Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 6:19PM | Amy C What My Mountain Bike Taught Me
lessons from a mountain bike
I’m hurling down a steep descent, gripping the handlebars of the hunk of steel beneath me as roots, rocks and trees blur past. I’m trying desperately to remember everything I’d been taught to do: look ahead, relax, watch for rocks as you pedal, don’t hit a tree, don’t look down, don’t hit the front break too hard, remember what leg to have down on the corners.
I’m quickly consumed with the overwhelming sense that I’m losing—no, by this time I’ve lost—control.
Instinctively, I slow down and then stop. My breath is heavy and my heart is racing. I look behind me at the terrain I’d just covered (whoa! I rode down that?), and then I look ahead and assess what’s coming up.
It only takes a few minutes for my breathing to calm down and my heart to settle into a more relaxed beat. The adrenaline slowly leaves my system and my mind clears.
I sit back on the seat, point the front tire downhill and breathe in one more time before taking off again to meet up with my friends. This time I’m not going quite so fast. And I’m not merely hanging on for dear life. I’m enjoying the rush of the wind against my cheeks. I can smell the damp soil of the loamy trail mingling with the pine trees.
I’m in control and know where I'm going. Everything makes sense again and I'm not longer gripped with fear. This, it's easy to remember now, is fun.
honing my instincts
My entrepreneurial instincts aren’t quite so well-honed.
In my day to day life, I forget the simple lesson to slow down and breathe when I start feeling out of control. Instead, my emergency training kicks in and it’s all about triage, crisis management and putting out fires. My head goes down with blinders on. All I can see is what’s immediately in front of me, as though I’m swimming in open water, watching my hands pull through the water, stroke after stroke, without ever coming up for air.
If you've ever watched the swim portion of a triathlon and felt sorry for those poor souls swimming their hearts out, heading way off course because they never take a moment to look up at where they're going, you'll agree that this is not the most efficient way to run a business.
Even though I’m fairly new to both mountain biking and starting a business, my survival instincts for one don’t seem to have carried over to the other.
And that’s a shame, because there’s a lot to be said for looking up once in awhile to focus on the big picture instead of the minutiae—regardless of what it is we’re doing.
I work with this issue a lot with my life coaching clients, so you’d think it’d come naturally to me, but case in point, it’s a lot easier to see the big picture when you’re not immersed in the details. And it’s easy for all of us to get lost in the details of our own lives.
redirect the energy toward the purposeful
When we get overwhelmed, it can easily spiral out of control. We worry and stress that we’re not getting everything done, even when our idea of “everything” isn’t well-defined. It’s like a big cloud hanging over our head, ready to pour down disaster in the form of stinging sleet pellets.
So what can we do? How can we stop The Overwhelm and find our purpose again?
I’m taking a cue from my mountain biking survival instincts:
Slow down and stop for just a moment. Take time to refocus on the bigger picture.
Then redirect the energy you feel from stress and worry and redirect it towards purpose.
Take a look at what you’ve already accomplished and recognize how far you’ve come. Re-assess what’s important, focus on your overall goals and prioritize accordingly.
Then point the handlebars forward, start pedaling and feel the wind on your cheeks.
welcome
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Reader Comments (5)
Hi Amy. I lived this post too. My relationship with mt biking is somewhat uneasy. A local free skills clinic helped me regain some confidence. But I"m still a beginner, and my shift to road biking--more of a return since that had been first anyway--is where I'm heading now. But I'm keeping my little mt bike regardless.
Thanks for that image of the triathletes swimming their hearts out in the wrong direction. I've always been a "nose to the grindstone" type and looking up every once in a while at the big picture is helpful. I'm just afraid that I will, indeed, figure out that I'm going the wrong way. And sometimes that seems too overwhelming. But stop and breathe, right?
Vicki,
Glad to hear you're keeping the mtn bike... it's definitely good fun in an entirely different way than a road bike. (And always good for cross training).
Kim,
YES! Stop and breathe. :)
Hi, Amy, you might find this website interesting for your new project: http://www.mybodygallery.com/index.html