Why does Adventure even Matter...?

Reflections from Season 7 Ep 9 of The Everyday Adventure Podcast

So, we’ve come to the end of Season Seven of The Everyday Adventure Podcast and close to a hundred episodes. I have had the deep privilege of spending half an hour or so, with some amazing people chatting about all things adventure, sport, psychology and all of the elements that have gone into their experience.

To round off Season 7, I decided to record a solo episode, reflecting on a question that has recently come up in both my work and personal life. For those of you that don’t know, my day job is an Occupational or Organisational Psychologist as it's referred to in some countries. I work with organisations and individuals with the aim of making the workplace a more enjoyable and productive place for leaders and their teams.

I am also currently undertaking a Professional Doctorate which is focused on workplace adventure interventions. So, if you have ever been on an outdoor adventure team building event with your work, that's what I'm interested in from a research and professional point of view. As part of my doctoral studies, I had to deliver an upgrade proposal to justify my choice of research and get approval to move to the next stage. During the Q & A session at the end, I was asked was “So, why does this even matter?”. Now, obviously that was in relation to my specific area of research, but I thought it'd be interesting to broaden it out and think about why does adventure matter at all…

It is an interesting question because in there are so many enormous challenges in the world and our daily lives, that adventure can feel like a frivolous luxury or something we should only be doing if we've got the privilege and free time to expend.

Certainly when I was answering the question posed to me, I started to doubt myself and question it’s value…

In the context of my research, I was able to return to the evidence to help me out. But it also forced me to reflect more subjectively is that one of the reasons that I'm so passionate about this broad concept of adventure is because of how I believe it can underline our approach to life.

This is because I see adventure as opening up possibility, opportunity and giving a sense of perspective of the world around us. I believe it invites us to acknowledge that we actually know very little and that our own preconceptions may be wrong. It challenges us to be curious and step into to ‘not knowing’, as scary as this may be.

I find that when I practice adventure with a small “a” in the day to day aspects of my life, whether it is signing up for a new activity, speaking to somebody new or putting a proposal forward, I am moving forward. I am learning, I am building, I am challenging my own narrative of what I believe I am capable of achieving.

Another way of thinking about it is to reflect on what happens to us when we stop being adventurous; when we simply exist within the space that feels comfortable and easy.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of time for that space. I like feeling comfortable and I don't always want to be feeling stressed/ unsure/ cold! The challenge is, however, that when we permanently seek out comfort, what we are effectively doing is staying in one place. We aren’t trusting ourselves to be able to cope with things that we don't know or that things that feel risky or uncertain. The longer we stay here, the more that trust erodes. This then impacts our behaviours and attitudes - the things we are willing to do and the perspectives we are willing to engage with.

This is a challenge because it we can end up feeling stuck and existing in an echo chamber of our own thoughts or people that we feel safe with. It means that we stop challenging or being curious about what is possible and develop a finite sense of beliefs about what we're capable of - and the capabilities of those around us too.

Some of you might be aware of the work of Professor Carol Dweck who talks about the idea of a growth and a fixed mindset. The way that we develop a growth mindset, which is partly about this belief in infinite potential, is by taking risk. It is by testing our own hypotheses the whole time. For example, is it that I'm really bad at this thing or is it that I’m just not competent YET?

When we spend our whole life in familiar spaces where we know the rules and feel in control, we are likely to be thrown far outside of our comfort zone when even minor setbacks occur. If we have had no way of checking or building our capabilities prior to this, this can be a huge shock. However, when we have regularly taken ourselves into a place of uncertainty, we may still experience the shock, but we will also built an awareness of our own internal resources and this can help to steady us.

By actively pursuing adventure, we build a bank of knowledge or psychological muscle - a core of resilience - that can give us a solid place to return to when everything else feels uncertain and unknown. In essence, it is that small internal voice saying (albeit sometime very faintly) “you will be ok”. The resilience we build may include an element of grit, but it is more about the acceptance of change and the internal flexibility to adapt as a result.

We can build this core with a regular practice of stepping outside our comfort zone, even in tiny ways. Then when we are truly tested, we will have built “muscle memory”. In the same way that we build our physical muscles for an event, our psychological muscle requires the same attention.

It is this idea of adventure as psychological training, providing us with something solid and tangible that we can rely on. We start to believe that we have resources that enable us to manage when things get tough.

So if I try to answer this question of “why does adventure even matter?”, I land on the principle that it matters because it enables us to develop self-belief and trust in our own capabilities. It teaches us to be able to sit alongside and operate within uncertainty. And given the instabilty of the world we live in right now, I cannot think of anything more vital when it comes to the challenge of navigating our daily lives.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read these reflections. I would love to know what you think, so please do leave your thoughts and comments below.

If you would like to explore these ideas further, or gain more ideas on how to live more adventurously, please do check out The Everyday Adventure Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts or watch my TEDx talk The Life Changing Power of Everyday Adventures.