Wellness Wednesday - meeting our need for adventure

What is your idea of adventure? For some it is undertaking extreme sports and for others it could be travelling to another country. Do you prefer a ride in the park or a ride up a mountain? Would you rather row down your local river or row down the Amazon river? How many times have you done something for fun that was also a little (or very) scary?

Richard Branson was once asked about how he felt about the risks that he has taken over the years. He replied that he hadn't taken any. He had made calculated decisions in which he worked out if he could handle the worse possible outcome from undertaking a particular challenge.

We all have a need for some adventure in our lives to meet our Core Need for uncertainty. Too much certainty imprisons us in a very small comfort zone. Too much uncertainty can cause chaos. So how do we decide what is what is too little, what is too much and what is enough? And how do we meet this need resourcefully; obtainable and sustainably?

The amount of variety and adventure that we have in our lives partly depends on which Core Need is the more important to us out of these two. If your top Core Need is certainty then you will need less adrenaline pumping adventure, and if your top Core Need is variety then you may need a little more. However even if your top Core Need is uncertainty, this can be more about your need for variety than adventure, and for other people it is more about adventure than variety.

 When we are feeling overwhelmed this can be because we are meeting our need for uncertainty and this is one of the unresourceful ways to meet it. There will always be times in our lives when events are overwhelming but when we can't decide if we should tackle task 1 or task 2 first so we become overwhelmed and tackle neither, this is meeting our need or uncertainty. Other unresourceful ways to meet it include getting drunk, taking illegal drugs, changing TV channels, self-sabotage and creating drama in our lives.
Resourceful ways to meet our need for variety and adventure include being playful and having fun, embracing adventure, having different hobbies, being creative and taking on new challenges that help us grow as a person.

We don't have to snowboard, bungee jump or para glide to meet our need for uncertainty. Taking up a new hobby or reviving an old hobby can meet our need for variety and travelling to a new town or wilderness can meet our need for adventure.

 A weekend away in a little town that you have never visited before or a holiday to a destination that you have read about and always wanted to visit can be a wonderful way to meet our need for variety and adventure.

have fun
Sarah