How I stopped not commuting by bike.

Once upon a time I owned a 1994 Toyota Camry.  I drove it something like 6 miles everyday for a few years (a meager commute).  At that time my job also involved a good amount of sitting and staring at a screen.  Making the realization that I was spending about ⅓ of my day sleeping, and the other ⅔ I was spending sitting was a big eye opener.  Pair this with the fact that I was weighing in at 240 lbs and it was becoming pretty obvious that I needed to make some changes in my life.

One of the first things I did was get a bike.   At that point I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was about 12 years old.  Luckily, as the old proverb suggests, once you learn you never forget.  I soon started riding that bike to and from work just bout every single day.  It took some time but eventually I was able to make the uphill trip home without feeling completely exhausted.  I rode that bike just about every day until winter hit.  However, even though the ride was only a little more than three miles one way, if I woke up just not “feeling” it that day I’d decide to fire up Ol’ Betsy and get to work the same lazy way I had been.

Every time I took the car drove instead of felt like a tiny defeat.  There were several reasons I wanted to ride my bike every day.  The number one reason, as I’ve already mentioned was my health, but additionally I didn’t like harming the environment, spending money on gas, etc.  I started to realize that I could very easily do much better in all these areas if I simply took away my ability to defeat myself every morning.  So I decided it was time to sell my car.

Not only did this force me to use my own body to get to work every day, forcing me to exercise.  It also meant not buying and burning gas plus a little extra cash in savings.  This simplified my finances and life by eliminating the need to have insurance and keep registration up to date for one extra vehicle.  These were all side benefits of my main goal which was to improve and maintain my overall health and fitness.  Getting rid of the extra car all but forced me to bike to work every day (or walk in the case of the Great Winter of 2016-17) or selfishly choose seriously inconvenience my family (which is not something I want to do).

What lesson do I hope to impart from this little tale?

Burn your boats!

There are a few stories people like to tell about great military leaders who, after landing their armies in enemy territory, burned the boats they came on.  Most famously this was done by Alexander the Great and Cortés, but there are stories throughout history and around the world of military commanders using this tactic.  The point is to give yourself no option but to fight, to make retreat impossible.  If you eliminate your ability to retreat you have no choice but to march forward and take your enemy head on.  Most of us aren’t heading out to conquer Persia, but the concept can be applied to our lives as well.

If you have a goal, try as much as you can to make retreat impossible.  In the past few weeks simply borrowing a pickup truck for our move has made the temptation to drive to work much more alluring.  This reminds me that when things get tough and sliding back on your goals looks easy the temptation to do so is real.

If you want to get out of debt?  Cut up and cancel your credit cards.  Want to stop wasting time watching TV?  Cancel cable or get rid of the screen altogether.  Spending too much time on Facebook?  Delete the app from your phone, or better yet delete your account.

This cannot be applied to all goals in life.  However, there are many ways we can help ourselves by making failure much more difficult or retreat less appealing.