A few days ago MotivarT embarked on the adventure of walking the Camino de Santiago on foot. The Camino is an experience that, at least once in your life, it is advisable to live. During so many kilometers traveled you learn many things. Here we leave you the 10 most important that the Camino teaches you for your life:
1.- Set a goal and plan your daily goals. It is not enough to want to get to Santiago de Compostela. If you start walking in the opposite direction you would be getting a little further away every day. That is why it is so important to plan the path you are going to follow, what stages you are going to do, what you are going to need, where you are going to stop… You set your limits.
2.- Listen to your body; Take care of yourself, respect yourself and love yourself. When you walk every day you pamper your feet, your knees, your back. You stretch, you give yourself massages, you rest to recover… On the path of life, however, the body is, for most of us, that which is largely forgotten. We do not pay attention to the messages it sends us and sometimes there comes a time when to make itself heard it has to stop us suddenly.
3.- If there are setbacks, look for what resources you have to deal with them or look for alternative routes. When you walk you can’t choose the weather or the setbacks that may arise. Yes, you can choose what to do: stop, go back, seek help, ask others how they do it, look for what you need to move forward.
4.- In life you do not walk alone. Others are living similar experiences, walking the same path as you. Learn from them, share with them. Sometimes you need help. Others you find people who need you. Furthermore, as in life, the Camino is a meeting of cultures and ways of seeing life. If you open your mind to all this you can learn to be humble, tolerant and empathetic.
5.- Get to know yourself; your strengths and weaknesses. The Camino is a great teacher for this. As you walk you discover a little more about who you are. Knowing yourself is essential to plan realistic and achievable goals, to discover how much potential you still have to grow, to know when to ask for help, to be able to share with others all the good that is in you.
6.- Live here and now: Sometimes, while walking, our mind gets distracted, flies and entertains itself in dreams, ruminations or analysis. We forget to look around us and pay attention to what surrounds us. Walking here and now we can enjoy the beauty of the Camino and take the right path without getting lost or missing any sign that life gives us.
7.- Be grateful; The Camino, just like life, gives you a thousand reasons to be so. A helping hand that helps you go up or down a slope, advice from someone who has already gone through that stage of the journey before you, a hot shower at the end of the day, a plate of food in good company, a wonderful landscape or a water source on the way. Many times we do not value these little things because we assume that they will always be there, and we do not value their importance until we lose them.
8.- Behind the clouds there is always the sun. Sometimes it becomes more difficult to walk because the day is rainy. Still, you keep moving forward because you know that at some point the sun will rise again. You learn to keep moving forward because something bigger motivates you: reaching your goal.
9.- Travel light. On the Camino carrying a light backpack makes it easier to move forward. In life we usually walk with too much weight on our backs. When you let go of things you realize that you can walk with less and that it is easier to go further.
10.- Celebrate your small daily achievements. Each stage of the Camino completed is a goal achieved, one more reason to feel satisfied and proud for having achieved it. Many times in life we forget to celebrate our achievements and lose the awareness that we are worthy of that celebration. Do not forget.