When my wife and I came back from hiking Mount Rinjani 5 years ago, I thought it will never happen again that I let a friend coax me into another similar hike. We went and almost died. Recalling how we allow our small fragile Asian bodies through that type of physical exertion was inhumane. We did our best on that first and last climb. Though we didn’t summit, we made it 90% of the way. It was great achievement for us who thought how hard can it get and didn’t train much for it.

Recently when one of our friends who is 20 years younger than us asked us if we want to climb Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in South East Asia, we said YES!

Why? Because people forget pain fast. Anyway, we figure maybe something we fail to do deserves another try. So in the spirit of failing forward, here we go again.

As we train for this second hike (happening in 2 weeks time), we thought we should be a few years smarter (of course assuming smartness is measured in years).

Our first training session was hell-like. The pain of the first hike came back to us quickly. But in the same quick manner, we got better in subsequent sessions. Now, we are enjoying our training and we know our actual hike too in 2 weeks time.

Here are my 5 childlike creative strategies on how to ascend better when you hike because of being 5 years smarter.

1. Think The Mountain Is Coming To You
Don’t think you are moving up the massive stone. Think the massive stone is coming towards you as if its moving towards sea level behind you. That’s quite a biblical strategy that a mountain is not to be conquered but to be moved to the sea. It’s the most effective strategy I never had for my first climb.

2. Think Every Foot Forward Solidifies The Ground Into A Black Sticky Substance that holds your foot steadily in place.
Enough said in the title. Another version is “spiderman like”. It goes like this “Think Every Foot Forward Is Caught In A Web That Spiderman Zaps Out to hold your feet steadily in place”. It is, of course, released when you lift it later. Yeah! it works to give my feet strength to pull me up.

3. Breath In On Left Step, Breath Out On Right Step
Regulate your breathing according to your left/right step

4. Accept That This Is Lifestyle For The Next Few Hours/Day/Days
This is a brilliant strategy to get me to enjoy the climb because it is THE FACT of the situation. I paid to enjoy this and I being very Asian and very Chinese, better get every single cent of my money squeezed out of it.

5. Get Lost In A Thought Of A Problem or A Situation You Need To Solve
I admit this only sounds good in concept because it doesn’t quite happen on tap. Most of the time, it’s not when I want it to, but instead, I randomly drift into thinking of some business and work challenges that takes my mind away from the present mountain. But it is natural to start thinking of the obstacle of overcoming the very mountain in front of us than the one at home. Maybe will a bit more will power, someone can pull this off but I would say this is the least effective strategy.

There you go. the 5 childlike creative strategies that I’ve been using during my training to ascend better. It gets better at every training and I’m more confident that I will make it this time.

Will keep you updated on how my climb goes and other mental strategies I have. Bear in mind that these are mind strategies as I don’t think I’m qualified to write about physical strategies. Anyway, common sense tells us to drink lots of water, to stretch before we start, to travel light to conserve energy and go slow to prevent altitude sickness. All that you can get from other sites. Here, we just go childlike creative.

What about you? Where did you recently hike and what are your creative mind strategies to ascend?