Girls Hiking Club

Our first hike into the Grand Canyon this spring was an ill-fated one. It was hot, true, but less than a mile into the hike, I could tell something more than the heat and difficulty was going on. It was the mindset of my older children: they had mentally given up five minutes into the hike.. We told our hiking companions we couldn't continue. We needed to turn around. I was frustrated because I knew my kids were physically capable of doing the hike, but their mindset wasn’t up for the challenge.

Mindset is tricky. It's one of the hardest things I've had to teach because it’s not something I can teach from a book. It's hard to conceptually explain grit , perseverance, and confidence. It has to be learned by doing. And doing can only be done if I have presented them with the opportunity over and over again. As I hiked with them back out of the Grand Canyon, I decided a positive mindset was something we needed to “learn by doing” this summer.

Enter: Girls HIking Club.

Simply put, Girls Hiking Club is a "fun activity" (note the air quotes) for girls in the 10-14 year old range. Your mother has dubbed it "Girls Hiking Club" (again, note the air quotes) in hopes that a social chit chat with friends up a nearby mountain will help make the lesson of grit and perseverance easier. Bonus for me, the mother, is that it involves (at least) another mom who will hold me accountable so I don't give up and let the whining win.

The week before the inaugural Girls Hiking Club hike was met with moaning. I was told that adding friends to the hike did not make it more fun. A hike was a hike, and that was not what either of them wanted to do at 6AM on a Tuesday morning.

Even the night before the first Girls Hiking Club I think they were both in disbelief that I would actually wake them up and make them go.

They were wrong. However, one point for them— they dragged their feet enough to make us ten minutes late.

We met our friends at the trailhead and off we started, slowly. The girls were all ready to quit after only ten minutes. I knew how they felt because I was in the exact same spot last August. I had wanted to give up and go home because it really is a hard trail. The trail up is only 1.5 miles, but the elevation gain is 1200 feet. The first section is the longest and at the end of it your heart sinks because you still can't see the top. The second portion is the hardest. It has a wicked elevation gain over a short distance. Again you are left wondering where the peak is. The third is challenging because you can finally see the top of the mountain, but with that end goal in sight, you can also then see how far you still have to climb up.

That first morning of Girls Hiking Club, each girl had given up at multiple spots, but we kept going. It got so bad that by the end of the third section one sat down on a rock and stubbornly told me she was quitting and that she would meet me at the car. (Narrator: She didn't)

Despite all this, we all made it to the summit. Goal achieved. Perseverance accomplished. Confidence gained. Donuts enjoyed after.

Both the second and third mornings of Girls HIking Club seemed to go much easier than the first. By the second morning I no longer had trouble convincing the girls to get out of bed (even though they had declared the night before that they were not going to hike). By the third morning several girls were reaching the summit before the moms. Each morning brought new friends who wanted to join the Girls Hiking Club. Each week all of the girls required less encouragement and less cheering. They had each gained grit, resilience, and more confidence. A hard lesson, but a valuable one.

The lesson of mindset, perseverance and confidence has been hard for me to teach. As a mom it's so much easier when I just give in. After thirty-two three complaints about something, I just don't have it in me to hold my ground. I have to pick my battles and I always pick the crisis that is easier to handle in the short-term. "I'll model that tomorrow." "We can talk about it next week." You know the things I say to myself because you say the same things, too.

Something else always seems more pressing, more demanding. Until, of course, you are attempting to hike a (small) portion of the Grand Canyon and realize your six year olds have a better mindset than your older kids.

I'm glad for that failed hike, though. It was the catalyst that made me decide to teach mindset this summer. Mindset is the lesson of, "You can do hard things. It's ok to move slowly. But be steady. Just keep your feet moving. You can overcome this large obstacle because you've shown you are the kind of person who perseveres even when you’d much rather quit.

Mindset. Don't give up. One foot in front of the other. Eyes always forward. Even on summer mornings when you would rather be sleeping in.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear about a time that your mindset was shaped–just hit reply if you’d like to share. I'm on vacation this week, but I will read all your messages and will respond when we get back. And if you enjoyed this email, you’d be doing me a favor by forwarding it to someone else who might like it.