The average person has 80 apps on their phone and 9 of mine are games. Usually, I only touch these 9 when I’m in the presence of a young family member (6–12 years old), or when I’m flying in airplane mode. On these flights, it has become a pattern for me to always try and beat my old scores in as many games as I can, however, in the process of beating my past PRs in even something as simple as a video game, I’ve experienced a high-stakes and high-pressure mental cycle, creating limiting beliefs for myself. Limiting beliefs are “a state of mind, conviction, or belief that you think to be true that limits you in some way.”
Let’s take the game Temple Run as an example. At first, I would get caught up in the numbers… don’t we all… just like in school with grades and beating the average exam score, we get riled up by seeing a number that we have to beat. After almost approaching my previous record I would lose sight of the game and choke. Some of the adrenaline that comes from the numbers game is good until it’s not. What I’ve found is that when I’m not thinking about the score and allow myself to get into the groove of the motions, I do way better.
When I’m in this mindset, I don’t even care if my player dies and I have to restart because I’m in such a flowing rhythm that I’m left with pure determination — learning to fail fast to succeed.
Transferring it over to mountains and canyons (quite literally), this past week I had the pleasure of traveling through various National Parks, my favorite of which was Bryce Canyon. Thinking that the majority of people who visit the canyon are there for the scenery rather than the intensity of the hike, I chose the most popular trail (big mistake). The Queen’s/Navajo Combination trail provided the most diverse scenery of the park, running almost 3 miles, and, key word, 600 feet in depth. Little did I know the entire canyon was 800 feet deep. That’s right, I was about to hike down (and up) the entire thing.
Let me now include that I love roller coasters, bungee jumping, and the idea of skydiving, and have never been afraid of heights. Ever. Until this trail.
Starting from Sunrise Point, I looked down into 800 feet of pure rock, mind-boggled as to how I was supposed to meander a 2-foot-wide path of gravel for about 2 miles without falling to my death. For the first time ever, here I was, terrified of this sight, clinging to the side rocks and moving centimeters at a time, while 8-year-old kids were jumping between 6-foot cliffs of each neighboring switchback (inclined zig-zag in the trail). My pace got so slow that grandparents moving in the opposite direction would stop at one end of the switchback giving me room to walk through and would cheer, “tortoise always wins the race!” (how embarrassing for me).
It was at this moment my brain somehow connected the canyon to Temple Run, nudging me to focus on the hike rather than the score (or in this case, death-defying depth). Lord knows how I made it down the canyon alive (the way up was just a stamina game), but hey, I conquered the trail using the same mental strategy I used in a video game.
I’m not saying the lesson “fail fast” applies to everything, especially not when your life is at stake, but in a way, learning to overcome the fear and pressure quickly became transferable to this situation.
Bryce Canyon was nothing short of a game of Temple Run.
