The Campfire Trail: January 14 - The Campfire Trail

January 14, 2024

Day 835 of the Adventure

www.thecampfiretrail.com

Starting. Perhaps the one single biggest obstacle to Achieving. Starting things of little significance or little risk is not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to starting the things that are life-changing in size, scope or significance. Things like deciding to get married, having kids, starting a business, moving across the country, making a career change and....... choosing to make a "Back to the Land" move. With all of those things, the mental anxiety of making the decision and taking the first step can be overwhelming. The uncertainty and unknowns dominate the logical thought process. Even when the forces that compel us to want to make a big change are strong, actually pulling the trigger on it is the defining moment on whether the dream ever has the opportunity to live.

I've had to make decisions like this many times throughout life. The earlier ones were the hardest. I believe that after a few major, life altering, "New Chapters" have been attempted, the process has gotten easier. Does that mean the unknowns are known upon a new event? No, I believe it becomes easier because the mental stress of starting has become more familiar. Let me try to explain. All new things have new challenges to go along with them. For example, all of the things you learned when having a child become easier with the second and third child because you now have experience with the first one. Later, when you decide to start a business, none of the actual child raising skills will become very helpful (unless, of course, you are opening a daycare) No, you will have a whole new set of challenges and things to learn when starting a business. So the actual "Skills" may not be of benefit, but there are things that will be common in both experiences. One of them will be "How do I make a big decision without it scaring the daylights out of me". And believe it or not, that in itself is a learned skill. As you begin to plan your new adventure, whether it's a homestead life, off-grid life or really anything you are planning, understanding how to overcome the initial start of it is always going to be similar.

Since our website, YouTube channel and all the ancillary media resources we use are about a "Back to the Land" process, this is specifically what we'll look at. As you are contemplating your "Back to the Land" chapter of life, think of the process as a one to one hundred scale. One being a cold turkey, impulsive, grab your backpack and head for the hills. No planning, no preparation and no care of how the outcome of it turns out. One hundred on the scale represents ultra planning and preparation, analyzing every single scenario, good and bad before making your decision to take the plunge. What I've described at the two spectrums of our scale will both very likely end in disaster. One, because it will literally be a disaster, and the other because it will likely turn into no action at all. Why, because one approach takes nothing into consideration and the other takes so many things into consideration it tends to paralyze the decision.

Where are the common denominators in the big decision process? It's in the ability to find the sweet spot on the scale between one and one hundred. You must find that spot where you feel you've done all the research and preparing that you can to make you feel you can make a quality decision. But not so much that it adds the element of paralysis. No one can tell you where that "Sweet Spot" is for you. It all comes down to your confidence with your knowledge and preparation contrasted against your level of risk tolerance. It's possibly a science, but more likely an art. Obviously, the more knowledge, the more skills, the more tools and the more experience, the less risky it will feel. On a "Back to the Land" decision, the more you can do ahead of time to increase the confidence in your skills, tools, knowledge and experience, the better. Nevertheless, at some point it will come down to actually putting your finger on the trigger and giving it a pull.

With all the talk of prepping going around, one element of prepping that largely gets ignored is that of preparing for your first step into a big new world of your dreams, hopes and ambitions. I always refer to the first and most important element of your dream is simply having one and the strength of it. I believe the "How" of doing or achieving something is always secondary to the strength of the dream. Without a strong dream, all the how's in the world will not get you where you want to go. If you possess a strong enough dream, you'll figure out the how's, and with a strong dream, nothing will likely ever stand in your way. Figuring out a strong enough dream will help you find that sweet spot of confidence to find your start. You'll find some resources further down the page.

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “You can't plan for everything or you never get started in the first place.”

― Jim Butcher

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Base Camp Coffee of the Day: Lost on the Trail (Guatemala)

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Creating a "Roadmap" Back to the Land