Top 5 reasons to create time in the outdoors

Time in the outdoors must be created as a part of your lifestyle. It is not something that will come naturally and is not something that you innately just do, at least not in todays era of fast paced technology and high expectations, but time in the outdoors is a core function for us as humans. Air is one of the five things we need as humans to survive, and not just artificial air that is pumped into a building. We need outside air, we need to breath in a cold winter morning, we need to exhale our energy into the universe. We need outside air to survive.

For some, however, creating time in the outdoors seems impossible. It seems like another thing to go on your “list” or something only the yogis do. Well let me just say that it is never a “to-do list” item for me and I am not a yogi. It is something I HAVE to do everyday or I feel off balance and I know for a lot of people they feel off balance right now. Whether you are struggling with setting goals for the new year, managing your work/life balance, trying to regain some normalcy after what feels like two dead years or just trying to be the best version of yourself, creating a lifestyle of time in the outdoors will make such a large impact on your life that all of the “out of balance” things will become aligned.

The list of reasons to create your own lifestyle around time in the outdoors could be thousands of pages long but for me there are five benefits to having outdoor time that enrich my life.

First and foremost being outdoors creates a connection to the universe for me. For many years of my life I was lost and confused as to why I was here that stemmed from a bad accident I had when I was 16. I was confused as to why I lived and it led to panic attacks, depression and a general lost feeling in life. You would have never known this because on the outside I appeared to have it all together. If you ever read my book How Camping Saved My Life you will understand why I did this. So after years and years of searching for my purpose and myself I found it in the outdoors. It is where I go to talk to God, where I talk to my grandfathers, where I listen for my purpose, where I feel at peace and mostly where I learn to let go of having to be in control. One of the greatest lessons nature taught me is that there are billions of things happening around me every time I step foot outside that I have no control over and I don’t need to have control over them. I learned to connect to myself and my purpose by just listening and having conversations with God and the universe. Now I am so clear on where I am going and what I am supposed to do it is like a freight train plowing through six feet of snow on the tracks, you know what I am talking about right?

Second, being outdoors reduces brain fog. We all have those times when things upstairs get clouded and you cannot seem to string two thoughts together to take action. We all go through these times and with different aspects of our lives. For me right now I am going through some fog in one specific area of a business I own. It’s frustrating and makes you just want to scream for days and days. Spending quiet time outside though is helping to clear that fog. If you just take ten minutes a day or even go out for five deep breaths in the morning you can truly reduce that fogginess. It may take several days but I assure you that if you are consistent with just a few short minutes in the outdoors in the morning that fog will start to lift, you will start to see the path and the connections you need to make will start happening.

Third being outdoors can increase your creativity. I am generally not a creative person, I am a get shit done sort of person. As I write this currently I am struggling with some creative things for my business. I just cannot seem to put the creative pieces together. So every time I feel like I am having a creative block or even when I am strategically planning for another business and get stuck on what the right step is to move them forward I take a few minutes to get outside. You can go for a short walk, go out and do some stretches or simply sit and listen for five minutes but anytime you take a second to stop and recalibrate yourself, especially by going outdoors to do it, will increase that creativity you are looking for. Image the possibility if you are stuck on something. Go outside and catch a glimpse of something that changes your whole perspective. It can really change everything for you.

Fourth, being outdoors can focus your mindset. There is nothing that makes you feel like a small spec in the universe than being outdoors, see my comment above on the billions of things going on. There is so much that we worry about on a daily basis and most of it is nonsense. Who cares if your kid is wearing mismatched socks to school, who cares if you don’t answer that persons text message right when they send it, who cares if you are not “parent of the year.” In the grand scheme of life none of that shit matters, quite frankly most of the stuff you do on a daily basis really doesn’t matter. If it is not contributing to the purpose of your life and the legacy you were meant to leave does it really even matter? The answer is no, it does not matter. Creating time for yourself in the outdoors will help you focus on what truly matters, it will help you find your purpose and give you focus on executing on that purpose everyday. If you can shift your focus to what truly matters in life then everything else will fall in line. The secret is though, you have to breakdown everything you “think” is important and ask yourself if it really is all that important. Chances are it is not. Then you will find what you are supposed to focus on.

Last, and this one you have heard time and time again, but it is your health. You only get one body, one chance at this and by being unhealthy you are wasting your chance. If someone told you that you had one chance to make your biggest dream come true wouldn’t you do everything possible to make that happen. If they gave you a deadline that you will get your dream by X date, wouldn’t you do everything to make sure you got your dream? Yes, yes you would. You wouldn’t waste time, you would make a list of what you have to do to get your dream and you would start executing on that list. Well most high achievers would. But yet the number one thing that you need to make your dream come true is to make sure you are healthy enough to fully experience your dream. I don’t need to tell you that obesity is ramped in our country and I probably don’t need to look at your waistline to tell you that you want to improve your health, but what I can tell you is that you can start living your dream by moving your body in the outdoors. The first step to getting healthy is to move your body more and combining that with moving in the outdoors will increase the longevity of your life exponentially. It will allow you to live longer and produce more for your purpose, it will allow you to show your children what is possible, it will allow you to break the cycle in your family of obesity and ultimately it will make you happier. Your body is all you truly have in this life and improving your health by moving outdoors everyday is the first step to creating the life you want.

Your life is not meant to be wasted, you are not here to just merely exist. You are here to do great things and in order to do that you need to create time in the outdoors to make yourself the best version of you. You need to clear the fog, focus your mindset, get clear on your purpose, improve your health and ultimately create the connection that we are all searching for deep down. Create the habit of getting outdoors everyday, make it a priority and start today!

- Jessica