I have a story for you today about an a-ha moment that I got by dusting off my bicycle. It has a great takeaway for you if you are working on up-leveling your career or business.

My daughter is starting to ride her bicycle and she’s getting to the point where she can possibly go on a ride with the family. It inspired me to pull my bicycle out of the basement, pump air in the tires, and take it for a spin.

When I started riding, I noticed a pain in my back that has caused me problems for a number of years. I felt it pretty much as soon as I got on the bike. This is a pain that I have done a ton of things and spent a lot of time, money, and energy on trying to fix it. And here, not two minutes into my ride and the pain is back. It would be logical to assume that cycling is the issue. Perhaps I shouldn’t be riding the bike if I get back pain. By the cycling wasn’t the issue. It was HOW I was sitting on the bicycle.

I know this because a couple of months ago while doing some yoga, the very experienced teacher took one look at me in my very first pose and noticed how I was holding my back. She pressed her finger on the spot that was hurting (how could she tell?) and told me to stop arching my back and to flatten my spine more. I didn’t realize I had been arching my back. When I made this small and subtle shift in the way I held my spine, the pain went away. Instantly.

It was the very same pain that I experienced riding my bike. As I rode, I remembered this and made sure I straightened my back. The pain went away. So simple! An incredible result for such an easy adjustment.

I couldn’t help but shake my head about the amount of time I had spent over the past decade (at least) working with registered massage therapists to make my back pain go away. They were great and very skilled at what they did and their worked helped to ease the muscles in the short-term. However, it didn’t fix the problem. It’s because we were trying to address what was showing up–my sore muscles–instead of fixing the issue at the source. My muscles weren’t the problem: the way I held my spine was.

How does this apply to where you’re at with your career or business?

So often we spend years working to address a problem without addressing the source. We don’t make the adjustment we need to make. Instead, we massage our way around it because we don’t know what’s causing the pain in the first place. It can help to have an expert help you get to the source of the problem. What experts have you already consulted? Which ones (as talented as they were) addressed the pain? Which ones might help you address the source?