One of the most useful ideas I’ve taken from exercise is that our capacity can change.
A weight that once felt heavy can become manageable. A long walk that once left us exhausted can eventually feel ordinary. We expose ourselves to a challenge, recover, and gradually develop the ability to handle more.
I often think about this beyond physical training. When something feels difficult or unfamiliar, I try to remember that my current ability to handle it may not be my permanent ability.
That thought has helped shape how I approach uncertainty, discomfort, and the challenges I choose to take on.
What training teaches us
In strength training, we place demands on our muscles and nervous system. With appropriate training and recovery, we can develop greater strength and capacity.
As we adapt, we can gradually increase the challenge. This is the principle of progressive overload.
It’s often explained as creating tiny tears in muscle fibres that are then repaired stronger. The biology is more complicated than that, and muscle damage itself isn’t the goal. What interests me here is the broader relationship between a challenging demand, recovery, and adaptation.
The size of that demand matters.
Something comfortably within our ability may provide little reason to develop further. While attempting far more than we can currently manage can leave us injured rather than stronger.
Recovery matters too. We wouldn’t expect endless hard training without rest to produce endless improvement.
When I apply this idea to life, I want to carry those qualifications with it.
The difficulty of a first experience
The first time you encounter a difficult situation, part of the stress can come from having no reference point.
You don’t know what to expect. You may not know how you’ll respond, what decisions you’ll need to make, or whether the feelings you’re experiencing will become manageable.
Afterwards, you may have something you didn’t have before: experience.
Perhaps you learnt how to ask for help. Perhaps you discovered that you could make a decision while frightened, tolerate an uncomfortable feeling, or find another way forward when your original plan failed.
A similar situation might still be difficult the next time. But you may approach it with more knowledge and a little less uncertainty.
For me, that is one way adaptation can show up in everyday life. The situation hasn’t necessarily become easier; my ability to navigate it has developed.
Learning to be alone
Being alone is one example.
If you’re accustomed to having company, spending time by yourself can initially feel uncomfortable. There’s nobody to fill the silence, share the decisions, or distract you from your thoughts.
But spending manageable periods alone can also be an opportunity to become more familiar with yourself. You begin to notice what makes you uncomfortable, what you enjoy, and how you respond when there isn’t someone else there to lean on immediately.
Over time, solitude may become less intimidating.
That doesn’t mean you stop needing people. I value connection, and being able to spend time alone doesn’t make companionship unimportant. It simply gives me another capacity: the ability to feel more at ease in my own company.
Solo hiking brings that experience into a particularly vivid setting.
Why I hike alone
For me, solo hiking has been a way to intentionally challenge both my physical endurance and my ability to manage uncertainty.
Physically, there is the prolonged effort of walking, climbing, and navigating uneven terrain. Mentally, there is the knowledge that I’m responsible for my decisions.
Which way should I go? How much energy do I have left? What happens if the weather changes? What should I do if the path ahead isn’t what I expected?
Then there are all the possibilities my imagination contributes.
A threat doesn’t have to be present for the thought of it to feel stressful. Alone in the wild, it can be easy to mentally explore everything that could go wrong.
That is part of the challenge for me: recognising those thoughts while staying attentive to what is actually happening.
I still need to assess real risks. But I also need enough calm to distinguish a practical problem from a frightening possibility.
Working through uncertainty
Imagine reaching a section of trail where the route is unclear.
Continuing immediately might feel appealing because movement gives the impression of progress. But if I’m heading in the wrong direction, moving faster won’t help.
I need to pause, observe, and work out what information I have. Where did I last know my position? What does the map show? Is it sensible to continue, retrace my steps, or turn back?
This is the kind of problem-solving I value about hiking alone.
I’m practising making decisions while uncomfortable. I don’t have to eliminate every anxious thought before acting, but I do need to prevent those thoughts from making the decision for me.
When I work through a situation like that, I gain a reference point. The next time uncertainty arises, I can remember that feeling uncertain doesn’t automatically mean I’m incapable of responding.
I think that lesson has value well beyond the trail.
The challenge has to fit the person
There is a danger in taking this idea too far.
If some challenge can help us develop, it’s tempting to assume that a greater challenge must produce greater growth. But the training analogy itself should make us question that.
We wouldn’t advise a beginner to lift the heaviest weight they can find. Likewise, I don’t think deliberately placing myself in overwhelming situations is a sensible way to build resilience.
With hiking, preparation is part of choosing the challenge: understanding the route, accounting for conditions, carrying appropriate supplies, and making sure someone knows my plans.
Turning back can also be a good decision. If I ignore changing conditions or an injury because I want to prove my toughness, I’ve misunderstood the point.
What matters to me is developing judgement alongside confidence.
When life chooses the challenge
Of course, many of the hardest experiences in life aren’t chosen.
A breakup, the death of someone we love, or a period of unwanted isolation can arrive without regard for our readiness.
I can see how navigating an experience like that might help someone develop ways of coping. They may come to understand their needs, recognise sources of support, or discover that feelings they once thought unbearable can change over time.
But I wouldn’t describe grief as a workout or assume that a second loss will hurt less because someone has experienced the first.
Every relationship and every loss is different. Previous hardship may give us resources to draw upon; it can also leave us more vulnerable. Growth isn’t guaranteed, and someone who is struggling hasn’t failed to adapt.
This is where I see the exercise comparison as a useful perspective rather than a rule that explains every kind of suffering.
Making room for recovery
The part of adaptation that’s easiest to overlook is what happens after the challenge.
In exercise, recovery is part of the process. Yet in everyday life, we can expect ourselves to move straight from one difficult experience into the next.
I don’t think that expectation makes much sense.
After a demanding period, I want to make room for the things that help me recover: sleep, food, movement I can manage, time with people I trust, and some space to process what happened. Sometimes support may need to come from a professional.
It also takes reflection to understand what an experience has taught me.
What helped? What made things worse? What would I do differently? Was the challenge useful, or did I simply take on too much?
Those questions matter if I want experience to inform my future decisions.
Becoming more capable
What draws me to stress and adaptation is the possibility that something difficult today may become more manageable over time.
I can develop skills. I can become more familiar with uncertainty. I can learn when to act, when to pause, and when to ask for help.
Solo hiking gives me a setting in which to practise some of that deliberately. It asks me to keep moving through physical effort while thinking carefully about unfamiliar situations.
I don’t come away believing that I can handle anything. I do come away with a better understanding of what I can handle—and what I still need to learn.
That feels like a worthwhile kind of resilience to develop.
What once felt difficult to you that experience has made more manageable?