Slow and Steady Wins the Race: Lessons Learned from my Climb up Mount Fuji

In Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about how doing small things every day, can lead to substantial progress over time. It’s like that old adage “slow and steady wins the race”.

I climbed Mount Fuji on a whim when I was in my mid-twenties. My friends and I were visiting Japan on holiday from our teaching jobs in Korea. We booked bunk beds ahead of time in one of the cabins on the mountain. 🏔️

I didn’t read any tips on how to prepare for the climb and it was a pre-smartphone era. We started out at dusk, with a large group of other people. Everyone else seemed to have walking sticks and were going at a very slow pace. 🥾

Not us. We were raring to get ahead of the pack! 🚶🏻‍♀️

So instead of taking a slow, steady pace, we started out at a good clip and at about the same rate I started to develop altitude sickness. Soon it felt nearly impossible to keep putting one foot in front of the other. 🥴

It quickly became a climb in the dark. And then it started to rain.

But we had our booked beds, and we could see a light way up the mountain that was our refuge for the night. It was like a beacon to me. Like a moth to a flame, I stumbled on. 🕯️

When I finally reached the doorstep, gasping and triumphant, we were informed that we had booked one of the cabins much further up the mountain – a tiny pinprick of a light in the distance.

I literally had to pull on my deepest reserves (& be forcefully pushed on ahead by one of my friends) to make it up there. I just kept taking it one step at a time. I still can’t believe I made it to that cabin. I felt like I couldn’t breathe or even lift my sleeping bag. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I was on the verge of high-altitude pulmonary edema. 🤢

But I made it through the night, and I witnessed one of the most stunning sunrises I’ve ever seen. A blanket of clouds below us with mountain tops peeking through. If I wasn’t already so winded, it would have taken my breath away.

After the sunrise spectacle, I decided to descend the mountain instead of going further up with the others (likely a good choice). A hard choice, but the right one.

Sometimes it can feel this way with new habits. We make a rash decision to change something up, jump in with both feet and no preparation and then realize how hard it is. Like the climb is too hard and we’ll never make it.

But if we take the time to prepare ahead, pace ourselves, stay committed to our goal and keep taking small steps, we’ll get there in the end.

#leadershipdevelopment#leadershipcoaching#habits#change#behaviourchange