- Gretchen Pardon
Feeling like a failure after my thru hike
Since thru hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2020, my life has felt incomplete. I've found that adjusting back to my life pre-hike has been very difficult. To be completely honest, this past year has been mostly a huge mental struggle. I’ve felt lost, unmotivated, feeling like I have no sense of direction or purpose and I'm struggling to move forward.
I finished my thru hike of the Appalachian Trail on December 23, 2020 despite Covid and many more obstacles that attempted to thwart my hike. When I first got home, I was happy to be done hiking. I was tired, achy and missed my family. I looked forward to the days ahead of relaxing, watching tv and snuggling in a warm bed. In fact, the first month off trail felt great. I kept busy writing thank you cards, making post trail videos, and catching up with friends and family.
But as the months passed, I began to feel an ache to be back out on the trail. I'd done a few day hikes, but it didn't seem to be enough to squash whatever I was feeling. I hoped that another thru hike would get rid of the nagging feeling that something was missing so I set out with a friend to do a short 72 mile thru hike on the Foothills Trail. Even though it was a short one week backpacking trip, I was happy to be back on the trail and I returned home in high spirits.
But those high spirits soon diminished and I found myself looking for another backpacking trip to try to "fix" the nagging feeling in my heart. I spent the course of several months and several hikes trying to fix the emptiness I felt inside me. Each hike would help temporarily but as soon as I returned home, I felt lost all over again.
The hard truth was I'd thought quitting my job and taking a risk to fulfill my dreams would be a stepping stone towards something greater, more freeing, and more purposeful. I'd watched other thru hikers complete their journeys and end up starting their own business, becoming authors, gaining a greater social media presence or taking jobs that directly involved the trail. These hikers gave me inspiration to believe my life could also change for the better and I didn't have to be tied to a 9 to 5 existence that left me feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied.
But here I am over a year after finishing my thru hike and realizing my life hasn't really changed all that much. I'm struggling with what to do next, with how to accomplish more goals and live the life I'd dreamed about. And to be brutally honest, the thought of returning to a 9 to 5 job feels like I'm taking a huge step backwards from the dreams I wanted for my life. Right now I feel defeated and like a failure because my life hasn't progressed the way I imagined and I find myself asking questions like, "What if the risks we take don't always have the reward we so desperately hope for? What if life after the trail isn't what we thought it would be? How do we move forward without feeling like we're going backwards?"
"What if the risks we take don't always have the reward we so desperately hope for? What if life after the trail isn't what we thought it would be? How do we move forward without feeling like we're going backwards?"
When I ask myself these questions my mind goes to the lessons I learned while out on the trail. So many times while I was hiking, I worried about the miles ahead. I worried about what obstacles I would face and so many times my expectations didn't match the reality. I'd let these unmet expectations make me feel like a failure instead of seeing them for what they were - opportunities for growth. Sometimes during these mental struggles it took everything I had to just keep going. This is when I learned to just keep moving forward.
"One of the many things I learned during my thru hike was to just keeping moving forward."
Because no matter how bleak things looked or how difficult my circumstances, I found that when I put one foot in front of the other and focused on just moving forward one step at a time rather than focusing on the bigger picture or how far I had to go that before I knew it, I'd made it to my destination. Before I knew it, I'd hiked 2,193 miles even though many times that seemed like an improbability.
I'm trying my best to apply this same lesson to my current situation. This past year off trail has been every bit as difficult as those many months I spent on the trail. Because I know deep down the things holding me back - the struggles, lack of motivation and feeling lost, stem from fear.
"The things holding me back - the struggles, lack of motivation and feeling lost, stem from fear."
Fear of failure, fear of what lies ahead, fear of unmet expectations...but I know if I continue to push forward, each day no matter how slow the progress or how little I accomplish, I am moving in the right direction and I will get there at the right time.
I may not be exactly where I want to be right now with my dreams and goals but I'm telling myself it's ok. I'm telling myself to not give up, to just keep going and to keep moving forward. What sometimes is perceived as failure is really life's way of moving us forward in the right direction without even realizing it. We sometimes become so focused on what we think we want that we can't always see what we truly need.
And I'm realizing that the only way to keep moving forward is to just do. As Yoda would say, "Do or do not there is no try." So, this blog post is my attempt to keep moving forward, one word at a time, one step at a time.
I hope this helps you move forward too.
