Last week, I blogged about my trek to heaven. This message is about the other side of keeping the faith the counter argument of pushing forward when we are tired and sore is that we also need to know when to say no, when to cut our losses and acknowledge that it's time to stop perservering because it's not in our best interests. After reaching heaven in the morning, I continued trekking all day to get back to the guest house where we were staying the night. This trek is a newer one and unlike most other Nepali treks there were very limited places to stay. In fact, there was no where else we could have stayed that night so I had no choice but to continue despite my excruciatingly sore feet and niggling knees. I didn't know how big or how hard this track was when I signed up for it and that's on me, I could have done more research I could have asked more questions and throughout the trek there was a part of me that was holding responsibility for this miscommunication and as such I didn't want to back out of the commitment that I had made.
This is what we do so often at work, we agree that we will do a task, complete a project to a time frame without having all of the information. When we learn more and understand that there is a lot more involved and the goal posts have changed, it's OK for us to reach out and explain that we underestimated the size of the task and renegotiate the expectations if needed. If we don't monitor the situation closely we can end up being stretched too thin, burning ourselves out likely ending up with the situation that we have to rest at the end, but we likely never do because there is another goal to hit. Case in point, at the end of day three of my four-day trek, I was in a bad way, I recognised I had taken it too far and probably needed four days without hiking boots in order to heal, which posed a problem as I had committed to trekking Everest Base Camp four days later. As with most things trekking, I believe there is a strong correlation to work and the lesson the Sherpa. I was seriously kicking myself, it was a rookie error and I knew better. I should have:
a) listened to my body
b) spoken up when I recognised I had committed to too much
c) not been a martyr
d) asked for help
Being able to call on all of the resources available to you to get something delivered on time is an important lesson. Although I had got myself into a right pickle, I was not going to make it any worse. It had been previously agreed that I would walk out of the village back to the road - a 2 hour effort. Instead I negotiated to get a Jeep to come and pick me up. This was smarter not martyr behaviour, and if you are in a comparable work situation, I encourage you to ask for help and muster all of the resources a your disposal. You will see how the tension can be reduced when you renegotiate expectations in light of circumstances or shifting expectations.