Whether your course was 10 days or 10 years ago, remember who you were out there, and bring it back to your world. The first step of this involves integrating your course into daily life. This is the toughest, but maybe most important, part of your Outward Bound experience. You probably felt good about yourself at specific times during your course. Really good. Like you could do anything, be anything, believe anything. Some of your greatest strengths came through and served both you and your group members in times of desperate need. These were pivotal moments that showed who you are and what you want to be. The key is to carry that sense of yourself back home into every day, relationship, and situation that you can. What made you feel so great? Cleaning the pots an extra turn even though it was pouring rain? Telling the jokes that kept people laughing instead of crying? Talking yourself into the last few yards of that rocky, alpine climb? Feeling wonderfully insignificant under a sky of twinkling stars? Whatever it was, do it at home.
The next step is to go the extra mile and bring what you learned during your course back to the world around you. Find ways to take care of the natural environment where you slept, hiked, laughed, and maybe cried. Share the strengths you discovered ou there with your community at home. Help others, as you did on the trail.
Specific Ways to Bring It Home
In honor of Outward Bound's commitment to social and environmental responsibility, here are a few ways you can apply your course to life back home. Identify the social issues that inspire your sense of compassion, and pick one or more of the following:
- Donate one Saturday afternoon to stocking shelves at a food bank
- Volunteer two hours a week at an adult literacy center
- Spend time getting to know a young, at-risk adult through a mentoring program
- Spend one day a month working with your local forest service to maintain trails
- Share your course photos with local elementary school classes and show them the beauty of our natural world
- Conserve energy in your own home by using high efficiency light bulbs, unplugging appliances when not in use, and recycling every item that you can
Making changes for the better, and applying your adventure to life back home, is about the small-scale choices you make every single day. Bring your course into daily life and you will increase the quality of your days, weeks, and months, as well as the community and world around you.
Remember Kurt Hahn's words, "Outward Bound can ignite, that is all. It is for you to keep the flame alive." His quote has never been more applicable, more powerful, or truer than it is in today's world. We are faced with a host of environmental and social needs; and your role as an Outward Bound alumnus has never been more important or more needed. Push yourself beyond, even when familiar circumstances and routines tempt you to fall back into old habit. Stay Outward Bound as you create and maintain your post-course life.
About the Author: Amanda Straus M.Ed. is a Professional Coach and Owner of The-Next-Step, a company dedicated to helping people apply the benefits of outdoor adventure to daily life. Her journey with Outward Bound began as a student in 1990. She then went on to instruct and course direct with the North Carolina and Voyageur Outward Bound Schools for 10 seasons. Amanda offers a complimentary telephone consultation for those wanting to learn more about how coaching can help them apply Outward Bound to life back home. To schedule a session, e-mail amanda@next-step-coach.com or call 704.451.8622. You can also check out her program at www.next-step-coach.com