My 3 mental stages while mountaineering
and why they are so fulfilling to me
I am drawn to mountains — always have been. Climbing a mountain gives me a deep sense of fulfillment. It’s a spiritual experience. Recently, I discovered a pattern that made it clearer to me why this is the case. When climbing a mountain I tend to go through three mental stages: reflection, adaption, and being present. Here’s a quick run-down of each of these stages.
Reflection of challenges in the past
The first bit of climbing a mountain is often on a forest road that leads through monotone woods and is easy to navigate — perfect for low-distraction high-focus contemplation.
When starting out, my thoughts are with past events — mostly recent challenges I am struggling with at work or at home. I get lost in deep thought, trying to untangle a mess of seemingly contradicting observations, events, and conversations. I am trying to understand problems and find root causes. One might say: Attempting to “see the forest for the trees”.
Adaption of mental models that shape future actions
In the middle section, the route usually leaves the woods and brings the peak into sight. This encourages me to switch my mental state and direct my thoughts forward, thinking about where I want to go, rather than where I am coming from.
Once I arrive at insights, I adapt the mental models that shape my thinking — and by doing so, my future actions. Often, these insights are distant in time and space to the challenge I have been pondering. Hence, the connections are usually not obvious, which is — I assume — the reason why I am not able to spot them right away in the first place.
Being present in the moment
Getting physically exhausted, as the ascent gets more strenuous and demanding at this last stage, helps me with clearing my head. In a way, depleting my physical batteries goes hand in hand with recharging my mental ones. As the views open up and reveal a panorama of surrounding peaks I enter a state of being fully present. Taking in the view always puts a grin on my face and makes me feel grateful.
Having had successes with getting some clarity on a current challenge and adapting my mental models accordingly, I can embrace the third and last stage of just enjoying the moment. Going through the first two stages helps me to quiet my monkey mind and be present.
Return to my normal mental state
After a “Brotzeit” on top of the mountain, the last part is the way back down.
The descent is either focused on the activity itself when I am on skis or a random mix of the three stages above when on foot. As I get closer to the car or the train station, I experience a mental return to day-to-day topics as well.
Variances in the three stages
Sometimes the time frames of the three stages are distributed differently, sometimes I do multiple cycles, sometimes a stage is missing entirely. I noticed, that I feel less fulfilled when the latter is the case. Nevertheless, it’s a pattern I’ve observed frequently and now that I understand (and appreciate) it, I can actively create the environment to make it more likely to occur.
Factors that support the three stages
Being away from civilization and its distractions enables me to go through these three stages. Mountains are one of the few places left in central Europe humans haven’t plastered with products and media that constantly compete for my attention. For me, the absence of sensory stimulus is an important pre-condition for this process to work. When in deep thought, I am in a flow state of refining my mental models. Every man-made thing or sound is a threat that may pull me out of my head and may interrupt my train of thought. I am not sure if this qualifies for flow, but it is certainly similarly hard to get there for me.
In positive psychology, flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.
- Wikipedia
I have a close friend, that I do most outdoor activities with. Many people feel the urge to fill every bit of silence with something to talk about. Luckily, my friend doesn’t suffer from this condition. We do have conversations. Meaningful ones at that. But we can also spend three hours together without saying a word. We can be alone together without it being awkward whatsoever. I am so used to his presence when in the mountains that he doesn’t get in the way of me doing my thing.
All this is not happening consciously. I think the whole reason why and how this works is that it is happening subconsciously. Sometimes I try to consciously make myself go through these stages. I might even show up with a certain topic I want to work through when starting a hike. Doing so seems to be mostly counter-productive. In fact, it seems to make the stages less likely to occur. The key for producing valuable insights seems to be quite the opposite: to “release the tiller” and invite what my subconsciousness bubbles to the surface.
The physical exercise combined with solitude allows my brain to switch from focused mode (reading, applying, problem-solving) to diffused mode (daydreaming, making connections, seeing the big picture). The alternation between these two modes seems to be key. There won’t be big insights if I skip the focused mode and just go mountaineering all the time.
Fast track to being present
If I want to skip right to the third stage of clearing my head and being present, nothing is as effective for me as rock climbing.
As soon as I start a route everything else fades away and the only things that matter are the next hold and the next step.
Paradoxically, a big part about mountaineering for me is not about being outside. It is, rather, an exercise in discovering and sorting the contents of my mind. Another major driver is the excitement of exploring something previously unknown to me. But that’s a topic for another day in the mountains to refine. ⛰️
