No Brakes!
Last November I experienced a bad bicycle crash that really hurt me. Six weeks after my crash I started riding again but noticed I was unsure and nervous on the bike. I didn’t want to crash again and experience the extreme pain I had endured. A few weeks ago I joined a team to race in an endurance mountain bike race. I entered this race specifically to confront my fears. The first lap of the race was nerve-racking for me. I was hyperventilating and gripped my handle bars so tight that my hands quickly went numb. I was glad to hand the baton to my teammate when I finished the lap.
I did much better on my second lap, I was more relaxed and a little more confident. But, about half way through the lap I was being pursued hard by two riders as I was climbing the single track trail up a narrow ridge. After cresting the ridge I was bounding down and feathering my brakes because I was nervous. expired domains All of a sudden the guy behind me starts yelling “no brakes, don’t use your brakes.” This freaked me out a little so when I got to a clearing at the bottom of the hill I let him pass.
At first, I was shaken and a little offended but as I raced along I realized that the guy that was yelling no brakes really gave me good advice. I am a fairly competent rider on a high-tech full suspension bike and there was really no reason for me to slow down while bounding down that hill. On my third lap I found myself repeating no breaks over and over in my head as I attacked the course as best I could.
The week following the race I reflected on this a lot. I realized that it was the fear of crashing that was causing me to slow down. Then I thought about some of the other things in life and business that I was trying to accomplish, issues that were frustrating to me because they were moving too slow. I realized that I was putting the breaks on lots of things. It was my mind that was in the way.
All of us have desires to accomplish and create all sorts of things but for some reason we put on the brakes because we’re afraid to crash. We talk ourselves out of things all the time. Perhaps we’re afraid because we don’t receive validation from friends, family or coworkers. Our brains willingly accept their advice even though it goes against what we believe in our hearts. This is especially true if you’re trying to create something that’s never existed before, which I suspect is very often the case.
If we want to change we have to overcome the little voice inside our heads that doubts us. Yes, we will sometimes experience failure but we have to understand that failure is an integral part of success. Success and failure go hand in hand. It’s even possible to fail because of your success. When you’re successful you keep doing what made you successful to stay successful. But, the world changes around you and you can’t stay the same. That’s why the slogan for this blog is, “What got you here isn’t going to get you there.”
Don’t use your brakes.
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May you forever be reminded to forge ahead in pursuit of what really matters.
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