“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” ― Confucius

If you ever get a chance to visit the Smoky Mountains and hike its winding trails, I suggest you go on your next road trip or vacation.

As I previously stated in the opener of this Moving Mountains series, I spent my last weekend of summer camping right in the middle of the Smoky’s last Summer. Running on three hours of sleep in a long car ride, my fiance and I hit the ground running. Once we set up our tent and gathered tools to make a fire and grabbed last minute items for dinner and breakfast, we hiked the mountains. Other than recently hiking the mountains we have in Arkansas, they were minute compared to what I had experienced. By no means did we climb anything like the Rocky Mountains or Mount Everest, but they had been the biggest, most beautiful mountains I have seen to date. And I conquered just a tiny piece of one.

My fiance and I6,644 feet. I found myself getting short of breath and getting a little bit chilly in the drop of temperature. Because it was so “smoky”, I could not really see where I had started and where I was going to end up, hence the name, Smoky Mountains. There was nowhere but up. But we finally stopped. We reached its peak, standing in the dome, overlooking the mountains. And a form of energy came over me. I was running on absolute adrenaline that I decided to run back and forth up the dome, disappearing in the fog.

On the way back home, hiking was all I could think about. It inspired me to take after running before class during the week, and it developed a new way of thinking.

What was my mountain during that weekend? What kept pushing me forward? Was it because I had a fiance that kept pushing my limits, not letting me catch my breath for more than 30 seconds? Was it because I was running on adrenaline and I had not realized how far I was going? Or was it because of God’s strength I did something I was not used to doing on my own?

Although I believe it was a mixture of these, one thing stands to be true:

I named my mountain.

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So, what is your mountain?

If you could name one thing, the biggest obstacle that stood in your way between you and your destination, what would that thing be?

For some people, it may be money and financial issues. For others, it may be health concerns, or simply “not enough time.”

Whatever it is, name it and claim it.

Want to start a small business but afraid of rejection? Name the mountain, Rejection. Now, what do you do next? How do you “move” Rejection? You claim it.

How do you go forth without being stopped by rejection? Simply make the decision to conquer, and conquer with confidence. The biggest key to being successful in moving your mountains is focusing on what you can do, not what you can not do. If you believe that you are not able, then you are not able.

“Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.” (Mark 11:23)

The Bible says that if you have faith in your progress, you will move mountains. If you believe that you will fail, then you will fail because you spoke life into that statement. Do not give negative statements a place in your mentality. Often, our biggest enemy is ourselves. We are our own worst enemies. While everyone is telling us what we can conquer, we only hear reasons why we can not. We go out of our way to look for problems that are non-existent to find reasons to stop ourselves from doing the very thing we want to accomplish. Stop this mentality and own your mountain.

Look at your mountain and tell it to simply, “move."

You might just find out that the very idea you thought was stopping you from achieving your goal was only the stepping stone guiding you to your next destination. Ride the mountain.