Ignite Mantra Series Part I :: Be Your Best

While we're gearing up to get your booty on a bike, we are introducing you to our core values...what we call our Mantras. First up...

You don't have to be perfect, but you do have to be your best.

I love this mantra because it is super personal for me. It’s something my mom told me often when I was growing up. Whether it was my grades, a sport, or some other activity, I knew that my mom’s expectations of me were high, but not unreasonable.

Perfection is an ideal we will always miss, no matter how hard we try, but it is so often what we aim for.

Knowing that we are likely, in one way or another, going to compare ourselves to a standard of perfection, that is the target we seek to adjust in the bike room (and let’s face it, in every aspect of our lives...but we have to start somewhere!). You may not be able to find the beat. Maybe jumps are super challenging for you. Do you struggle to get the resistance as heavy as you think it should be? Stop. Beating. Yourself. Up.

When you get into that not-good-enough spiral, remember that you are doing so much that is good enough. You’re doing something incredible for your body. You’re trying (which is HUGE)! Are you perfect? Nope. And neither is anyone else in that room - including the girl who makes it look easy, whipping her ponytail around and holding a double time beat like it’s nothing. Not. Even. Her. As you shift your focus to what you are doing, rather than what you’re not, you give yourself the freedom to get better.

We need to know the things we aren’t great at - getting comfortable in this space is the only way to improve. It’s where true success lies. When you finally crush that 60 second sprint after months of working on it. When you stay out of the saddle for the entire heavy interval (without turning down your resistance ;-). When you can do everything your instructor tells you. When you finally find that dang beat. Isn’t that infinitely better than doing something you’ve already been good at?

Your best today might look different than your best yesterday or last week. It will likely do some things better, it will often encounter similar obstacles, it will occasionally fall on its face where it stood strong before. That’s the thing about your best...it will surprise you, if you let it.

This is a space for you to be your particular brand of “best.” For you to embrace your imperfections, your not-quite-there-but-dangit-I’ll-get-there’s, your successes, and everything in between. When you bring your best, and the people to your left and right bring theirs, a really beautiful thing happens.

So when you clip into that bike, this is what we ask of you...do your best. That is all you have. And that is enough.