3 Everyday adventure secrets you need to know

When I was younger I had a green Famous Five 'choose your own adventure' book.  I loved that book. It was a hand me down or it must have been from a charity shop because some of the parts where missing. This meant you couldn’t quite finish the book,  you couldn’t solve all the problems but the idea of building my own adventure, writing the story for the characters and choosing their ending was just magic.

I don't know if you've ever seen one of these books before but they often come with dice and paper torches, even a picnic card (and so much more). You have to follow the clues and you the reader, get to participate in the story by making choices. I spent hours and hours reading that book. As the 5 were drinking ginger pop and picnicking with cheese and pickles, I was using my imagination to solve the impossible puzzle, planning adventures even without all the pieces.

What I’m learning about life and the everyday adventures we are presented with - well it's pretty similar.

You see,  just like in the adventure book, we get to decide the ending. How powerful and terrifying. It's up to us to plan and push forward, to make an adventure, to be brave and open to new things.  This choice also allows us to tell a different story if we don't like the current ending, or if we don't like the direction things are headed, we get to change it.Just like with my version of the adventure book, in life, we will never have all the pieces we need to create adventures. We will never have enough time or enough money. We won't have enough energy or our friends won't be free. The timing will never be right. We just have to make adventure happen. We have to choosePart of my plan this year was to bring more adventure into my life and as much as I love big travel trips, weekends away and trying new things, I've realised, to bring more adventure into my life, I need to appreciate the everyday adventures.  The small things that make life big.  Taking the long walk home, because of the way the sunsets on the park. Trying a new pub.  Or even, just starting a conversation with the person you see on the same bus on your commute.  Everyday adventure is all around us if only we look for it.

3 Everyday adventure secrets

1. Adventure doesn’t always have to be planned. As Frodo discovered,  just walk out of your front door who knows what will happen. I take this to mean, we need to make space for adventure. Plan to have a day with no plans. Then, call a friend and see what happens. Adventure doesn't have to be elaborate, expensive or exhausting. Everyday adventures are all about the unplanned discoveries all around us - the new coffee shop, the walk you've never been on, the random meet up on Tuesday night...
2. The very definition of adventure is a daring activity. So for everyday adventures we have to bring the risk into proportion, it won't be about climbing mountains or jetting off to somewhere hot, but it could be risking getting something wrong. Or speaking up in a meeting, even when your voice shakes. It could be daring to believe in yourself or risking upsetting the normal routine, to try something new.
3. And the biggest secret of all, everyday adventure isn't actually about doing anything.  It's a mindset. It's all about wonder.  It's about looking at the world with possibility, admiration and a general feeling of amazement, because at any given moment something beautiful and remarkable could happen.

We will never have all the pieces we need, the timing will never be perfect and the ending will always be unclear, but the best part of this, is we get to decide. We are the narrator the writer and the characters and an adventure is an adventure even when the ending is an unknown.

I hope you enjoy your week of everyday adventures. Tag #storiesfromabackpack on instagram, I'd love to see what you get up too. I'll share the best adeventures this week!If you can't wait until next Monday for another post, why not sign up to my newsletter - Once Upon a time... Your weekly dose of stories, inspiration and motivation, delivered every Thursday.