The ability to overcome adversity is perhaps the number one gift cycling gives to us.
Think of the struggles you experience in cycling outside of simply the pain.
Have you ever found yourself quitting a workout or race because your performance is falling short of your expectations?
What about having something outside of your control strip an opportunity away you worked hard for?
Or how about making a costly mistake that resulted in missing out on an accomplishment you thought you had in the bag?
These common struggles above suck, and seem to happen more often than none. While most see them as “bad luck” or a curse, they can actually be viewed as gifts.
Just like in life, in cycling things often don’t work out the way you want. Sh$t happens and we have two choices: rise up and use the struggle to move forward, or lower ourself to below the spot we are in. It’s really that simple.
But you can use the common struggles we have on cycling to practice overcoming moments like these be changing your thinking. Instead of getting “stuck” in these moments, shift your mindset focus and use them to personally grow!
Growth is there for the taking! The reality is, these “bad” times are where you will actually find what you need to create the “good.” You will move forward when the bad happens by adapting and growing to a new level. New abilities are built when you pivot and overcome the bad.
Change your mindset and perspective to now look at experiences, events, and days that do not live up to your expectations as GROWTH. With each of these moments that you fall short, see as an opportunity to pivot, adapt, and GROW new ability, skill, and knowledge.
But what about those easy days where everything seems to click? Well you can still use them, just change your perspective of them too! Look at these experiences that do go as planned as PRACTICE. The truth is when it goes to plan, you are simply practicing what you already can do. You are using our ability, skill, and direction that you already have.
To progress in cycling and in life, from a high-performance perspective, you need both continuous GROWTH and PRACTICE. Progress is a constant balance between these two.
So now OVERCOME using cycling by changing your perspective of what struggle represents in your progress.
