Breakthroughs

Sometimes, after painfully slow progress toward a goal, you suddenly have a huge breakthrough. You gain a bunch of ground all at once. Great! But as anyone who’s ever ridden a bike over hilly terrain will tell you, that’s not the time to cheer.

It’s the time to pedal.

The sudden burst of speed that comes from going downhill is a gift. The way to maximize it is to build on that momentum, to pedal faster to build up speed, because just around the corner is the next hill to climb. Getting to the bottom of a new hill at a leisurely pace is a recipe for a very difficult ascent. But if you’ve got that burst of kinetic energy behind you because you capitalized on the last downslope, you can be halfway up the next hill before you even slow.

Cheer the breakthroughs, yes. Cherish them. But use them.