My mom is learning to ride a bike for the first time while training for a triathlon and it reminded me of how stressful it was for me to learn to ride a motorcycle (without any training). While I was learning, I tried to take in everyone’s advice that I had heard from t.v., friends, etc. and apply it to real life. Lots of it didn’t really make sense until I was actually moving forward and realized I had no idea what I was doing. I was scared but I was determined. I went awhile feeling like I wasn’t making progress. I slowly made progress and got my license and now I ride all the time. I learned two quotes that helped me then and I use them all the time now. “Look where you want to go” and “Don’t stare at (or follow) the other guy”.

That really applies in so many ways to everything we do in life. Lots of people just focus on what they are doing that moment, they look for ways out, they try to hop off when things get scary, etc when you really need to just look forward and keep your eyes on the road. If you stare at the lights of the guy in front of you, you will never pass them. I always try to look at things not so much as a finish line but more as thousands of tiny obstacles. It’s easy to move forward 1 more inch, but it’s hard to imagine moving miles, right? When you are driving or riding something, you naturally move towards whatever you are looking at. If you are staring at the ground, you will probably fall. If you stare to the right, you will move to the right. If you focus on moving forward, you will move forward. You can’t always go the direction you want, but you will do better if you just keep looking forward.

When I broke my leg, I got in the funk of looking down. I stopped moving and I got discouraged. I knew I needed to keep looking forward and so I did. I could barely pick up a marble with my toes and struggled to do any motion with my leg at all. I couldn’t put weight on it, I couldn’t imagine it was possible for me to stand without being in extreme pain. I was supposed to go from no weight bearing to 100% weight bearing in 2 weeks… I read blogs of other people who took a very long time to recover from a similar injury and some couldn’t walk for months! I knew it would take pain to make gains but I wasn’t able to push myself to put my weight on it. It just hurt too much. My P.T. wanted me to try walking around with one crutch and I decided to look forward and just deal with the pain. I took a couple steps with the crutch and it hurt… Bad.. I decided to ignore the pain and I dropped the crutch.. I started walking! Everyone in my P.T. was blown away. I was blown away… I looked forward and decided to push myself as hard as I could. My brain was be telling me to stop and my muscles were fighting back in pain but I pushed anyways… I was moving forward. I realized that I was holding myself back. It wasn’t the pain, it was my fear. That moment was a breakthrough for me and I knew I needed to just keep looking forward. I started pushing myself to do more than I thought I could each visit and every visit I was making progress. I still haven’t hit my goal and it’s been over 1 year. I really expected to have hit my goal by 6 months and it could be another year for all I know but it’s not the finish line I’m focusing on. I just want to keep looking forward.

I’m really proud of everything my mom is doing right now with her fitness and overcoming her fears. I’m sure she will have times where other people, her body, her mind, etc are all telling her to quit… Just look where you want to go, ignore all of them and don’t look at the other guy.

Look where you want to go, push yourself past your fears and you’ll get there, one inch at a time.