The Wobble Is Part of the Ride

One thing I love about cycling is that it constantly reminds me how little perfection has to do with progress.

When we teach children to ride a bike, we expect them to wobble. We expect them to veer a little left, then a little right. We know they'll put a foot down. Maybe even fall. No one watches a child learning to ride and says, "Well, clearly biking isn't for you."

The wobble is expected.

As adults, many of us stop extending that same grace to ourselves. We expect ourselves to get it right. To have the answers. To stay balanced. To keep all the pieces moving smoothly, whether we're talking about work, relationships, health, leadership, or life. And when things feel a little off, we often assume we've done something wrong.

At least I do.

Cycling has taught me that balance isn't something you achieve once and then keep forever. It's something you continually adjust.

Every ride is a series of tiny corrections. You shift your weight. You change gears. You respond to the road. Most of the time, you don't even realize you're doing it.

Life works much the same way.

But lately I've been thinking that the wobble isn't only about balance. Sometimes the wobble is trying to tell us something.

Years ago, I found myself in one of the hardest work situations of my career. I was doing a job that made sense on paper but felt increasingly foreign to who I was. And I worked for someone whose reactions I could never predict. I learned to walk on eggshells. I watched. I measured. I tried to anticipate which version of my boss I'd encounter and whether an ordinary question might trigger an extraordinary response. Most of those moments happened behind closed doors.

Until one day they didn't.

Sitting around a conference table with my colleagues, I asked a question and received the kind of angry response I had experienced privately before. Only this time, everyone saw it. Eventually, HR became involved. And in one of the strangest turns of my career, the person I no longer trusted offered me what should have been my dream job.

Writing.

I could leave behind the work that felt so foreign to me and become a writer. I could keep the same salary, which at the time was the highest I'd ever earned, and spend my days doing something I loved.

On paper, it was a hell yes.

And I said no.

I didn't have all the language then that I have now. I couldn't have explained alignment the way I might today. I just knew.

Something in me was wobbling.

Because the job wasn't really my dream. I would be writing what someone else wanted me to write, within a system that would determine what I could say and how I could say it. More importantly, I would be doing something deeply personal and vulnerable for someone I no longer trusted.

I've come to understand something about myself since then:

Authenticity requires enough safety to be vulnerable.

And there wasn't enough safety there for me.

The opportunity looked right. The salary looked right. The word writer certainly looked right. But it wasn't aligned.

I've been thinking about that experience again recently because I've found myself standing at another crossroads. There were good reasons to keep moving in the direction I'd chosen. It made sense on paper. I was fully capable of doing it. In fact, an earlier version of me probably would have kept going simply because I'd already started.

And yet, I kept wobbling.

Something about the path no longer felt aligned with where I was going or who I was becoming. This time, I paid attention sooner.

I've written before that if something isn't a "hell yes," maybe it's a "hell no." I still believe there's wisdom in that. But these days, I think there's something in between.

Sometimes there's a wobble.

Not an answer. Not yet. Just that subtle feeling that something isn't quite right. The job looks good on paper. The opportunity makes sense. The path is perfectly reasonable. Maybe it's even something we've worked hard to reach. And still, something feels off. I'm beginning to think the wobble is where alignment begins.

A wobble isn't failure. It's feedback. It's information. It's an invitation to pay attention. Maybe I need more rest. Maybe I need to have a conversation. Maybe I need to give something more time. Maybe I need to shift gears. And sometimes the answer is harder: Maybe this isn't my road anymore.

There's an important distinction here, though. Not every wobble means turn around.

Some of the best things in my life have scared me. They've stretched me beyond what I thought I could do. They've required courage, persistence, and a willingness to stay on the bike when part of me desperately wanted to put my feet safely on the ground.

Fear and misalignment aren't the same thing.

Fear says: This is hard. I'm not sure I can do it.

Misalignment says: I can do this. But doing it may require me to move away from myself.

I'm learning to listen for the difference.

Maybe that's what alignment really asks of us. Not certainty. Attention. Paying attention to our gut. Our intuition. That quiet knowing that sometimes arrives long before our brain has assembled enough evidence to explain it. And perhaps paying attention doesn't always require some dramatic life change.

Every ride is still a series of tiny corrections. Shift your weight. Change gears. Slow down. Put a foot down if you need to. Sometimes you may discover you're exactly where you want to be and simply needed to regain your balance. And sometimes you may realize it's time to choose another road.

The goal isn't to eliminate the wobble. It's to notice it. To get curious about what it's trying to tell you. To trust yourself enough to respond.

So if something in your life feels a little wobbly right now, maybe you don't need to fix it immediately, judge it, or force yourself back into balance.

Maybe you just need to pay attention.

The wobble is part of the ride.