Trekking the Kokoda Track builds Resilience

Whether we like it or not adversity is part of our life and adversity builds resilience.

Learning to deal with and overcoming adversity is what builds character and resilience. Every challenge and every difficulty we successfully confront in life serves to strengthen our will, confidence and ability to conquer future obstacles. Herodotus, the Greek philosopher, said, "Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man or woman that would have lain dormant in its absence."

When you take on a physical and mental challenge like the Kokoda Track it offers you the opportunity to explore the concept of adversity but through the eyes of the Diggers. What they had to overcome is mind boggling, and when you experience just one aspect alone.. the unforgiving terrain, it really allows you to put your challenge in perspective.

The track teaches you to accept adversity and that inevitably it occurs in life. When you respond positively and constructively to your biggest challenges the qualities of strength, courage, character, endurance and perseverance emerge from deep inside of you.

In the preparation period before much of the adversity hits, participants work on cultivating emotional strength, courage and discipline. When you make yourself aware that certain difficulties are inevitable, you can prepare yourself mentally for confronting adversity head-on. It would be no different than a warrior going to battle. He (or she) prepares himself physically and mentally for any possibility. He knows it could be ugly, daunting, and grueling, but he is equipped. More often than not, when you're prepared for the worst, the worst never happens. Everything in life has its place and purpose.

Resilience like any muscle is built up gradually and exponentially with repeated exposure to obstacles. If you lack practice in confronting obstacles (as when you choose to avoid them), one traumatic event can take you down.

On the Kokoda Track, the challenge to formulate a successful plan while assessing the relevant information needed to do so, creates a state of fluidity, ie the constant need to be flexible in attitude and concentration. By participating, it offers the opportunity to enter an environment that is so different to the often stagnant and over governed system in which we play every day. Often on the Kokoda track we take strength and inspiration from the stories of the Diggers and their triumphs in overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds.

Overcoming adversity is one of our main challenges in life. When we resolve to confront and overcome it, we become expert at dealing with it and consequently triumph over our day-to-day struggles.

Remember:

·         The difficult times in life help us appreciate when things are going smoothly.

·         Look for the learning opportunities in every adverse situation.

·         Decide whether you will allow your experience to make, or break you. Depending upon how you choose to perceive it, it could go either way.

·          Be prepared to accept the worst, should it occur. When you have prepared yourself mentally for the worst, it rarely ever happens, and if it does, it seems less so because you are better equipped to handle it.

·         Cultivate faith, courage and resilience. The more of these qualities with which you are armed, the lesser the impact of the adversity.

·         Remind yourself that adversity is part of life. Accepting adversity, helps you overcome it.