How to Be Your Most Adventurous Self

I live an adventurous life, but I didn’t always.

Words by Erin Sullivan of Erin Outdoors, photos by Ali V. This post is the first in a four-part series on BLDG25 about challenging yourself and living adventurously.

I live an adventurous life, but I didn’t always.

So I’ll start at the beginning. I’m from the suburbs. I wasn’t outdoorsy. I didn’t even play sports as a kid. But as I grew out of my hometown, I noticed a cloud of wanderlust following me everywhere I went, so I listened to it.

I decided I was going to travel, and over the course of the past seven years, I’ve been ice climbing in Alaska, hiked volcanoes in Guatemala, and gotten heat stroke in Myanmar (that last one is not recommended).

FP Turnout Legging, Lattice Back Bra, Axl Tank

Adventure shapes you. It pulls you out of your comfortable life and shakes you awake. It makes your hair stand on end. It’s the static that shocks you. It’s the sand in between your toes and the person you talked to at 2 am on the streets of Rome.

That might sound like it’s out of reach. I promise, it’s not. Not at all.

If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that there are no rules for adventure. There is no one way to do it. You are multi-dimensional, and so is your life.

Adventure can be found every day – it’s not just the big stuff. It comes in small steps too. Remove limits from your vocabulary and from your mind.

Stop saying you don’t have time, and stop saying you don’t have money. Instead, decide how to spend each of those commodities a little bit differently.

High Waisted Legging

Do something that scares you every single day. It sounds canned, but it matters. Talk to a stranger. Try a new food. Go to a yoga class, even if you think you’re going to hate it. Make a bold statement. Get scared and stay in the fear for a little longer than you’d like to.

Say yes. Say yes to things outside of your normal. Say yes to your mom when she asks you for a favor. Say yes to that person who wants to take you for coffee. Say yes when you are absolutely terrified – push yourself through it and soak in everything you’ll learn (because you will learn). It’s rarely comfortable and seldom easy, but it’s how you get to those moments of wonder. It’s how you get to the moment where you catch yourself asking, “How is this my life? How did I get so lucky?”

Living an adventurous life doesn’t mean you get on a plane to Fiji tomorrow. It rarely means that.

Living adventurously is a mindset where you remove the limits you place on yourself. One where you believe anything is possible– in fact, already you are possible. And if you want to go to Fiji, you will. As long as you decide to, you’ll go wherever you want to.

+ How do you live adventurously?

Erin runs a blog called Erin Outdoors, which is a documentation of her experiences traveling and out in the backcountry. For more about Erin, check out her blog at erinoutdoors.com and her Instagram at @erinoutdoors, and be sure to follow her on FP Me for even more inspiration!

Ali V. is a photographer based in Boulder, Colorado. Find her more of her work at Ali-V.co or on Instagram at @alisonvagnini.