I recently added a new facet to my identity. I am a mom, wife, coach, entrepreneur, among many other things, and am now also a super cool biker chick. Okay, maybe more like an aspiring super cool biker chick.
We live right on the bench of the Wasatch Mountains, and we have access to many amazing canyons, all within 30 minutes of us.
Over the last couple of summers, we have been loving taking rides up the canyons, but we can only carry four of the five of us on the bikes. And so it hasn’t been able to be a full family activity until now. So I got myself a trike motorcycle so that we can all go on rides as a family.
My trike is a manual transmission, so it’s not as simple as hopping on and hitting the gas and going for a ride. It’s actually a whole thing.
It is a whole new set of skills and coordinating all the puzzle pieces in a whole new way. I felt like my brain was on fire while operating a moving vehicle.
My practice experience
I went out with my husband to practice. I had wanted to go to a parking lot, but my husband knew I needed to get actual road experience.
About two minutes in, when I came to my first light and stalled trying to start in first gear three times in a row, and there was a car behind me waiting for me to get going, I had a little toddler brain tantrum.
It sounded something like, “I don’t want to do this, this is too hard, I can’t do this, there’s too much pressure, this is impossible, I want to go home.”
My husband reminded me of why I wanted this trike. I wanted to go on family rides, and there was no way to learn but to do it.
And so I took the handlebars, and I tried again. It was a struggle.
I wanted to quit several other times, let me tell you. My husband was on the back, and there were plenty of moments where my brain was tired of all the deliberate thinking and coordinating and wanted just to let him drive me home.
But I reminded myself of why I was doing this, that I could do hard things until they felt easy, that I would only learn by doing this over and over. And by the end of that hour-long ride, it was feeling easier.
It was feeling a little less deliberate, a little more automatic.
I still have a way to go. But I can see how my success compounds each time I go. It’s not like starting over every time. I take what I built the previous day, and I build on it the next.
Weight loss mindset
You know where this is going, right? This is the same with all the skills we are trying to build in the process of mindset weight loss.
Planning with your adult brain. Executing your plan no matter how much your toddler brain tantrums. Listening to hunger. Being present and aware while eating so you can listen to satiety. Becoming aware of emotions.
This process is about deliberately choosing with intention, thoughts, feelings, and actions that get you closer to future you.
It’s not about staying in the parking lot. It’s about being willing to get out on the road with all of the challenges and obstacles and other cars and show yourself what you’re capable of.
It’s about knowing why you are doing this, loving those reasons, and reminding yourself of it every single time your toddler brain offers you the easier way out.
It’s doing the work on your mind, not just changing what you eat.
It’s about patience, persistence, and practice.
It’s about believing on purpose that you will figure it out.
That even if you feel like giving up, and even if you do give up for a minute, you can choose to take a deep breath and keep going.
It’s about doing the things that feel hard repeatedly until they feel easy until they go from deliberate to automatic.
Then, get out there and make it happen. Before long, you’ll find you have learned by doing.
And if you want to learn more from me about how to lose weight for the last time, watch my free video about how to lose the first five pounds — and keep going.
