The past two days at work have been very interesting. I participated in two days of agile training. Very very interesting. I won’t get into the details and nitty gritty of agile and how it makes the workplace a more functional, efficient, fun and productive environment. If you want to read about agile, take a look at this website: Westboro Systems. So why am I writing about work and agile training on this cycling-focused website? I’m doing this because of one key phrase that was repeated and emphasized a great deal:

Continuous Improvement

Hmm, pretty heavy eh? This is a theme/mantra/phrase/touchstone that you and I can apply to pretty much every aspect of our lives. Our working lives. Our bike racing lives. Our family life. Our relationships with our friends. How we interact with strangers. How we step into the unknown.

Continuous Improvement – this really resonates with me right now. As an athlete I’m striving to get better each and every day. Once I achieve one goal on the bike, I’m looking for the next one – be this achieving a target wattage number, tackling a tricky descent, or getting the pre-race routine down. Away from the bike, I’m seeking continuous improvement on a daily basis – learning to let the little things go by with no impact, to stop judging and learning to accept, to be more patient, to relax and enjoy, to simply just be.

I have a feeling that Continuous Improvement will be making an appearance on my stem this year. A subtle reminder to keep pushing that little bit more and a reminder that things have gotten better and will continue to do so. (It is important to acknowledge that these improvements do not need to be huge – they only need to be significant to you. Tying your shoes doesn’t seem like a big deal right now but when you were 5 years old, successfully tying your shoes was a big deal…)

I think central to maintaining a path of Continuous Improvement is remembering that there will be blips and missteps – this is okay. You’re human. I’m human. No one is perfect. With an eye on a long view, you’ll be amazed at how much you’ve grown, improved, changed and blossomed.