We’ve all heard the saying by Alexander Graham Bell: “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” Well, it’s absolutely true. You wouldn’t:
- undertake a marathon without some serious training
- sit an exam without spending time revising
- attend a job interview without first swotting up on the company and checking that you are a perfect fit.
Don’t confuse planning and preparation. They are two separate activities. Whilst both are necessary and let’s face it neither of them are actually the fun part, they are both needed to help you to deliver on your objectives or goals. Planning is the process of deciding in detail how to do something before you actually start to do it, whilst preparation gets you ready to actually do the work.
Why preparation is important
Preparation is extremely beneficial in many aspects of life. Being prepared has three main benefits:
- It increases your levels of confidence.
- It maximises your performances, productivity and effectiveness.
- It provides you with vital knowledge and skills.
Essentially doing some preparation eliminates confusion, fear and anxiety, enabling you to solve problems, manage things quicker and become more efficient, because you will already have the solutions. Preparation also helps you to open your eyes to new situations and experiences, so you can learn and grow as a person.
A big challenge
As many of you know in December, I will be doing the Tour de Trigs. I love walking and have over the years increased the frequency and difficulty of my walking challenges. I’ve done the Camino De Santiago and plenty of UK walks including The Jurassic Way and the Marathon Moon Walk. But this one is going to really take me out of comfort zone.
It’s now May and whilst most of the planning is now done, it’s time to start the preparation. The Tour de Trigs involves walking 50 miles in 24 hours in the Cotswolds. Described as the “toughest non-stop cross country navigation exercise in and around North Oxfordshire, South Warwickshire and South Northamptonshire”, it’s something that needs plenty of lead in time. After all many of us can do a 5- or 10-mile walk, but it’s usually followed by going home afterwards and relaxing. Obviously, this will not be the case with this event!
Mental and physical preparation
Because it will be such an intense 24 hours, and let’s not even mention possible weather conditions and limited daylight, it’s important that I am both mentally and physically prepared. Training in earnest starts next month. We will be kicking things off with a 15-mile hike and will then start to build on this over the coming months.
I am not doing this alone, there will be three of us and we have to take a lot of kit with us too. All of our training needs to be done together, so we can access our strengths and weakness, see how we work as a team, increase our physical and mental stamina, as well as develop an ability to learn and implement technical skills in testing conditions.
How I can help
Preparation is a skill that can be learnt and which, with discipline and experience, improves over time. If you need help and support for whatever challenge you are facing in 2023, then please get in touch by calling 07780 692784 or emailing debby@total-spectrum.com.
