People who have walked the Kokoda Trail always talk about the physical challenge – the hills, the heat and their aching, tired bodies – but little is spoken about the mental battle. How to motivate yourself and what you do when you 'hit the wall' is just as integral to success.
One event that would-be Kokoda walkers could learn from is the Oxfam Trailwalker. Billed as the toughest team event in the world, Trailwalker requires teams of four to walk 100km through rugged bushland in under 48 hours. This nine-section trek is just as much a psychological journey as it is a physical one, taking walkers to the edge of cliffs and the edge of self. It tests the motivational tools the walker has available to them, requiring discipline, strategical thinking, teamwork and integrity, just the qualities required on the Kokoda Trail.
Different perceptions
Individuals will handle physical endurance and motivation in different ways, and this year's all-girl Great Walks team didn’t have long to wait to see the effects of these differences take shape. After two hours of contemplating whether or not to carry on, one of the girls decided to retire after the second section of Trailwalker. This was due to the combination of exhaustion and blistering feet, but all the girls were experiencing similar things. In fact, it is more likely that different expectations, training regimes, goals, thought processes and values heavily influenced the individual choices.
For one Great Walks team member, Catherine, it was at this point that she reminded herself why she was in it. She had gone into the challenge knowing she had to finish it, not even considering dropping out as an option. Having this committed, disciplined attitude towards the overall goal helped her overcome the first hurdle as it will for someone walking Kokoda.
Of course, discipline is only part of what gets you through a challenge. After the loss of a teammate, the girls began the third section of Trailwalker at dusk. The loss of visibility for an eight-hour stretch is trying not only for navigation but also for goal-setting and distance perception.
Catherine says walking through the dark warped her perception of distance. “You feel like you’re walking 10 times as far because you don’t have landmarks telling you where you are.” Distance is something that is not only subject to optical perception, but also physical exhaustion and the energy cost to get to a target, meaning that things can “seem” further away than they are.
Goal setting
As walkers ignore their circadian rhythms, negative emotions triggered by the stress of isolation in the dark can cause feelings of anxiety, fear and despair. Emotion is a powerful source of motivation, and if emotions are rallying you to “get me out of here”, the discipline to keep going no matter what may waver.
Catherine admits that she felt anxious and cried through much of the night. Thankfully motivation isn’t only influenced by emotion but also by the way we think about things. Emotional regulation through cognitive adjustments is often used therapeutically in psychology to help individuals cope with a crisis.
“For someone who is quite neurotic, I was surprisingly brain dead," Catherine admits. "Breaking the walk down into mini-goals was the only way I could get through it. A 16km section was comprehensible – the finish line wasn’t. I had to keep remembering: just get to the next section, then you can stop.”
Rigid, goal-oriented thought patterns such as these are a great motivational resource, allowing the walker a sense of self-appraisal and reward from a little spike of dopamine as they mentally tick off each achievable goal. The fact that each goal is perceived as a reachable target is particularly important for this cognitive exercise.
Teamwork
Teammates are also a great source of motivation, pulling you through the tough bits, boosting morale and providing positive feedback. We can feel a sense of belonging in the most arbitrarily formed groups. Humans are social beings and by taking advantage of what a group has to offer – a sharing of work, food, company, skills or protection – together with a superior ability to communicate, allowed humans to evolve so successfully.
Humans also need people around them during stressful times. Going through an experience with others can give a particularly rich sense of loyalty, belonging and empathy. Catherine says she couldn’t have done the sections at night without the two girls walking on either side of her. Most importantly, she argues, were the common goals and attitudes within the group. “We needed to have the same priorities and determination to just keep going.”
As the sun began to rise, and the last leg of the challenge was in sight, Team Great Walks found its second wind. In an endurance test such as a Kokoda or a 100km trek, endorphins and opioids begin to kick in once the body reaches a certain threshold. The brain provides a 'high' with feel-good hormones and a welcome dose of natural painkillers. This is when 'the wall' can be conquered. Catherine says it was at this point she began to power through, which boosted the morale of the team and they all ended up finishing strongly. Before that point, they couldn’t even imagine crossing the finish line.
Empowerment
The human brain is often referred to as a kind of pattern recognition machine. This makes a pattern of failure particularly hard to break because the brain keeps receiving input 'proving' that you just can’t do 'it'. This is responsible for learned helplessness – the belief that personal failure is inevitable and trying to achieve a desired outcome is pointless.
Successfully completing a long-distance walk can throw personal doubts and fear of failure out the window as the brain computes the breaking of an old pattern and the shaping of a new one. Catherine agrees, saying that discovering she had the discipline, commitment and team spirit needed to complete the challenge was a turning point in her life.
Like Trailwalker, conquering Kokoda will give you a great sense of fulfilment. "Prepare to talk about it for the rest of your life," says Queensland's Rochelle Blake, who walked Kokoda last year. "Try and convince as many people as possible to do it. I personally wanted to walk around with a sticker that read, 'I've just done the Kokoda Trail, come and congratulate me!'".
Ten tips for going the distance
- Break down the walk into realistic and achievable goals that you can 'tick off'.
- Create incentives to reach each of your goals and follow through with the reward when you meet them eg. food, a sit down, fresh socks etc.
- Be pro-active with your emotions: remember that your brain is more than capable of regulating them if you give it the chance.
- When you’re hitting 'the wall', remember this is the toughest part and it will get easier. The body has ways of dealing with it and you just need to give it time to take effect.
- Don’t think or worry about the whole distance: your mental dialogue needs to be about moving forward, not about the next 50km, as that's too overwhelming. Worry about putting your foot down for the next step, the next 10 steps, the next corner etc.
- Tell your mates or group leader when you're having a hard time: let them talk you through it and be ready to talk them through challenges too.
- Keep talking yourself into finishing by appreciating how far you’ve come, not how far you have to go.
- Prepare for the mental challenge with realistic expectations. Have little slogans ready in your mind that will help you at the lows.
- Take advantage of the emotional high points in your walk and use them to boost morale and encourage your fellow walkers.
- Laugh when you can! Laughing releases feel-good endorphins and can also break any tension that may have been building within your group.