Slow and Steady: The Path to Progress
- Tim Bolton
- Nov 16, 2025
- 9 min read
On my first day out of Deadhorse, I rode for over 24 hours straight.
I finally stopped in the evening of June 5th because I was so tired I was beginning to hallucinate. My brain thought a ramshackle old building I spotted in the distance was a bear. It wasn’t.
So I slowed to a stop at a small turnout on the Dalton Highway and pitched my tent.
I cooked and ate a freeze-dried meal some distance away in case the building I saw suddenly decided to become a bear – something which bear-shaped buildings have, on occasion, been known to do.
I then brushed my teeth, disappeared into my tent, and crawled into the warm, sweet embrace of my sleeping bag.
I proceeded to sleep for 16 hours.
When I finally woke from my coma, I looked at my watch and calculated the amount of time I’d been unconscious. I was so proud of myself.
After slowly coming alive again, I packed my gear and headed down the road through the remaining stretch of tundra until I entered the Brooks Range.
Flurries began falling as I rode towards Atigun Pass. So I stopped just short of the pass and slept inside an abandoned fire house to get out of the weather.
Up and Up
On Day Three, when I arrived at Atigun Pass I looked up at the towering hill in front of me and took a deep breath.
Slow and steady, I began the climb into the Brooks Range. One pedal stroke at a time.
I set a goal for myself: I’d pedal 100 times before I stopped to take a break.
But here’s the thing: I never stopped at just 100 pedal strokes. I pedaled two, three, five hundred times before stopping.
Slow and steady.
But when I eventually summited the pass, the fun wasn’t over. Because it was just as steep on the way down. And with strong winds, blowing snow, and plenty of icy patches left in the mountains in early June, I decided to lay on the brakes the entire way.
Slow and steady.
Coldfoot
When I arrived in Coldfoot a couple days later, it felt like somebody had decided winter was suddenly out of style and spring should have a turn.
The sun was shining bright, the weather was pleasant, and temperatures were 25-35 degrees warmer than they were coming over Atigun Pass.
It also helped that Coldfoot had all the necessary amenities (a hot shower, laundry, and a restaurant). And unlike the package I’d sent to Deadhorse ahead of time, the one I’d shipped to Coldfoot was actually there when I showed up.
If I’d started having doubts about if I’d actually be able to pull off what I was doing in those first few days, they were dashed by the shower and sunshine in Coldfoot.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that first stint through the tundra was my introduction to the person I’d set off on my bike ride to meet.
He was stronger than I knew, more determined than I imagined, and more resourceful than I thought possible.
After facing the kind of daily challenges that have forced me to create solutions for myself, I’ve come to the realization that I don’t have a very good grasp on what I’m capable of.
I don’t think I’m alone in that regard. And that’s truly a shame.
Because if there’s one trait that young people especially need in order to create the lives they want, it’s self-realization.
And realizing your fullest potential is only possible by overcoming the challenges you create for yourself.
But how does a person strive for his fullest potential when his entire life has been mired by failure?
Well, the same way you ride a bicycle over a mountain: Slow and steady.
Some Perspective
I look back over those early days after having completed my entire ride and can’t help but smile at how small those challenges really were.
That's my whole point: In the context of the full spectrum of our lives, how grandiose are the issues you’re facing now?
I’ll assume that if you’re reading this, you have access to the Internet, either in your own home or at a public establishment. I’ll also assume that you have access to everything on the lowest rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: food, water, shelter, clothing.
If both of those assumptions are correct, it would then be reasonable to assume you are not living in a war-torn area of the world.
Nobody is knocking on your door and forcing you to part ways with vital supplies due to a national shortage of some kind.
One more assumption: You received some form of education following your tenth birthday.
If all of these assumptions do in fact describe your current situation, then a congratulations is in order. Because you are already better off than the vast majority of people who have lived throughout human history.
You are even better off than most people living throughout the world today.
Now, of course I am not suggesting that your life is all just rainbows and dandelions. Even with access to healthcare, education, and the basic needs for survival, people still are subject to their primal desires.
People still murder, steal, and harm others on their way to getting what they want. Trauma and illicit behavior abound in all levels of our modern society.
Clearly, these issues aren’t going anywhere.
However, if you were to take an outsider’s perspective of your own life – do a “life audit” if you will – then you’d likely find that the barriers to your self-defined success are not nearly as insurmountable as you might think.
And yet…
Modern Americans are lonelier and more disconnected than ever before. We’re dissatisfied and checked out of our own lives. We're even apathetic towards life itself.
So the question is why? And what are we supposed to do about it?
A New Word
There is an ancient Hebrew word that, translated into modern English, has one of two connotations.
The first (more positive) connotation is simply translated as supreme self-confidence.
The second (definitely NOT positive) connotation can be described as “the quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”
That ancient Hebrew word is “chutzpah”. Listen to the pronunciation below.
(Sidenote: That’s why I told you in a previous article that you’d need some phlegm when doing anything that makes you uncomfortable.)
Okay, so we have a textbook definition and an example to add some context. But what does this weird Hebrew word have to do with tackling hard things?
False Assumptions
When we are children, we falsely assume adults know everything. They know right from wrong. They know the answers to the questions on our math test. And they know the path to success.
I realized far too late in my own life that adults have just as many questions as kids.
Many of them will do whatever it takes to get ahead. And more people are living below their threshold for success than those who have realized their full potential.
These may be sad truths. But the sooner you realize that nobody has things all figured out, the sooner you can begin building the patterns of behavior that collectively create the life you want to live.
For the better part of the first decade of my adulthood, I scanned my environment for an example of how I was supposed to do this whole “life thing”.
I consumed all kinds of materials that I thought could help. I read books. I listened to podcasts. I took courses. I researched individuals I admired.
Monkey see, monkey do. Or so I thought.
The trouble is that there is no one who can live your life the way you are supposed to live it. And why would you want them to?
If you do the exact things your idols have done before you, you’re simply a copycat. If you re-create the very work that you admire, you’ve plagiarized.
And if you teach the exact material you’ve been taught your whole life, you’ve just regurgitated information with no new insight. You’ve broken no new ground.
The trouble is that so many people are looking for “cheat codes” in life that they might just play along. And when you’ve got their attention, you’ll start saying anything to convince yourself that you’re right and they ought to keep following you.
At that point, another congratulations is in order. Because you’ve just started a cult.
Actions Ripple Outwards (And Inwards)
None of us can fully comprehend the relational, spiritual, or even celestial ramifications of what we do – or don’t do.
Our lives are a series of interconnected behavior patterns that are impossible to understand holistically. And yet, that’s how we try to piece them together. We want to understand ourselves at a macro level.
In reality, our perspective can only ever be from the ground up. We pass through time in micro moments. A hug from a loved one. A glance up at the star-strewn night sky. The taste of a juicy burger.
These are all sensory inputs, to be sure. But each new input affects subsequent outputs only after being fed through the “self mill”.
The input is digested by the mind and body and then returned into the surrounding environment in the form of an action, word, or new pattern of behavior.
It’s more than simple reciprocity, though. Because, after all, giving a gift with the expectation of getting one in return defeats the purpose of giving the gift in the first place. That’s what we’ve gotten so wrong about Christmas in modern Western society.
The phrase “what goes around comes around” isn’t always true. We’ve all seen cases where criminals get off scot-free. Or instances when volunteers tragically die in an accident.
So that must mean there are forces at play in the Universe that our human minds simply cannot understand. So pretending like we have all the answers to life’s biggest questions is the height of folly and arrogance.
And yet, too many people walk around with their chests out preying on weaker individuals with their heads down.
They promise transformation through whatever truth they purport. When in reality they are no wiser to the ways of our world than the people whose pocketbooks they seek to pick.
Visualization
A better path forward is to walk out your front door fully comfortable knowing that you simply don’t know what’s going to happen throughout your day.
If you did, why should you get out of bed in the first place?
If your Monday mornings look exactly the same every week and the picture doesn’t excite you, then it’s perfectly understandable that you don’t enjoy your work.
How could you? You already know what’s going to happen, and the show isn’t all that engaging.
But on the other hand, what if you approached your daily life asking yourself how you would handle a situation if you had a second chance at it?
When you follow that approach, you’re more likely to take a positive step forward than regret the actions you did – or didn’t – make.
Visualize your day, your week, your month, and your year. Visualize your entire life.
What does the best version of the limited time you have on Earth look like?
What kinds of choices do you make?
What do the days look like that are characterized by the most joy? How about the most frustration?
By asking yourself these questions before stumbling forward and doing whatever it is you decide to do, you’re creating a mental picture of your own existence in the context of those micro-moments we talked about earlier.
This practice might sound woo-woo. Like some weird mystical way of just going about your day. But it’s actually one of the most tactically sound means for building the kind of lifestyle you want.
Because rather than taking life as it comes and grasping at the straws all the Internet gurus dangle in front of you, you are making a habit of stepping back and surveying your surroundings before deciding where to go next.
It’s the difference between blurting out something stupid at a party and adding something insightful to a conversation.
It’s the lifestyle equivalent of watching where you’re going instead of stepping in horse manure all throughout your day.
The Path to Progress
It’s an inside-out approach, to be sure. It’s not flashy. And you’re probably not destined to become the life of the party by following it.
But you are more likely to be seen as someone who brings value to other people’s lives.
You’ll become someone other people listen to because your words carry real weight. Someone who can change others’ ways of thinking simply because you’ve thought things through yourself.
There are plenty of people seeking attention in this world. Too many, in fact.
But ask yourself: Is that really what fuels my fire? Is that really who I’m interested in becoming?
Another hard truth: People are going to turn on you. They just are. They’re going to disagree with you, argue with you, insult you, even attack you.
But if you commit to building yourself into someone who respects him- or herself and brings value to others, then people’s insults won’t carry much weight. And the people who do respect you won’t pay them much mind.
So be the person digging out a path forward for others to follow.
The dirt on your hands will wash away. The calluses will heal. But the mindset shift towards a charted vision for your own future will stick with you.
Spoiler alert: That vision is of a life well-lived.
It's going to take a lot of chutzpah. But it's something we can all strive for.
Slow and steady. That's the path to progress. That's exactly how I made it back to the beginning of the Dalton Highway and, eventually, to the end of my ride in Key West, Florida.
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