Congratulations! You’ve passed your assessment, and you’re now a Mountain Leader. That might be as far as you want to go with outdoor qualifications, and that’s fine – well done for getting this far. But on the other hand you might want to progress further and go for Winter Mountain Leader (winter ML), Mountain Instructor Award (MIA), or International Mountain Leader (IML). We’ll be focusing on MIA here. It is a big step up, but here are some tips to make it easier.

The New Year has come and gone – the time of year when many people are setting resolutions and hoping to make a change in their lives. But how many people do you know who have already failed by half-way through January? So what are we all doing wrong? One possibility is that we are setting resolutions rather than goals. A resolution tends to be general and a bit vague. I’m going to climb harder this year. I’m going to eat more healthily. I’m going to...  But a goal can and should be very specific.