Hey there Podcast friend,

November 7th is my birthday. 🙂

I’ll be turning 35. 

I’m a pretty reflective person at this time of the year. Birthdays and holidays bring the introspective side of me out in full force. 

Even though I am a firm believer that the BEST time to start pursuing your dreams and goals is now (no matter what time of year it is), I also love that birthdays and holidays remind me to slow down, reflect, and refocus on what I want to create and experience in my life.  

And 35 feels like a BIG milestone for me. 

So today, I thought it would be fun to share with you 35 short-and-sweet lessons I’ve learned from life and the mountains during my 35 years around the sun so far.

And I hope… maybe I’ll get to write 100 of these one day. 

Here we go, in no particular order, 35 lessons I’ve learned since turning 35 (this email might be a little long 😉):

1. Don’t be afraid to set bold, audacious, “who-do-you-think-you-are” goals. They will expand you, even if you never achieve them in the original way you imagined.

2. Whenever you find yourself saying, “I don’t know” or “I don’t know how to…” always counter that with, “But what if I DID know?” – and practice the art of trusting your own intuition FIRST.

3. Confusion pretends to be important, but stop pretending to be confused and make bold decisions forward. Be the kind of person who spends as little time as necessary in indecision and second guessing yourself. Decisions are powerful. Decisions are movement. Stop waiting for the world to validate your choice, be all in on your decision because YOU decided.

4. Don’t waste time on regret. Find a way to appreciate each phase of your life. I was married at 19 and divorced at 22, but I feel really grateful for that whole experience. That divorce led me to my greatest reinvention… becoming a woman who loved the outdoors and adventure.

5. Embrace living your life in seasons (just like nature does). A concept I talk more about here.

6. Get a coach. Someone who can help you uncover your most limiting thoughts and teach you how to really feel your feelings. Someone who can teach you how to take your power back and lean into your biggest, beautiful life imaginable.

7. Don’t be afraid of rejection. Put your heart on the line in search of great friendships. They’re worth it.

8. Don’t take yourself too seriously. 

9. This quote from Elizabeth Gilbert, “Live a life more strongly driven by curiosity than by fear” has been one of my guiding values since I first read her book Big Magic back in 2015.

10. If you have big dreams and goals, but you’re scared… DO IT SCARED. Stop waiting to be fearless. Fear is not a problem. Fear is human. We can work with fear.

11. Go outside often and in a variety of ways that delight you.  Getting outside doesn’t have to be a hardcore adventure. Just go for a walk. Sit outside on a bench. Just BE. 

12. Question your thoughts. Is it true? Do I really believe that? What else could be true? What else could happen? Just because you think something, doesn’t mean you have to believe it. Talk back to your negative thoughts. 

13. Summits are just a bonus. When you start to approach your adventures (and life) with that kind of mindset, you’ll finally open up to the magic of the present moment. When you’re only focused on the summits, you’ll miss out on all the beauty that happens in between. 

14. Motivation always ebbs and flows. Expect it. Anticipate it. Show up even when you aren’t motivated to. This is how we achieve big goals.

15. Resistance is real. Expect it. Anticipate it. When you’re 1 week out from a big backpacking trip (for example), your brain is going to throw every excuse at you in the book to keep you from going on that trip. That’s what brains do. Keep going. 

16. Life is 50/50 … A concept I’ve touched on both in this post, and this post if you want to learn more. But choose the 50/50 life you’d rather be living in. For example, I reached a point in my engineering career where the 50/50 of being there (stable good income but boring un-creative work) was not the 50/50 I wanted to be experiencing. So I traded in my spreadsheets for a new 50/50 kind of life ➡️ Entrepreneurship (creative life-changing work but  with the responsibility of running a company).

17. “Discomfort is the currency of our dreams.” Just like breathing hard on that uphill can be uncomfortable, we do it because that discomfort is WORTH IT when we reach the top. Approach your life with the same conviction. We have to remind the brain that it's OK to move toward discomfort (just like we do on the trail). 

18. It’s ok to be sad. Toxic positivity is anti-humanity. The human experience includes a wide range of emotions. Embrace the part of you that is human and experiences the spectrum of human feelings. See the beauty in it. Sometimes after I have a good cry. I smile because I remember how beautiful it is to be able to experience this emotion so fully.

19. Pursuing Aliveness is more worthwhile than pursuing Happiness IMO. Aliveness is gritty, daring, full of all the human emotions. It’s a hard summit, a beautiful sunset, a freezing cold river crossing. Aliveness is looking back and being like, “Damn, that was hard, but I did that.” Aliveness is tangible. The pursuit of happiness is tough because as humans, we won’t always have it, and it will always feel elusive. 

20. It’s no one else’s job to believe in your dream. It’s YOUR job to believe in your dream. If you’re triggered by someone’s disbelief in you, then you know your work is inward. Because once you really believe in yourself, you won’t care what others say about your dream. That’s when you’ll be unstoppable.

21. Slow travel is better than fast travel. Don’t worry about hitting all the highlights. Get to know the nooks-and-crannies of a place. Stay long enough to have a favorite coffee shop.

22. Eat greens daily. I was vegan for a while in 2014, and it changed my life in a really simple way by helping me create some new habits. I now eat a big green salad or big green smoothie once a day. It feels like investing in my health, in a simple but delicious kind of way.

23. Get a skincare routine omg 😳 do it now! (Says every 30-something year old who neglected her skincare routine in her 20s). I try to keep it simple. I’ll share some bullet points here in case you’re interested. These are not affiliate links, just products I’ve been using over 3 years now and love.

24. Abandon your fantasy of having a *perfect* morning routine (and set yourself FREE 😂). Embrace the IMPERFECT morning routine. I used to think I needed to wake up early, journal, meditate, drink lemon water, go for a run, feed the dog, make a smoothie all before 8 AM in order to be a successful human. F😖CK THAT. Now I sleep in, and maybe pick one or two of those things to start my day. 

25. Sleep is queen 👑 I love it so much. 8-9 hours a night. I’m in awe of all you mothers and fathers who are in the season of sacrificing sleep for little ones. For now – I’m embracing my baby free sleep schedule. 

26. Risking rejection in order to find friends that enrich your life is absolutely worth it. So many of y’all want to build community, but are afraid to put yourself out there. It’s worth it though. Sign up for the group hike where you know no one. Go to the climbing gym and try to meet people. Introduce yourself even if its awkward. Find those right-fit people for your life. It’s worth it even if it takes a long time and a lot of rejection along the way. It took me about 8 months to find my now-best friends when I moved here to Colorado Springs. There was a lot of rejection and “not good fits” in the search for them, but then one day I asked one of my now best friends at a group mountain bike ride event, “hey would you like to ride again together sometime?” and she said yes. And the rest is history. 

27. Invest in yourself and your dreams. I love to learn from people who’ve gone before me and created things that I wanted to create, or who are masterful coaches who can help me unearth my own wisdom. I’ve never regretted investing in myself. 

28. When you’re thinking about quitting because it doesn’t feel like it is working… that’s usually when you need to double down on your commitment and keep going. 

29. Stop taking your own BS. If you’re consistently talking trash to yourself internally, you need to break that habit. Would you talk to your friend like that? Be no longer available to hear that kind of talk from yourself. The easiest way to do this is to hear the negative self-talk come up, and just stop it in its tracks. “I’m sorry, I’m not entertaining this line of thinking anymore.” Pattern interrupts are POWERFUL. When I was younger, I used to always body shame myself (hello women living in the patriarchy, I see you, why do we do this to ourselves???) – the biggest act of self-love I’ve given myself in my 30’s is to just literally turn off that faucet of thought. Anytime I started to say something to myself about the way I looked, I just stopped it. I didn’t try to throw some positive BS on top, I just simply discarded the thought and reminded myself that I wasn’t doing that anymore. Slowly those thoughts stopped coming. You can do this anywhere in your life. 

30. Fast gets all the attention but SLOW has all the power. It’s ok, if things take time. When we believe it’s not happening fast enough, we are missing the beauty and joys of the present moment. When we believe it’s not happening fast enough, we are robbing ourselves from experiencing joy right now. 

31. Walking when you go for a run, still counts as running IMO. 💅 Here are 8 tips for (sort of) enjoying running when you don’t associate with enjoying running.  

32. Embracing duality helps release so much judgment, shame and pressure. Embrace the “AND” in your life. I am scared AND courageous. I am lazy AND hard working. I am sometimes sad AND happy. I have self doubt AND I’m going to do it anyways. 

33. Don’t ever sell yourself short or rob yourself of your dreams just because you “hike slower” or “didn’t grow up outdoorsy” or because other people do things “better/faster” than you. If you argue for your limitations, you’ll get to keep them. But if you advocate for your possibilities in life, you’ll have a heck of a lot more fun along the way. There’s a lot of power in questions like, “But what if I could?” or statements like, “Let’s f✨ck around and find out.” 😉 Read more here. 

34. “Dogs are here to teach you that you are worthy of unconditional love and affection.” I lost my first dog, Lincoln, this year (January 2024). I had him for over 15 years (and since I was 19 years old). He was my soul dog, and it was one of my first bigger experiences with grief. A woman I met told me this sentence when I was in the middle of processing my grief of him passing away, and it brought me so much peace – knowing that he had lived his purpose, he lived a full intentional existence. And I felt grateful to have known love like that. 

35. When you’re thinking about your life and the path you’d like to pursue: “Pick the future you that is a game worth playing, whether you succeed or fail” I quit my job in engineering to pursue a life at starting my own business as an outdoor educator and life coach because it was the future me that was worth pursuing… even if I failed. What is that future you that is the game worth playing for you?

💖 ALL my best,

Allison - She Dreams of Alpine®

Creator of Become an Outdoor Backpacking Badass®

P.S. Have you joined our Black Friday Early Bird Waitlist yet? On November 18th-21st we are opening up enrollment to my signature coaching program, The Backpacking Badass Program (our online course, community and coaching program where we teach you everything you need to know about backpacking and being safe and self-sufficient anytime you hit the trail).

For many of our clients, this program was the difference between “maybe one day” and 👉 going on their first (of many) backpacking trips.

Our Black Friday is a perfect time to join us in the program and go ALL-IN on your goals to start backpacking more confidently in 2025 and beyond.

This is our FINAL enrollment of the year, and we are going BIG with our deals, bonuses, and giveaway prizes during that week. 

Early Birds get EARLY ACCESS to our deals (some are limited!). Plus, when you join our early bird list, we will also email you a Sneak Peek Guide of our bonuses and prizes for that enrollment. 👇

>> Join the Early Bird Waitlist here.