You know that made for TV moment when a father suddenly lets go of their little one’s bike and they ride off into the sunset on their very first try without training wheels!? SO cute right?!
It didn’t work out that way for us.
At all.
We bought Brody a ‘big boy’ bike for his sixth birthday after realizing he was looking a little silly still riding around on his toddler bike. He was over the moon excited to have a big kid bike!! And he really did look cool on it with the matte black BMX style frame and red decals. That’s when we realized we were a little behind the eight ball on teaching him to ride a bike without training wheels.
We brought up the idea of removing his training wheels and teaching him to ride his big kid bike, but that was simply NOT going to happen. He begged to leave the training wheels on for him, and in watching his excitement and desire to be able to actually ride the bike we had gotten him, we agreed for a time.
We tried teaching him by leaving the training wheels on, but moving them to the highest position possible so that they bike was leaning far to either side before they hit the ground. Brody successfully learned how to ride leaning to the side!! It was a toss up between which looked more odd – him on a toddler bike or him riding his bike at a 45 degree angle!!
Realizing that wasn’t going to work, we took the training wheels completely off the bike and started encouraging him to try without them. We tried for the first time and it didn’t go so well. He panicked, and the bike sat in our garage untouched for weeks.
He was scared.
Petrified actually.
He didn’t know what to expect. He didn’t know how it was supposed to work. How it felt. Or even what success looked like. All he knew was what failure would look like, and that was enough for him to keep his distance.
He mustered up the confidence to give it another whirl. He did better, but his fear prevented him from succeeding. He was terrified of Jon letting go of the bike. So scared that the moment he started to get his balance while riding, he’d look back to make sure Jon was still there and lose it as quickly as he’d found it. He was done, and left frustrated and upset.
That night though, something amazing happened that made us incredibly proud. Every night, we read him a Bible story, pray together, and sing him a goodnight song. He’s been learning how to pray and has been saying his own prayer every night. That night, his prayer included him asking Jesus to ‘please help me ride my bike.” We were proud of him to say the least.
The next evening, he decided he was going to make it happen. We talked about exactly what was going to happen. We told him that Jon would be right there with him. That Jon would never let him fall. That all he had to do was decide to face it with confidence and focus on what was in front of him. And we talked about all of the fun things he would be able to do on his own once he succeeded.
Two tries in, he was off and riding on his own with the biggest, most proud smile on his face.
A week later, he was riding in the dirt and going up and down ramps.
He absolutely killed it.
We were so proud of him for facing his fear and learning how to ride his bike on his own.
And we learned something really important about fear. We learned that fear is the biggest inhibitor of our own success. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of the process. Brody was terrified because of what he didn’t know (how to ride the bike) and what he did know (that failure meant crashing and the potential for pain).
It made us think, how often do we talk ourselves out of opportunities or new experiences because of our own fear. Fear because we don’t exactly know what we are doing. Or fear because of what failure would look like for us.
What would happen if we looked fear in the eyes and focused on what success would look like instead of failure? What if we looked at what we did know, and stopped focusing on what we didn’t know. And then we took all of that in prayer in order to understand what to do.
We are so glad Brody’s experience learning to ride a bike wasn’t the made-for-TV moment. Every time we see him riding around the neighborhood with a smile on his face, we remember that you never outgrow having to face your fears.
Now we stare them down with confidence, a smile, and a prayer.
Comments +