It's all how you look at it

My daughter wrote me a Father's Day card that said "You taught me to look at life in a different way and when I did I got happier."  First, I think this is about the highest compliment I could get from one of my kids, and second, she is exactly right about the secret to happiness.

Notice that she didn't say that she got happier because I got a better-paying job, or moved into a nicer house, or took a great vacation.  These are all things that so many of us spend our lives chasing, believing that they will make us happier.  But the only thing that will actually make you happier is to change the way you look at life.

Life is hard.  Sometimes it hurts.  That's just the way it is, and wishing that it was different isn't doing you any favors.  Take action to change the things you can in life, then take the equally important action of changing the way you look at life.  What is your reaction when bad things happen?  Do you feel sorry for yourself, choose to be stronger because of it?  What is your reaction when you make a mistake?  Do you beat yourself up over it, or choose to learn from it?

There is only one thing that makes the difference between you being happy and you not being happy.  That one thing is you.  Try looking at things that happen to you, even bad or painful things, as opportunities to grow, to be a better person.  I think you'll notice that it makes everything seem better, and you'll feel happier.

Do things greatly

You don't have to do great things, but you should do things greatly.  At my daughter's graduation yesterday, the Head of School gave the type of speech you expect at graduations.  Overall, I thought it was great, but I had one problem with it.  She spoke of the graduates who would go on to cure a disease, or hold public office, or a variety of other great things.

This got me thinking.  If our measure of success is doing great things, doesn't this mean that most of us will end up disappointed in our accomplishments?  I have a better idea for how to grade yourself on your success in life.  Rather than aiming for great things, why not aim to do whatever you do greatly.

Whether you're a brain surgeon, or a garbage collector, you are a contributing member of society.  Whatever job you have, be the best at it that you can be.  Aim to get better all the time.  Try to learn new things.  Be great.

Think about how much better the world would be if we all aimed to be the best that we can be at whatever we're doing, rather than dreaming of doing something more glamorous.  I don't mean to say that you shouldn't aim high.  Aim as high as you want, but wherever you are, whatever you're doing, be the best you can be.

You can start today.  Be the best you can be at whatever you do today.  Take pride in what you do.  I think you'll like how good it feels.

Relationships end

You know you're not going to marry every person you date, so why do you think that every friendship in your life will last forever?  Movies and tv shows don't help us; every time friends have a fight they work it out by the end.  Parents don't help when they ask "why aren't you friends with so-and-so any more?  Should I call their mom?"

Here's the thing that no one tells us.  Every single relationship you have in your life will change, and most relationships will end. This is not a bad thing; it's just the way relationships work.  You change as you get older, and so do the people around you.  So it makes sense that you will outgrow each other, or move in different directions.  There isn't any reason to end things on bad terms, since you may end up growing back together later.

Think about your parents and people their age.  How many of them have friends that they've had since childhood?  Even if they do still have some of those friends, I can guarantee you the relationship has changed over the years.

Change of any kind is hard.  It's stressful.  And relationships, by their nature, are emotional.  So it makes sense that the end of any relationship is difficult to go through.  Try to remember this as you lose friends, or as friends lose interest in being close to you.  It will be hard, and that's okay.  But keep in mind that it's normal.  It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with you, or with the person you're no longer friends with.  It's just what happens.

Keep making good choices, and being a good person.  Treat people around you kindly.  This way, when your friendships end you can have a clear conscience.  And you'll know that there's another friend out there waiting for you to find each other.

Are you living?

Are you living your life on purpose, or are you letting life happen to you?  I figured since it's the first day of June, my daughter's 14th birthday, and the 13th anniversary of me starting my business, it's time for a gut-check.  So the question is; what are you doing?

I think it's a  good idea once in awhile to look at where you are, and what direction you're heading in, and see if you're living your life on purpose or not.  Are you making choices that have a good chance of leading you to where you want to be in life, or are you just going through the motions of living, waiting to see what might happen next?

I'm not trying to say that you should be planning out every aspect of your life, or obsessing when things aren't going according to your plan, I'm talking more about an overall attitude towards living.  I'm afraid that so many people go through life doing the things they feel they "should" do, but not ever really savoring any of life.  There are so many opportunities out there for all of us, but so many of us come home and spend six hours in front of the television.  I don't want to get to be 60 years old, and look back and wonder where my life went.

So think about what kind of person you want to be, and what kind of life you want to live.  Now think about the choices you make in your daily life.  Do those two things align?  Are you making the choices every day to be who you want, and to live the life that you want? 

It's never too late to turn it all around.  Every day is another opportunity to live the life you want.

Impress yourself

Stop trying to be impressive.  No one is buying it.  Here's the deal.  If someone is going to be impressed by you, they're going to feel that way whether you try to impress them or not.  And if they're not going to be impressed by you, they're going to feel that way whether you try to impress them or not.

We spend so much time worrying about what other people think about us, and trying to impress them.  Maybe what we should be focusing on is being impressive to ourselves.  Think about it.  Who do you wake up with every morning and go to bed with every night?  Who is the one person who you can't get away from?  Your own opinions about yourself are what really shape your personality, and that is what other people see.

If you are doing things that are impressive to yourself, that will translate into self-confidence.  And few things are more attractive to others than self-confidence.  If you don't really feel like you're good at anything, then why would anyone else be impressed with you?

So pick something that you want to be good at.  Maybe it's work related, or maybe it's physical, like running a 10K or a half-marathon.  Maybe you want to learn to play a song on the guitar.  Whatever sparks some feeling in you, go with it.  Make a plan.  Invest the time in it.  Achieve your goal, and see how good you feel about yourself.  You don't need to go around bragging about what you did; just know that you did it at feel proud of yourself.

When you have set a goal, then worked to achieve it, you will feel great about yourself once you complete it.  And if you can truly feel impressed at what you accomplished, then you have impressed the one person whose opinion about you matters the most.

Deal with it

You don't have to like it, but what can you do?  So many things in life will never be the way you want them to be.  And many of them are completely outside of your control.  So, what are you going to do about it?  Are you going to complain to anyone who will listen?  Will it somehow make your life easier if someone else knows that how hard you have it?  (The answer is no).

Part of maturity is accepting the things in life that you cannot change.  It doesn't mean you have to like it.  It means that you look at a situation, and decide that even though you can't change it, and you can't get away from it, you will make the best of it.  If you can get away from it, then do that.  But if you can't, then accept it.

Life is filled with difficult, often painful, experiences.  That's just part of living.  Do you really want to be the person that other avoid because all they do is complain about how bad things are?  Is it really that much worse for you than for the people who aren't complaining?  Maybe the difference is in how you choose to deal with it.

Here's my advice.  Stop wishing that everything would somehow start going the way you want it to.  Life doesn't work that way.  Look around your life, and figure out what you can change, and what you can't change.  Set a course of action to change the things you can.  Accept that you have to live with the things you cannot change.  I mean, really accept it.  No sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, secretly hoping it will change.  It won't.  There is good and bad in life.  This is the bad.

Now choose to redirect your focus on the things that you are changing.  If you're working at it, then some things should be getting better.  Be proud of yourself.  Be happy about those things.

You'll find that if you choose to accept the hard stuff, and focus on the positive stuff, all of a sudden you life will seem better.  It's still the same life, but it's better.  Wouldn't you like to have a better life?  Give it a try.

There's not enough time

There aren't enough hours in the day to do everything.  So how do you prioritize?  How do you decide what really matters, and what just seems important right now?  We have jobs, relationships, kids, extended family, exercise, and more that we have to try to figure out how to fit into our lives.

As you grow up, most of the things you do are assigned for you.  You may choose to join a team, but the practices and games are all scheduled, and you show up when you have to.  As you get older, you have to make more choices about how to allocate the time in your life.  But typically no one ever shows you how to do this.

First, think about what it really important to you, and why.  Really think about the "why" part.  Is it really important to you, or is that baggage from your parents or from a previous relationship?  What truly matters to you?  Imagine yourself 30 years from now, looking back at your life.  Did you choose the things that mattered, or did you choose the things that seemed important at the time, but didn't have a lasting impact?

For me, family time and relationship time are at the top of my list.  Those are far more important to me than money.  I would not choose to work more hours, even for vastly more money, because those hours would take away from my family time and relationship time.  Those are the lasting memories that I want to create for myself and the people I love.  I'm not saying I couldn't find a use for more money, but the trade-off isn't worth it for me.  I quit a good-paying job to start my business, in large part because I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss my girls growing up.

Once you've evaluated what is important to you, now look at how you spend the hours in your day.  Does the allocation of your time match what you value?  If you work more than 40 or 50 hours a week, is that what you want?  Why?  If long work hours take away from family and relationship time, think about a change.  Would it be worth it to make less money, but have more family time, or more walking the dog time?  Would you be willing to move into a smaller house, and drive a less expensive car?  Again, picture yourself looking back in 30 years.  Are you proud of your choices?

If spending time with the people you care about, or getting in shape, are priorities, but you feel like there isn't time, look closely at how you spend your time when you're not at work.  Do you watch TV?  How many hours a day?  Do you waste hours on the internet?  Could this time be re-allocated?  I unplugged my TV 15 years ago, and my life is better for it.

It's so easy to get into habits of how you spend your time, then feel locked into them.  It's also easy to "golden handcuff" yourself, where you work harder and harder to maintain your lifestyle, at the expense of your life.  What good is a big home if you're too tired to enjoy it?

It may not feel like it, but you really are in control of your life.  Or, at least, you could be.  Choose the life you want, then live it.  Make some hard choices if you need to.  Think about the legacy you want to leave with the people you love.  Are you working towards that?  Are you willing to?

I overdid it

We all do it sometimes.  We bite off more than we can chew.  I did it, and now I'm making the adjustments to get my life back to a manageable level.  So it got me thinking, how do you know when you go from "enough" to "too much?"  How do you decide not only when it's time to cut back, but also what you need to cut back?

I overextended myself this year.  I was extremely ambitious when I started the year.  I was taking guitar classes twice a week.  I decided to volunteer one day a week at the food bank.  I started this blog.  I signed up for my first triathlon.  And, of course, I still had a company to run.

I thought I was keeping it together pretty well.  I was wrong.  One of the great things about having a healthy relationship is that your partner can constructively tell you when you're doing something wrong.  Leah pointed out to me that I had not been affectionate with her, and that I had not really paid much attention to her for the past couple months.  In looking back, I realized that she was right.  But while I was in the middle of it, I was so focused on everything that I was doing, I didn't realize the affect it was having on her.  I can only assume that it had the same affect on the girls.

I decided to take a hiatus from guitar class.  I took a break for a couple weeks from the blog, and I think that I'll scale back from six posts a week to three.  The hard part is lowering my mental intensity level surrounding the triathlon.  I still need to train, but I need to find a place mentally where I can remain at the same level of commitment, but not stress out about it.

Everything that I was doing was positive, healthy stuff.  But all of it put together turned into something negative, and mentally unhealthy.  I think that is where the lesson lies.  Even if everything you're doing is positive, doing too much of it can become something negative.

I will be more careful when I add to my schedule.  It makes more sense to only add one new thing at a time, then adjust your life to that before adding anything else.  I learned my lesson, I think.

Are you fat?

Who says you're fat?  When you look in the mirror, do you see your body the way it really looks, or the way that society and the popular media have trained you to see it?

I was talking with the girls tonight about a topic we've covered many times; body image.  From the time that they were too little to understand what I was talking about, I started showing them the cover pictures on magazines at the store.  I would explain to them that when you see those images of extremely skinny women, day after day, year after year, the idea slowly seeps into your brain that that is what a woman should look like.

As they got older, I would show them the magazine covers and ask them to think about every woman they have ever met.  Do they know anyone with that body?  Have they ever even seen a woman with a body like that?  How many women have you seen in your life who look like that?  We've just recently started to talk about how the images are airbrushed.

These images are not realistic portrayals of what a woman looks like.  But the problem gets worse.  Not only do women see these images and start to think that they should look like a cover model, but men see them too.  Boys grow up seeing these pictures, and thinking that a woman should look like that.  Then they call girls fat if they have a normal, healthy body, and the girl believes it because she's been looking at the same images.

There is no doubt that we have an epidemic of obesity in this country, and I am by no means suggesting that you should allow your body to be unhealthy.  But healthy does not mean having ribs that show through your shirt.  Healthy women have some curves on them.  You know if you're healthy or not.  You know if you're in shape or not.  You know if you exercise, if you watch what you eat, if you drink enough water and get enough sleep.  These are the things that make a healthy body.

The next time you look in the mirror, and you think there's a fat girl looking back at you, look again.  What do you really see?  Is that a healthy female body?  Decide for yourself.  Make the choice to not automatically believe the images you've been seeing your whole life.  You'll feel better about yourself if you do.

It's not personal

Someone was mean to you.  Someone did something selfish that was hard for you.  You feel like it has something to do with you.  It doesn't.  Not only is it not personal, it actually has nothing to do with you.

It's easy to feel like the actions of other people has something to do with us, especially when their actions affect us.  The fact is, when people are being mean or selfish, their actions are usually so self-centered that they never think for a moment how their actions are affecting other people.

If someone is having a bad day (or a bad life) they will frequently express their frustrations by being mean others.  We all interact with them.  Maybe it's the cashier at the store, or a co-worker, or it could even be someone you love.  When people are acting out in an unkind way towards you, try to remember that while their  negativity is coming in your direction, it is actually only a symptom of their own unhappiness.

When a person is selfish, they will frequently hurt the people close to them by being insensitive to their feelings.  Again, this has nothing to do with you.  They haven't thought of you because they are selfish, which is about them, not about you.  Selfish people are selfish because of themselves, not because of you.  The next time the selfish person in your life is being totally insensitive to what you need, try to remember that they treat everyone this way because they're selfish.  It has nothing to do with you.  Selfish people can never be truly happy, because if you truly believe that you are the most important person there is, you can never be satisfied.

It's hard to remember this when you're feeling the pain from someone else's actions, but try it.  Remind yourself that it isn't about you.  It isn't personal.  You may even feel some sympathy for a person who is so selfish or hurtful that they are preventing their own happiness.

It could be worse

No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.  I like to keep this perspective in mind when I'm thinking about whatever bad thing may be going on in my life.  Last week I heard an interview with the golfer who choked and threw away his lead at the Masters last year.  He said, "if that was the worst day of my life, I'm better off than most people."  What a great perspective.

It's easy to get bogged down in looking at the things that aren't going your way.  If you're not careful, you can start to think things are really bad.  In reality, things are rarely very bad.  There are always things that you can choose to be thankful for.

The last thing you want to do is think that things can't get any worse.  I feel like this is just inviting disaster.  Go ahead and imagine how things could get worse, then be thankful that none of those things have happened.  And if some of those things do happen, then be thankful that all of them didn't happen.

If you're willing to choose to focus on the good things going on, even when there are bad things going on, you'll find that the bad things don't seem quite so bad.

You're right, but you're still wrong

Sometimes if you're right, you're still wrong.  How badly do you feel the need to defend yourself?  Do you find yourself trying to prove you're right even when it doesn't really matter?  Sometimes proving that you're right can actually make the situation worse, not better.

I had a boss a number of years ago who loved to try to prove himself right all the time, even when he was wrong.  I wouldn't argue with him because he was the boss, and even if I convinced him that I was right, he would have made me pay for it in the long run.  So I kept my mouth shut.

I started thinking a lot about why it was so important for him to prove himself right.  He owned the company.  His name was on the building.  He made over a million dollars a year.  What was he trying to prove?  I finally realized that in spite of his position and income, he was extremely insecure.  He was trying to compensate for his own insecurity by proving himself right all the time.

The next time you find yourself trying to prove that you're right about something that doesn't really matter, think about why you're doing it.  What are you trying to prove?  Can it be enough to just know that you're right, even if the people around you don't?

If it doesn't matter, try to let it go.  See if you can feel better about yourself regardless of what other people think.

Your plan won't work

Your plan looks great, and I'm really pulling for you, but it's not going to work out that way.  One thing that I have definitely learned about life is that your plans almost never work out the way you planned them.  Things do work out in the end, but almost never the way you thought they would.

It's important to plan things out sometimes.  You don't need to plan all the time, but sometimes it's necessary.  However, most things in your life are outside of your control, which means that something is going to come along and sidetrack your plan.  What do you do then?  Cry?  Freak out?  You could, but what's the point?

Remind yourself that this is going to work out.  You don't know how it will work out, but it will.  And I believe that it's more likely to work out if you keep believing that it will.

So don't be too hung up on how it works out, as long as it works out.  If you can let go a little, you'll enjoy the process a lot more.

Is my past worse than yours?

How do you measure pain and suffering?  Is the pain that I've felt worse than the pain that you've felt?  Does it matter?

Mariah had an assignment at school to write a "This I Believe" essay, based on the segment on NPR where people write a short essay about a personal belief, and the life experience that led to that belief.  All 23 kids in her class wrote as essay, and they read them out loud in front of the other students.  There were a lot of tears as the kids related personal stories of hardship and pain.  What an amazing experience for 13 and 14 year-olds to learn what many adults still don't understand; we have all suffered.

Not many weeks ago, Mariah had written something expressing the hardships that she has had in her life because her parents got divorced, and it was clear that she felt that she had suffered more than most kids her age.  Of course, this is normal.  Most people are well into their twenties before they realize that other people have had experiences different from their own.

Think about all of the people you know.  How much do you really know about their lives?  Maybe you've seen them with their parents, but you haven't seen them alone with their parents.  No one knows what really goes on in the lives of other people; with their parents, with their spouse, at their job.  No one would know that my parents were in a cult if I didn't tell them.  It's so easy to feel sorry for ourselves and focus on our own pain and suffering, but we really don't know anything about the pain and suffering of the people all around us.

It's safe to assume that every person you know has had at least one deep and painful experience in their life which they don't talk about.  You don't know what it is, but it affects who they are today.  Just as you have had your own painful experiences which you don't share with people, but they definitely affect you today.

Try to remember when you are interacting with others that you really don't know where this person came from, or how bad their life has been.  You don't know their pain, and they don't know yours.  Would you judge them less harshly if you knew their past?  If so, maybe you should judge them less harshly anyway.  Give it a try.  You may find yourself liking the people around you a little bit more, and judging them a little bit less.

The past is an anchor

How often do you drive along in your car, mile after mile, looking only in the rear view mirror?  You don't do that because it means you're not paying attention to what's happening in front of you, and you'll crash.  So why does it seem okay to go along day after day, looking back at your life?  Doesn't it seem like you should be paying attention to what is happening in front of you?  Don't crash your life.

Do you know what you have in life?  You have this moment right now.  You have this day you're living.  The past is how you got to this point, but it no longer has any control over you.  Let it go and live your life today.  I'm not suggesting that you should forget life lessons, or forget mistakes you've made.  Rather, choose to learn the lessons, use them to make today a better day, and then let them go.

Let me tell you about a personal experience.  A few years ago, after my divorce, I was looking back at a lot of my life, in hopes that it would help me put the pieces back together.  Specifically, I wondered what affect it had had on me as an adult that my parents were in a cult the whole time I was growing up.  I wanted to know how that experience had changed my life.  What parts of me came from growing up in a cult, and what parts were just me?

I went to Denver to a conference for cult survivors, and met with adults like myself who had grown up in cults.  I talked with some people about getting into counseling.  Then when I came home, I realized something.  That path that I took, even though it wasn't a path that I had chosen, led me to who I am today.  There is no way to go back and change any of it.  None of it will ever be different than it was.  It's impossible to separate out any parts of my past.  I am the sum of those experiences.  

I chose to let it go.  I chose to accept that all of the experiences in my life, both good and bad, are just parts of me today.  And I work every day to be a good person today.  I like who I am today, which means that the path that got me here must have been okay.

Look back, see what happened, then make the choice to live this life today.  Don't let your past crash your present.

I'd rather be disappointed

I'd rather be optimistic and always expect the best from people.  Sure, I'll sometimes be let down, but consider the alternative.  I could be cynical, and then every time something bad happens I would feel justified in my cynicism.

The problem with expecting the worst all the time is that you won't be able to see the good things when they happen.  We have a tendency to see what we expect, regardless of what is actually there.  So if you expect all bad, that's what you'll see.

Sometimes I feel silly when I get let down.  I feel like I should have seen it coming.  But then I also feel like there are more times that I expect good things to happen, and then they do.

This doesn't mean that you should just trust everyone all the time.You have to trust your instincts about people. If you have a bad feeling about someone, then you trust your judgement.  Instincts are very strong, and you should trust yours.  But if you're always expecting bad things, then your judgement is already on hold.

Keep expecting the best.  You'll be wrong sometimes, but you'll be so much happier in the long run.

Be present

All you have is right now; this moment.  There is nothing else.  You have done things in the past that led you to right now.  Things will happen to you in the future; some good and some bad.  But the only thing that have in life is this moment.  What are you doing with it?

It's so easy to spend time regretting what happened in the past, or worrying about what might happen in the future.  But if you spend all of your time doing that, you end up missing out on your life as it's happening.

This is not to say that you should pretend that the past never happened, or that you should fail to plan for the future, but that you should not put either of those things at a higher priority level than the present.  Acknowledge  the mistakes that you made in the past, and choose to learn from them to help yourself make better decisions now.  Recognize the good choices you made in the past, and make an effort to continue to make them.  Think about how you want your future to look, and make decisions now that will help lead you to that future.

Most importantly, never forget that your life is happening right now.  It is so easy to get hung up on trivial details, or to worry about things that we can't control.  Choose to be present for your own life; truly present in body, mind and spirit, not in body only.  Choose to live every now to the fullest.  Make every now the best now that it can be.

Make the choice to live your life on purpose by making every moment of your life the best that it can be.

When to quit

Being a quitter is a bad thing, right?  I would say that getting into the habit of quitting, or quitting as soon as things get hard, would be a bad thing.  But sometimes, for your own mental health, you have to know when to throw in the towel.

The fact is, some people are never going to be satisfied.  No matter how hard you try, the end result will always be the same.  When you feel that you are in this situation, ask yourself this: have I really tried my hardest?  Have I put myself in the other person's shoes, and not just thought about it from my own perspective?  Is there any more that I could do that would make a difference?  If you can, with a clear conscience, know that you have given your best, and really thought about it from the other person's point of view, and that nothing more is going to satisfy them, then it just might be time to quit.

At some point in our lives, we all end up in relationships of this type.  It may be with a family member, or a boss.  We may have the option to get out of the relationship, or we may not.  But either way, we need to decide what we're going to do.

It can get to the point where it is not healthy for you to keep trying.  If you're really giving it all you have, and it still isn't enough for the other person, then it's time to make a change.  There is no point getting stuck in a situation where you feel worse and worse, and nothing gets better.  That isn't benefiting anyone.

Don't be a quitter.  But know when it is okay, or even better for you, to quit.

Be happy here

If you can't be happy here, you can't be happy anywhere.  So many people wish for something to change in their life so they can be happy.  If only I lived in a different town; had a different job; won the lottery, then I'd be happy.  There's a major flaw in this type of thinking.  You will still be you.

Your environment may change.  The people around you change.  Your finances may be different, but every day you wake up as the same person, and every night you go to bed as the same person.  Happiness is not something that comes from outside of you.  It is something which you choose for yourself, then you work to achieve it.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying you should give up your dream of moving to a warmer climate, or trying for a higher paying job.  Just don't lose sight of the fact that nothing outside of you will change what is inside you.  And what is inside you is the only thing that really matters.  What good will it do if you're living in a $10 million dollar mansion on the coast if you don't really like yourself?  And if you don't really like yourself here, you aren't going to feel any different there.

If there are things in your life that you want to be different, then make them different.  If you're not happy, really look inside yourself to see why.  Talk to a counselor if you need to.

Fix yourself from the inside, then get to work on the outside stuff.  That way, when you have the money, or the house, or whatever it is you're striving towards, you'll actually be able to enjoy it.

It's okay to be scared

We're all scared.  Things frighten us every day.  Being afraid isn't bad, but allowing the fear to control your actions and make your choices for you is.  If your goal is to live your life on purpose, then giving into your fear is allowing life to happen to you, rather than you charting your own course.

Fear is a powerful emotion.  It can affect our actions without our realizing that it is happening.  But usually, we know that we're afraid, and we have a choice.  Will I face my fear, and try to get what I want, or will I make some kind of excuse, or in some other way choose to let the fear win.

I'm training for a triathlon right now, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm scared.  What if I fail?  What if I can't finish?  What will I do if I'm dead last; still plodding through my 10K and everyone else is done?  Would I have the mental strength to keep going?  I know that these fears are the reason that I never took the leap from the long-distance cycling that I did as a teenager into bicycle racing.

Every day, when I train for my race, I acknowledge my fears.  I recognize them, and I choose to try anyway.  There is a real possibility that I might fail; that I might twist and ankle or crash my bike and be unable to finish.  But should that stop me from trying?

It is hard to face your fear.  It is hard to admit that you're afraid; to admit that if you try, you may fail.  But, once again, the hard choice is the right one.

You could live your whole life without facing your fears, but what will you accomplish?  I would rather know that I tried, even if I fail.  The strength that you will gain from trying, whether you succeed or fail, will make you a stronger person.  And imagine how great it will be when you actually succeed.  Imagine for a moment the personal pride that you will feel when you know that you faced a fear, worked through it, and accomplished something great.  Isn't that worth the effort?