Some people are wired in a way that allows them to turn their attention to any task and dig in until the task is complete. In the world of psychology, these folks (of which you may be one) are referred to as neurotypical. There are, however, a great many of us who are wired differently, be it ADHD, OCD, SPS, autism, bipolar or one of the other varieties of brain wiring that is too common statistically to be a mistake, but end up being categorized as disorders, which is why I like the catchall of neurodivergent.
As a young person, my ability to choose to focus my attention on something was directly proportional to my interest in it. Quadratic equations? I could only do them if you watched me. Riding a bike? Let me express it this way: When I learned that in training for the Tour de France Greg LeMond would ride for as long as eight hours in a day, what I felt was envy. Decades would pass before I’d be diagnosed with ADHD, but the idea that riding a bike for eight hours sounded fun ought to be considered a reliable indicator of ADHD.
Without that diagnosis though, the adults in my life despaired that I could grow into a productive member of society. They weren’t actually wrong. I couldn’t connect working hard at something—the classic “apply yourself”—with gaining a useful skill. My brain could not parse the meaning of mastery. As soon as something became difficult, I wanted out.
It wasn’t until I took up cycling and began to ride with and race with the UMASS Cycling Team that I learned that to be good at something I was going to have to do it not just when it seemed fun, but consistently, daily even. I would have to ride at least four days a week if I wanted to keep up with my new teammates. That’s what helped me find discipline: I hated getting dropped. I realized one afternoon as I limped home minutes behind the rest of the team, that if I wanted to ride with them, I was going to have to ride with them, as often as possible.
To that point in my life, my lack of discipline meant that I did things when they sounded fun, when I felt like it. I didn’t keep a count of how often I did something or how long I did it for. If I wanted to race my bike, I was going to have to put in the same amount of time as the other riders on the “C” squad. No way was I ready to put in the 300-mile weeks the “A”s were putting in.
Because I loved riding my bike, it didn’t feel like a great sacrifice to ride five days per week, rather than three. That passion for the bike is what helped me push past my own limitations and begin to appreciate that I could achieve measurable progress on a much quicker timeline with dedication. What my experience taught me was to distract my sons from the notion of discipline while using something they enjoy to marshal the practice of consistent effort. I had hoped I would do that with bikes, but neither of them have developed the love I possess. That’s okay because the lesson I learned from cycling was that I transfer that newfound discipline to any other pursuit, so long as I could blend enjoyment with consistency. Hacking discipline remains a parlor trick for me because I lack a simple on/off switch for my attention.
The trick, of course, to discipline has come from my ability to hack into a flow state. By staying in that sweetspot balance between too great a challenge and too little challenge, cycling enabled me to learn how to dedicate myself to my own improvement. The feedback loop was immediate in a way studying algebra is not.
My gut tells me that these autotelic adventures: cycling, skateboarding, playing music, drawing, painting—they create opportunities for those of us driven by our passions to direct ourselves and learn what it means to gain mastery.