I just completed my Banff to Yellowstone bike ride: 13 days on a bike cycling over 800 miles and climbing over 28,000 feet of mountains.
The scenery was stunning. The Canadian Rockies were incredible. Montana was breathtaking. Crossing the Continental Divide on a bike was a literal and figurative high.
Upon reflection, the secret to all of my cycling adventures can be summed up with one word: mindset.
In Carol Dweck’s exceptional book, Mindset, she describes two dominating mindsets that influence our behaviors:
- Growth Mindset: people believe they can grow and change through application and experience
- Fixed Mindset: people believe that intelligence, personality, and creativity are fixed traits that don’t change through application and experience
But after my 6th cycling adventure, I’ve decided that there is another mindset that allows me to accomplish each challenge: a Relentless Mindset
Each day, my three cycling buddies and I pedaled mile after mile in spite of sore muscles, screaming sit bones, cold temperatures (42 degrees), heat (102 degrees), rain, wind, trucks, RVs, rolling hills, mountain passes, bee stings, flat tires, and age (two of the cyclists on this trip are over 70!).
It’s on these adventures that we answer only to our commitment and not to our feelings.
Regardless of how anyone felt (tired, sore, irritated, old), we pedaled. We made a commitment to ourselves and to each other to cycle over 800 miles, and that’s what we did.
We pedaled in spite of how we felt.
That’s a Relentless Mindset.
And when I reflect on all the other great things I’ve accomplished in my life, I can attribute my success to that Relentless Mindset.
For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt of yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. – Carol Dweck