Focus On The Positive with Cindy Abbott

Image courtesy of ReachingBeyondTheClouds.com

I love the title of your blog: Focus on the Positive! The power of positive thinking is limitless – I know firsthand.

In 2007, after 14 years of experiencing the frightening symptoms of an unexplained illness, I was finally diagnosed with a serious and rare disease. That, however, did not stop me from reaching for my dreams. A few months later, at the age of 48, I took up mountain climbing with the single goal of standing on the top of the world. And at age 51, I took up sled dog racing with the single goal of completing the 1000-mile Alaskan Iditarod Sled Dog Race. I was told that these things were impossible, but I proved them wrong. I am now the only woman in the world to have both summited Mt. Everest and completed the Iditarod. 

People ask me how I do these things. First, I am an adventurer (not a risk-taker) and life is for living. So I developed my 10-feet-at-a-time approach. “Don’t worry about that mountain so high in the sky, just focus on the 10 feet in front of you.” This is literally how I climbed every mountain, ran the Iditarod sled dog race, and manage my disease. I have found this approach works for every aspect of life.  

You can read about it in my book Reaching Beyond the Clouds: From Undiagnosed to Climbing Mt Everest.

- Cindy Abbott