Building A Business Is Like Riding A Bike: 3 Reasons Why

Why can’t you create a successful business overnight? When it comes to short-term and long-term gains, It reminds me that business is like riding a bike. If you want to have a profitable business, you have to keep practicing to become better at it.

There are many things you need to get good at in business, such as communication skills. Communicating with your customers is necessary to market your business. 

The same thing applies to riding a bike- if you want to master it, you have to keep going.

In this post, I’ll review this analogy further and lay out three reasons why it matters.

Note: We may include products or services that will be helpful to our readers. This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please review the affiliate disclosure page.

Business is like riding a bike

Like learning anything new in life, starting a business can be compared to riding a bicycle. Similar to falling many times, you will make mistakes and likely fail (maybe multiple times before seeing success). Let’s dive into three reasons why this analogy makes sense.

  1. Why Business Is Like Riding A Bike
  2. It Takes Time And Effort To Master A Skill
  3. You Gain Valuable Experience When You Fail
  4. Keep Trying Again: Don’t Give Up After Doing It Once
Building A Business Is Like Riding A Bike: 3 Reasons Why It’s True

Why business is like riding a bike

To be clear, the time lengths may not be similar between a business and a bike. It’s quicker to learn how to ride a bike, but learning a business may take much longer. 

Whereas it can take days or weeks to learn bike riding, it can take a few years (i.e. two-three years) to have a successful, profitable business come about. But no matter what, you still have to practice regularly. 

If you ride a bike and fall, keep moving. If you make mistakes while growing your business, keep going, and don’t ever give up.

Business is like riding a bike: Riding a bike is similar to running a business, but the time lengths can be different.

It takes time and effort to master a skill

Building a business takes hard work and time to put in. You may not get immediate results, but the time you put in now will have massive payoffs later on.

Let’s go over the example of being an excellent cyclist. You practice and train to be one of the best ones in the world.

You may have ambitions to compete in the Tour de France. But if you want to perform your best and win that race, you have to practice a lot to do very well.

It can take a few years of prepping and practice to do well in that race. The same thing applies to building a business, so keep that in mind.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Albert Einstein

You gain valuable experience when you fail

Recently, I discussed the importance of failure in a previous post. In business, there will be times when you’ll fail, or things may not work out as intended. 

For example, if you happen to manage a sales team, there may be certain metrics your team has to meet. If it’s making between 50-100 sales a week, that can be one example of meeting performance expectations.

However, if one of your sales representatives falls short of that some weeks, that can be a loss sometimes. But it’s not the end of the world: If you fell short of reaching those numbers, you pick yourself back up and start fresh the following week.

Just like riding a bike and you fall, you pick yourself back up and try again. You go at it until you’ve mastered it.

Business is like riding a bike: If you fall down from a bike, you get back up and try again.

Keep trying again: Don’t give up after doing it once 

It’s easy for anyone to give up on something right away. If you keep falling off a bike, you could easily give up and not try again.

But here’s something to keep in mind: Remember when you first started walking as a toddler? Maybe not, but if so, you probably fell a lot of times.

It wasn’t easy, but back then, did you just give up? No, you kept going as it was necessary to learn. 

Now imagine if you thought back then- maybe I should give up on walking? In that case, you’d be crawling like crazy and end up getting nowhere.

Business is like riding a bike: Success and failure are intertwined, but are equally important.

My point is the following: When it comes to business, a lot of people can give up on their business too soon. If we think about the walking analogy, why give up sooner than you should?

Building a business takes time, no matter what. So keep learning new skills and try out things that can grow your business further.

Relevant article at notimekillers.com

Read next on “How To Force Myself Out Of My Comfort: 7 Tips”, to understand why taking risks and being uncomfortable can benefit growing a business.

Final Words

Learning how to ride a bike can be mastered, but like a business, it takes time. The same understanding applies to business. 

Maybe it’ll take longer, but you can do it if you have patience and stay persistent with it. These three reasons can help you understand how it all works, and that this analogy helped see the bigger picture.

Whatever business you’re in, keep in mind that it’s all about learning the basics. You have to start from the ground up, and then go from there.

Your Turn: Do you keep your business going forward?

I would like to get your thoughts on this subject. Have you ever thought about this analogy prior to reading this article?

Is it easier to understand now that you read this post? Have you given up on a business idea after only a short time?

If so, will you commit more time and effort to making your business successful? What will you do differently moving forward?

Feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below. I look forward to reading your responses, and I’ll gladly respond promptly.

If you got value from this article, please bookmark this website to visit later for new posts every week.

Spread the word to others. Sharing is caring!

To get more of this type of content, you won't want to miss out my daily email letters. These are worth some golden nuggets and best tips to help you in your business. Sign up today!

Count me in on the daily letters via email!

For the latest videos that come out every week, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Also, be sure to check out our new space on 
Twitter X!

YouTube

Twitter (X)

Medium Profile
Eric is the owner and chief editor of notimekillers.com. 

He takes great pride in helping people manage their time and grow their businesses. 

Eric is a firm believer in financial and time freedom, as he believes in financial independence and taking ownership of your time. 

“Time is your most important asset. It can be your best friend or worst enemy. How you use your time can shape the future you desire to have.” 

In his leisure time, Eric loves to write and read whenever possible. He enjoys going for long walks outdoors while doing in-home workout videos every week. 

You can also connect with Eric via LinkedIn.

Self Photo 2019: Here's a picture at a building in downtown Chicago.

2 thoughts on “Building A Business Is Like Riding A Bike: 3 Reasons Why”

  1. This post is a very interesting read and a lot of what you’ve covered is what I am learning through building an online business. The analogy that you used really resonated with me because it’s very true that starting any business takes practice and time to learn – just like riding a bike.

    We can’t fail at the first sign of defeat. We must to keep riding forward in order to maintain momentum!

    Reply
    • Hi Christopher,

      No matter what type of business you start, you end up beginning at the bottom and work your way up. As with anything, you have to take baby steps and then reevaluate from there.

      Similar to riding a bike, you will make mistakes (a lot of them). So expect to mess up and experience failure every now and then.

      I’m glad to know you have the right mindset when it comes to starting business. You’re right to point out about feeling defeated: Get back up on your feet, keep your head up, and keep going at it.

      That’s how we do it, and for keeping that momentum going.

      Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts- they’re greatly appreciated.
       

      Reply

Leave a Comment