Coast, Climb, & Rest
Last week on a beautiful summer day, I found myself enjoying a long walk. In this particular location, the footpaths and bike paths sometimes run parallel to each other, and in other places they crisscross in a weaving pattern. While walking, I noticed a young girl riding a bike, she was maybe five years old. We were in a section of the park where our paths were intersecting, so I saw her several times.
As I watched her ride – with her dad jogging alongside and cheering her on – I realized this was a good mental picture of how my life has felt over the last two years.
I noticed that she moved between three distinct phases: coasting downhill, climbing uphill, and getting off the bike to rest. However, each of these stages required a different skill set.
To coast downhill, we need two skills; balance and the ability to use the brakes. If those two things are at our disposal, we can enjoy speeding downhill.
Climbing uphill requires a different pair of skills. In this phase balance and strength are the priority. Unfortunately, these two can sometimes work against each other. As we stand up on a bike to assert more strength it often throws off our balance. Building muscle memory to allow balance and strength to work together requires consistent practice.
However, for many of us, the most difficult phase of all seems to be getting off the bike to rest. Oddly enough, this only requires that we know how to use the brakes. On some bikes this means squeezing a handbrake, on others, it means moving the pedals backward, and sometimes it simply means putting your foot down. Read that again; to stop you just need to put your foot down. If only it felt that simple in real life!
In many ways, this moment of observation captured a part of what has been painful for me during my COVID experience. My life – both personally and professionally – was forced into a space that required me to use balance, strength, and brakes. On most days I was aware of any one of those, but rarely was I focused on all three.
My need to practice balance had me reevaluating my client portfolio as well as my revenue streams. I knew I needed better balance in these two areas. The need for strength was telling me to keep pushing forward and to innovate with opportunity. I wanted to grow, and I needed to step into what was ahead of me.
Balance was focusing on my left and right while strength was dialed in to what was ahead. It has been interesting to navigate what felt like competing needs. I am now reimaging these not as competing but as complementary.
However, the skill I need to practice the most is knowing when to hit the brakes. I dropped the “hustle and grind because life is really hard” mentality a long time ago. Over the last few years, I have found myself holding more tightly to the belief that rest is not separate from, but rather a part of the journey.
And while I know all this on a logical, rational level, the greatest challenge in this season of my life may still be understanding when to coast, climb, or rest.
I don’t know where you are on your journey. Maybe you have been resting and it is time to return to your climb. Maybe you have been climbing and now you need to coast. Or, it is possible that, like me, you need to be more intentional about putting on the brakes. Wherever you are I hope you know you have permission to make a shift and focus on something else.
In light of that, I am taking every Friday in June and several weeks off in July. This wasn’t an easy decision, but I am launching two new projects this fall and I want to be well-rested and ready for the steep but life-giving climb that is ahead.
And let me be clear, the climb for me isn’t about getting to and staying at the top. Instead, it is about putting my mind to something, working hard to meet a need, looking back at how far I’ve come, celebrating, enjoying the view, and then coasting downhill just to do it all again.
We need people like you who will be brave enough to do the next right thing on their own journey. And much like the girl in the park who had her dad cheering her on, please know that I am rooting for you.
Coast, climb, or rest, you got this.
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