down to Canberra. I was going to go into this thing where we basically meet up with just random people at other gyms and we practice what we learned.

[4:13] Now, for this particular situation, it was a big step up from what I'm comfortable with. You know, I knew I was going to be going into this situation where people who were significantly more experienced than me, significantly better than me, the whole idea of going down into Canberra and meeting up with, you know, random people who I've never worked with or trained with or anything like that was very, very nerve-wracking. And in all honesty, I ummed and ahmed about this for quite a few days. It was way, way, way, way, way outside of my comfort zone. And it honestly really scared me. But in the end, I was like, you know what? Even though this scares me, even though this is outside my comfort zone, I'm going to do it. This is an opportunity to improve myself. This is an opportunity to test myself. This is an opportunity to complement the training I've been doing. And I know this is going to be really beneficial for me. So I booked myself on. I was like, yep, let's go.

[5:00] And then came the day, just over the weekend. I had my opportunity. I had one event where I faced off with a guy. And the particular guy that I was paired up with was way more experienced than me. I knew that going in. I was like, this guy is way better than me, way more experienced than me. But I thought, you know what? I'm here to challenge myself. This is a learning experience. I'm here to progress. It doesn't matter how it goes. But then we started and I got absolutely walked all over. The guy was more skilled than me, stronger than me, more fit than me. Like everything, thing he was better at and better at than me and you know i i got pumped it wasn't very enjoyable i did it but ultimately i came out the other end after all of that.

[5:47] And my confidence was really really low both in the the hours afterwards the days afterwards and also the whole week afterwards leading up to this recording my confidence for this whole thing not just for that particular thing, but my improvements over all of these months and my potential to do what I need to do in six weeks time, my confidence has been super, super, super low. Because I had been training for all these months. I've been putting so much into it. I've been pushing myself. I've been progressing. I thought I was getting in the track that I wanted, that I was getting better. And then I tried this and I kind of just felt like everything fell apart. And no matter how logical I've been trying to be, telling myself that, look, I knew this guy was better than me i knew this was a learning process i knew this wasn't part of the normal journey it is still really really sucked and as much as this sucks about talking about it you know it is a situation that a lot of hikers do find themselves in and i talk to a lot of hikers who do this, and they're in training week after week they're doing their training they're building up their hiking they're improving their fitness and improving their strength they're moving forwards their confidence is increasing.

[6:54] And then they step into something which is just kind of off their original plan. It's a big step up in challenge. A friend offered them an opportunity, a tour spot opened up.

[7:03] They just decided, you know what, screw it. I'm just going to go do this or whatever it may be. And sometimes, you know, it just doesn't go well. And it really, really does suck. And the important thing in this situation, because we all will have failures during journeys like this, we'll all have moments where we're like, oh my gosh, this didn't quite go well. But this becomes a really, really crucial moment and how you act and how you proceed and how you sort of think about this is absolutely crucial. Because as much as I've seen a lot of hikers fall into these situations, I've seen people go one of two routes. Number one, they pick themselves up, they do the right things and they get moving forward and they get where they want to be over the long term. On the other side of things, when this type of stuff goes bad, I've seen hikers just give up at that stage. They just start beating themselves up, they start feeling worthless. They start second guessing themselves. And then all that hard work they've done before, they just give up on it.

[7:59] And they sell themselves short. And we really don't want that. So ultimately, if you ever do find yourself in this situation where you've stepped into something, it hasn't gone well, you're feeling a little bit low on the confidence levels.

[8:10] I'm going to talk you through a few simple things, which can be really, really powerful. Now, these are the exact things that I am personally doing this week to kind of help me dig myself out of this own hole. And it can be really, really useful for you too. So I'm going to talk you through, what have we got? One, two, three, five different strategies. Very, very simple, but very, very effective. Number one is make sure you do your best to keep things in perspective, because we are always our own worst enemies. We're always the first thing we think about is like, oh, you suck, or you're not weak, or you can't do this type of stuff, or whatever it may be. Everyone is the same. And what you need to do is if you have stepped up into something that is outside of your original plan, if you have stepped up on something that's something that's a little bit outside your comfort zone, you need to keep on reminding yourself this. Was this the first time you had done something like this? Was this the first time you did an overnighter? Was this the first time you did a multi-dayer? Was this the first time you stepped into a certain type of terrain? Were you thinking, hey, this is actually just going to be a learning experience? You know, I've got my big adventure in eight weeks time. I kind of just want to do this to see how things go on how I'm feeling or whatever it is. Whatever intentions you went in with that adventure, try to keep things in perspective.

[9:22] And you just need to repeat this again and again and again and again. For me, this week, I've just been saying to myself, I did this event for a reason. I did it to get out of my comfort zone. I did it to challenge myself. And I just keep on saying that to myself, even though that voice in the back of my head is like, oh, you suck. You should have done so much better or whatever it may be.

[9:41] Keep things in perspective. So that's number one. Number two, when things go wrong, when things go bad, when you really, really struggle, get a quick, easy win. When things go bad, it is so easy to wallow in things. It is so easy to get into that hole and just not dig ourselves out. So when things go bad, we want to line up a quick, easy win to get ourselves feeling a little bit more positive, to kind of get that perspective as well, and just get us moving forward. So for me, you know, this event happened on Sunday. I was like, you know what? I am making sure I'm in the gym on Monday. I'm in there. That was always the plan anyway. I'm going to be there. I'm going to step into the training and I'm also going to make sure I have a few opportunities to kind of perform well, to feel comfortable, to test myself out. And I specifically lined up a few opportunities where I went with people who were, I know, a little bit worse than me. There's not much as I went there to prove a point and be like, oh, I'm going to walk all over them. But I went there just to kind of get that perspective. I'm like, you know what? I'm not so bad. You know what? I've still got this. I've got a nice, easy win. I can experiment things. I can try things and I can feel good.

[10:44] For a hiker, what I specifically recommend here is if you just come off the back of a really, really tough hike and it sucked, then what I'd really recommend is sometime in the next seven to 14 days is make sure you get back out on the trail again. But this time, do something easy. Do something short, something that's just going to be pleasurable. Go out with a light pack. Go with a slow pace. You've got to do something with easy terrain. Cruise along and just feel it. It'll be night and day in regards to how difficult it was the week before compared to this because you're intentionally making it easier and you can re-find that fun, re-find that pleasure for the trail. Get a quick, easy win.

[11:21] Number three is evaluate. You know, when things go wrong and we just have a bad experience, sometimes we can just be general. We can just say everything went wrong or, you know, I just suck or I'm weak or whatever it may be. And we're just really generally negative. What we want to do in these situations is use them as an opportunity. We want to evaluate specifically what went wrong. So then we can take a positive out of this. We can say, you know what, I identified these things. So now I'm going to come up with a plan to improve these things. So next time it's going to be much better. You know, for me coming off the back of this, I was well aware that, look, my fitness needs to improve. I thought it was in a good spot, but it needs to improve. I know there are certain actions that I need to practice, certain things that I sort of don't do so well, which was highlighted on that weekend. And I know I have a couple of bad habits, which I need to break. I've identified those things, I've action planned those things, and I'm going to improve those things. For a hiker, you may identify, you know what, actually, I felt really unstable on descents. That was stressing me out. My legs got really tired, you know, whatever may be. So then you can know, you know what, I'm going to actually practice this or develop myself in a certain way. Or I struggled with pacing, keeping up with a friend. I just couldn't keep that pace. So maybe you need to practice your speed, or maybe your pack weighed you down too much, and maybe you need to do a bit more pack work, or maybe your nutrition sucked, or whatever it may be. Evaluate the things that went wrong so you can action plan it and improve it.

[12:44] Next up, be kind to yourself. You know, again, we are all our own worst enemy. It's hard enough to stay positive in the best of times, let alone when things are going wrong. So please be kind to yourself during these situations. When you go through all of this, just look for opportunities is to do something nice for yourself. Do you have a happy movie or a TV show which makes you feel good? Whacking on this week on repeat or whatever it may be. Do you have favorite meals? Maybe line up a few of those over the next few days. Make sure you're getting some pleasure from that. There are certain things you would like to do or something that gives you pleasure and enjoy yourself or whatever it may be. Be kind to yourself during this period, especially the next week so you can bounce back and you can kind of feel good.

[13:25] And then finally, reach out for help if needed.

[13:30] If you're really, really, really down in the dumps and it's just crushed you, it's made you feel rough or whatever it may be, reach out for help. For me, you know, I had a chat with my coach. I was like, you know what? I suck. Well, I didn't say those words, but I was like, you know what? What can I do? And I got some really good advice. It's helped me clear, get the perspective, have an action plan and work through. So in your situation, if you're currently working with a coach, if you're lucky enough, reach out to them, get their opinion. They'll be able to help you through. If you don't have a coach, but maybe you're going on a big tour and you've got a company, Maybe reach out to them and just say, you know what, I'm a little bit worried about the trip. Can you talk me through what I need to do to prepare or whatever it may be? If you haven't got anyone to support with, well, maybe this is a situation you need some support. Reach out to a coach, find a hiking buddy, find a hiking group or something like that. Reach out to help, get advice, get someone to lean on.

[14:20] Ultimately, when you find yourself in these situations, I really hope you don't, it's not much fun. It sucks. You can start beating yourself up. You can start doubting yourself and everything can kind of go a little bit negative. But the actions you take after this, at this crossroads, will define what your long-term journey is going to be. Will you use this as an opportunity to improve? And will you get where you want to be as a long-term thing? Or will you use the opportunity as an excuse just to stop? Ball of the wagon, give up with yourself, and just go back to square one. You don't want that. I've seen it too many times, and it's just not much fun. So with that being said hopefully this gives you a bit of food for thought as i said before i really do hope you don't find yourself in this situation but if you do hopefully this will give you a few ideas to kind of help dig yourself out and get you moving forward so with that being said thank you for listening today hope you've enjoyed it and we'll talk to you very very soon bye.

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