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Name a Sherpa.
Go on!
I bet, if anything, you said Tenzing Norgay.
On of the first two men to climb Mount Everest.
Along with Edmund Hilary in 1953.
Sherpas, as I’m sure you know, often assist people on this and other similar climbs.
They help navigate and carry stuff, give advice and support and so on.
But, ultimately the climber still has to do the climbing.
No one can do that for them.
It’s kinda like what we do.
We’ve worked hard to do everything we can to help people on their ‘climb’.
Provide knowledge, systems and support.
A welcoming, enjoyable atmosphere to come and do some effective exercise (it’s myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting for the next step if you like the sound of these things).
And more.
We’ll keep tweaking and refining what we do, of course.
But, at the moment, it’s pretty much everything we can think of that will ease that journey of weight loss, improving health and fitness and so on.
But……….
People still need to do the actual climbing themselves.
At the briefing meeting we hold each month for potential new starters to find out more (myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting) we have one slide with a graph on it.
It shows how people’s enthusiasm often goes from high in the early ‘Uninformed Optimism’ stage.
Not entirely sure what’s going to happen but it all sounds very exciting and they’re looking forward to it.
To, over time, dipping to the ‘Informed Pessimism’ stage.
Where they realise “Ah, I still have to actually make some changes to my eating and turn up for the sessions”.
They realise that, while we’re doing what we can, the actual work has to be done by them.
We’re pretty good at helping people drive through this dip into the ‘Informed Optimism’ stage.
“I know this will take some time and effort, but I know I can do it”
But, unfortunately, some people do drop out during this dip.
As they probably have done before when they’ve joined gym or slimming club or started a new diet.
Initial enthusiasm replaced by pessimism leading to stopping only to restart someday in a potentially never ending cycle.
We get that journey isn’t easy.
We get that progress isn’t always as we’d like.
That things set us back along the way.
When someone climbs Everest they have to, they say, essentially climb it six times.
Base camp up to Camp 1 and back down.
Base camp up to Camp 2 and back down.
And so on.
It’s not just a case of straight to the top at a uniform speed.
It’s kinds two steps forward and one back all the way.
But they get there over time.
With their trusty Sherpa in their corner to help where they can.
Sometimes they’ll be ‘stood still’.
No progress as such.
But the progress will come.
They don’t just go home at that point only to try the climb again next year.
Two steps forward, one back.
All the way.
Next time you have to ‘stay at camp’ for a while.
Or next time you end up dropping down a level or two.
Don’t just go home.
We’ve got your back.
Keep it going and we’ll get there 🙂
Much love,
Jon ‘The fastest ascent of Everest, by a Sherpa, is 8 hours and 10 minutes’ Hall and Matt ‘That’s crazy’ Nicholson
RISE Macclesfield – myrise.co.uk
High fives and changing lives
Enter your details at myrise.co.uk for more information about what we do.
Or check out our monthly find-out-more meeting if you want to learn more about our free ’20lbs weight loss in 8 weeks’ and ‘Beach Body’ challenges –> myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting
