Did I ever tell you the story of how, when I was 19, I bought a new bike? I bought it, I got the tires filled at the gas station down the road, and then I rode it home. It was about 95 degrees outside and there was a large hill leading up to my apartment building. For some reason, I decided that I was going to beat that hill and ride it all the way to the top without walking my bike.

and I did it. Yes I did. I made it to the lobby of my building, set my bike against the marble wall, declared to no one in particular that I was going to faint, sat on the stairs and passed out.

I woke up and tried to dial 9-1-1 on my cell phone, but the battery died. I kept half losing consciousness and I couldn't concentrate. A neighbor stopped next to me and asked me if I was okay and I said "no." He called an ambulance and while he was gone my body started to cramp.

My entire body. My hands, my feet, my legs, my abs...when the paramedics arrived I was starting to panic that I was going to die, laying there on my front stoop, all because of that STUPID BIKE.

I had heat exhaustion and was severely dehydrated, so they hooked me up to an IV (after laughing at my attempts to dial 9-1-1 with an extra 1, which I thought was unkind) and took me to the hospital. My boyfriend at the time met me at the hospital and didn't even drive me home, he made me walk when they released me. I would have taken a cab, but nice neighbor kept my personal items, like my wallet and bike, so nothing would get lost or stolen. The topper was that I had my last day at an old job Friday, started my new job on Monday, but had the hospitalization on Saturday...one of two days I was uninsured. My last words to the exit interviewer at my old job was "what could happen over the weekend?" I had to pay for it all out of my pocket.

I refused to look at that bike for years but the truth is that it wasn't the bike, it was me. I was prime weight, healthy, and young, and I still ended up in the hospital, so what went wrong? I blamed the bike but in reality there were other important contributing factors. I should have just walked the hill and worked my way up to biking the whole thing. It's easy to bite off more than you can chew in one bite, so learn to take more than one.

Trying new things is hard! It's really easy to be angry at ourselves, and become depressed that we can't be anything and everything to everyone and anyone at any given time. I was so determined to get up that hill that I didn't think about the fact that I hadn't eaten breakfast, exercised in the heat, hydrated myself with water, or really biked before. Context is important because it affects outcome. Failure in that context is hardly failure. What's important is that we learn from our mistakes and learn not to set ourselves up for failure.

If you make a commitment to do something new and then find that you can't achieve your goal right away, don't get discouraged. Breaking patterns is hard. Many of us are paralyzed by self-defeating behavior--we tell ourselves and others "I can't." It's easy to think in terms of "can't," but try to change your thinking into terms of "yet." The real truth is not that I can't do it but that I can't do it YET. I can't break this pattern YET. I can't renegotiate my circumstances YET.

It's important to realistically assess circumstances so you can effect the changes you need in order to change can't to can. Don't try to master the hill in one day.