What if you could easily hear your soul’s deepest desires? You could know what to do with your life. You could make sure that you are following the right path. You could make sure your thinking is clear and logical. We have touched on silence before, which allows the space for your creative genius to appear. Now, we need to organize these creative ideas, and writing is what we are looking for here.

Like many other cyclists, I had a coach for many years in my career who would tell me what to do. But is it the best approach? While a coach can be helpful, his role should be to act more as a guide than someone telling you what to do. This realization took me some time. How can you believe a coach knows more about what you should do than you? The truth is that no one can understand you better than yourself, but we are also prone to different biases, which can affect how we judge ourselves. So there are pros and cons on both sides. Therefore, if you work with a coach, find a good one who has reached a certain level of wisdom and who has the best in mind for you.

If you are working with a coach, it’s great to communicate with him your feelings, and then he can interpret them and adjust your training regimen accordingly. Proper communication might be one of the most essential life skills. From this perspective, the work of a coach is not to do the work for you but rather highlight what seems to work best for you. This is the same if you work with a psychotherapist. He cannot act on your life. Only you can. You must take full responsibility for your life conditions, and your cycling results are no different.

To expand on that argument of responsibility, you have to be willing to face the truth—your shortcomings, which were known as sins in the old times. The reality is that your success in your cycling career and life will be determined by how much truth you can tolerate. As I mentioned earlier, we are heavily biased as human beings. One of the common manifestations of these biases is that we see the wrongdoings of others more than we do ours. This is called the blind spot bias. Taking your thoughts on paper can help you step back and face the flaws in your own thinking.

This is why you need to ask yourself the questions so you can answer them. Silence can create the space, and then you can dig deeper with writing. This is the learning process, the learning process about the world, but most importantly, about yourself. How did Socrates become the wisest man in Athens? He did nothing but ask questions. So, ask people questions, ask yourself questions when you ride, read, or contemplate life; it’s the path to wisdom and inner mastery. This leads me to the practice of writing to answer such questions and encounter new ones.

In this digital age, writing often takes a digital form, but based on my experience and science, there is evidence suggesting that writing on paper is better. Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) conducted a study published in Psychological Science, which found that students who took notes by hand on paper rather than on a laptop had a better conceptual understanding of the material. The study concluded that writing by hand forces one to process the information more deeply, leading to improved retention and comprehension. This is because the slower nature of writing on paper encourages students to summarize and process the information instead of transcribing it verbatim, as is often the case with digital note-taking.[5]

Indeed, writing is critical to learning, but instead of copying the text mindlessly, the mindful approach is to summarize what you learned in your own words, as highlighted by the study mentioned. The objective is to reach a point where lies can’t come out of your mouth or pen. The more you write, the more you refine your truth.

At night, put your ideas on paper. I like to keep a journal. That way, I can go back to it later. It also has a timeless feel to it. This can become the most helpful book in your library. I hope that you have an extensive library because reading makes you think about different ideas, and thinking makes you wise. Jim Mattis, a former Marine, said: “If you haven’t read a hundred books, you are functionally illiterate.”[6]

Freeform write about your ride. How did you feel? Did your body tell you it was the best training session in your context? What can I learn before the following sessions? Keeping these notes in a journal allows you to take advantage of the silence, handwriting, and the possibility of returning later. Returning can lead to further explorations of your ideas, leading you to a greater understanding of yourself and the universe. I find great value in reading old entries in my journal and writing new thoughts about them. You are now pursuing the truth. This is the philosophical process. Learn for life.

As mentioned earlier, having a coach can be helpful. Even having the right one can fast-track your progress in cycling and life. That great coach will already have internalized these philosophical truths to guide you with great wisdom rather than telling you to do without having an idea himself. That way, he is no longer a coach but rather a guide, mentor, or wise man, and that’s the kind of person you’re looking for.

After all, you are responsible for knowing yourself in your training and life. This is where meaning lies. That meaning is the target every human is looking for. Meaning precedes happiness. By getting to know yourself, you fulfill your responsibility as a human being.

Summary:

• Writing is a great tool to learn about the world and yourself.
• Writing on paper allows you to think better.
• Writing reveals new questions so you can dig deep into resources and your soul.
  
  

[5] Mueller, Pam A., and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking.” Psychological Science 25, no. 6 (2014): 1159–1168. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581.

[6] Jim Mattis and Bing West, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead (New York: Random House, 2019).