After my last lesson, I was driving home and realized that I had not ridden my bike today. I immediately created a list of reasons why I couldn’t get my bike ride in during the last few hours of the day, let’s call them excuses. So, then I compromised with myself — okay, just ride up the street and back down, that’s a couple of miles. Then the judgement started. “That’s not enough.” Okay, I’ll ride up the street and back – twice. That’ll do. I started riding and the same thing happens that always happens. I began to enjoy it and I didn’t want to stop. 1 mile. 2 miles. 3 miles. Okay, how about 5 miles. I’ll just ride 5 miles, save it and never mention it again. No one will notice. Then I realized, 5 miles is a big deal to some people. What about the people that can’t ride a bike? The people that can’t walk around the block? The people that can’t get out of their wheelchairs?
We can’t forget how important the little things are. We can’t forget to celebrate every accomplishment, big or small. Yes, my 50 mile bike ride was a huge accomplishment. Sure, riding from Houston to Austin next month will be a big deal. But, how do we get there? 1 mile at a time. And when I started riding, or running, or walking, or anything for that matter, it always starts with one. Let’s break down a 2,000 mile bike ride across the country. That’s an amazing amount of miles! But, we didn’t do it all at once. 2,000 miles is broken down into days that can be anywhere from 50 miles to 100 miles. One might think: “50 miles is a lot! I could never do that!” Okay, well, that 50 mile day had two rest stops, so we rode 20 miles, took a break, another 20, took a break and then the final 10 to camp. All of a sudden we can see how quickly these “small” rides add up to a 2,000 mile trip across the country.
I, for one, can be so quick to judge myself and look past the great things that I actually am doing. The “it’s never enough” mentality can stop me in my tracks — but I have to remind myself, in every situation, that there is always good. Yes, there are people that raise $10,000 every year for MS or another worthy cause. Look at their donations. It’s not always big donations that get them to that goal. It’s a lot of small donations. Every amount matters. from $1 or $5 to the bigger $100 or even $500 donations. It all adds up.
I love this picture: Friend one gives you $100 and friend two gives you $5. Naturally, you would think that the $100 from friend one was more meaningful. But, what if I told you that friend one had $5,000 and friend two only had $10. All of a sudden that picture looks a lot different.
“I really regretted that workout” said no one ever.
If you are doing something tough, like running, and giving yourself a hard time for only doing a small amount — remember, there’s someone sitting at home, on their couch, eating nachos….. NOT running.
I organized a pajama pub crawl a couple of weeks ago for a local animal rescue and there were a lot of good things that came out of that night: we sold all of the tickets we had planned to sell and people had a good time. After the event, I was talking to a friend and expressed that I felt bad we only raised around $300 and that they have other fundraisers that make waaaaaay more than that. She quickly brought me back down: “That’s huge to them. That’s enough to save a dog’s life.” Oh. Wow. Back to reality. That fundraiser just meant somewhere, a family gets their own Toby dog. #worthit
Tonight, I’m proud of the fact that I got home and rode 5 miles. Oh, by the way, it wasn’t just 5 miles. It was 5.3 miles. 🙂