{"id":25570,"date":"2026-01-15T18:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/25570\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:13:09","slug":"the-mental-trick-that-helped-this-guy-climb-kilimanjaro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/25570\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mental Trick That Helped This Guy Climb Kilimanjaro"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first day of hiking Kilimanjaro traverses a dense rainforest, and so Rob Levin couldn\u2019t see the mountain he had set out to conquer. The group he was with reached a clearing on day two, and then there it was: a hulking pyramid of rock and snow, far in the distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mouth fell open like a cartoon character,\u201d says Levin, 54. \u201cMy husband just looked at me and laughed.\u201d Levin couldn\u2019t imagine a reality in which he\u2019d be standing on top of the monster looming in front of him. <\/p>\n

Levin\u2019s husband, Curtis, had been talking for years about climbing Africa\u2019s tallest mountain, and so Levin agreed to join him as a Christmas present two years ago. It\u2019s fair to say Levin isn\u2019t an outdoorsman: this was his first lengthy overnight trip in the woods, and his only hiking experience was the paved path in Muir Woods. <\/p>\n

Already feeling defeated on day one, Levin crashed into a sleeping bag that night and pulled out his phone. He opened Babbel, the app he had been using for a year to learn German, and completed the day\u2019s lesson. And it brought him comfort in a way he just didn\u2019t predict. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything climbing the mountain felt very foreign and different. It felt like being on another planet,\u201d Levin says. \u201cDoing this lesson, it felt very familiar to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He promised himself right there he\u2019d continue his nightly German lesson for the rest of the nine-day hike, bringing a little normalcy while tackling the mountain. A micro-habit, some people call it, and experts say it\u2019s a way to help the rest of us climb the figurative Kilimanjaros in our lives. <\/p>\n

Taking on these tiny new daily tasks can be a way to literally rewire our brain to how we think about something we previously thought was outside of what we\u2019re capable of doing, says Lindsey Tomayko<\/a>, a licensed professional clinical counselor in West Hollywood who does coaching in the corporate sector. Start with something small, repeatable, like breathing exercises or a 10-minute walk in that moment of the day when some work task seems impossible to overcome. <\/p>\n

Changes in our routine can trigger the brain\u2019s fight-or-flight instinct, but make the changes small enough and they\u2019ll simply become habit after doing them a few times. \u201cYou might start out saying that there\u2019s no way this micro-habit can be something you can take on,\u201d Tomayko says. \u201cBut if you do it enough times, soon you\u2019ll realize, \u2018I am someone who does this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Changing something major about yourself can begin with creating a small routine that reflects how you want to be. That\u2019s the idea of the book Tiny Habits<\/a> by BJ Fogg, who runs the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford. Fogg dreamed up the idea of a tiny habit when he was trying unsuccessfully to get into the routine of flossing. He came to the idea of flossing one single tooth a day, a commitment so small, how could he fail? Fogg spent a decade studying the idea, working with 40,000 people on using tiny habits to change big things about them, like turning journaling, meditation, or exercise into a daily routine.<\/p>\n

For Levin, who manages a performing arts center in San Francisco, the dream of climbing Kilimanjaro had been something he absolutely did not share with his husband; he\u2019d rather be at home with their pug, Daisy. \u201cThis is something he wanted to do, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Have at it. Have fun.\u2019\u201d But when a couple friends backed out of scheduled trips, Levin decided he\u2019d be his husband\u2019s hiking partner. They recruited a college friend, Kris Jarvis, and set off in June for Tanzania. <\/p>\n

Using the tour company Tusker Trail<\/a>, their party of three had two guides, a medic, and 22 staff members. \u201cIt was literally a village of people. There were cooks and porters and someone who was just in charge of the chemical toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hike began June 22. They chose a route with the highest success rate\u2014seven days up, two days down. At the beginning, it\u2019s a slog but essentially just a steady upward walk. Then comes the Barranco Wall, a ledge below not as wide as your feet, his nose rubbing against the volcanic rock. The ice came next, crampons on his boots and tiny steps to prevent a fall. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou just had to find something inside you to say, OK, let\u2019s just look at tomorrow and get through tomorrow,\u201d Levin says. For him, it was the language app, Babbel<\/a>, which he fired up at the end of the long days. The app keeps track of daily streaks, and Levin had maintained his for about a year. He had a goal of becoming fluent before the next time he visited an old friend in Germany. \u201cI never would\u2019ve thought that I would be motivated by keeping the streak going but it was the opposite. It became very, very motivating to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

That daily habit also became a solace on those nights in tents approaching Kilimanjaro. He quickly realized the comparison: If he can become fluent by daily habits over the course of months, he could conquer this mountain too, simply by thinking about the task in front of him, not the six more days of climbing. <\/p>\n

\"person<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Rob Levin<\/p>\n

On day seven, when they reached the summit, Levin surprised himself with tears. \u201cThere was a mixture of emotions. Tears just started uncontrollably. It almost felt like a cliche in some movie.\u201d Nobody else was there for 45 minutes. The crew sang traditional Swahili songs about victory, climbing, and Kilimanjaro. They had lunch, and then they headed down, finishing the route on June 30. <\/p>\n

When we spoke, Levin\u2019s streak of daily German lessons had hit 444 days. \u201cWhen I think about it, that\u2019s a long time to do anything every single day,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s given me a perspective that I didn\u2019t have before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, when Levin faces a difficult task at work, or even something small he just doesn\u2019t want to start, he remembers the mountain in the distance, looking undefeatable, but possible with one small task at a time. <\/p>\n

Related Stories\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Eric Barton is a Miami-based freelance journalist who has written for Outside, Food & Wine, and Flamingo, and he can regularly be found eating bowls of ramen and biking the Blue Ridge Parkway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first day of hiking Kilimanjaro traverses a dense rainforest, and so Rob Levin couldn\u2019t see the mountain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[15734,15737,15735,15738,6529,15736,152],"class_list":{"0":"post-25570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tanzania","8":"tag-content-type-how-to-service","9":"tag-contentid-2ffda7ce-c0e4-4fdc-a42f-f82314032a63","10":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","11":"tag-hasproduct-true","12":"tag-locale-us","13":"tag-shorttitle-this-micro-habit-helped-this-guy-hit-a-major-peak","14":"tag-tanzania"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}