The Natural Split

There's a moment on every group ride when the pack divides. It often happens without announcement (although it hits harder when it is!)

What you notice is that the pace lifts slightly, a gap opens, and before you know it you're watching the faster riders pull away. In cycling, we call it the natural split. The hierarchy settles itself, and the group separates into those who can hold the pace and those who can't.

Yesterday, I was firmly in the second group.

I spent most of our club gravel ride huffing and puffing off the back, hanging on. My back has been bad for a while now, and somewhere between resting it and avoiding the worst of the winter weather, a couple of months slipped by without much riding. So, getting back on the bike felt harder than it should have - and the split came faster than I'd have liked.

Finding your own pace

When that happens, I know to adjust - stop trying to match everyone else's pace and just ride my own. I wasn't going to catch the front group. I knew that. But I was outside, I was moving, I was reconnecting with friends. That was the point of the ride.

It got me thinking about how often we exhaust ourselves chasing a pace that was never really ours to match.

The natural split happens in organisations too. Not everyone in a team moves at the same speed, or in the same direction. As leaders, we know this. What's less often talked about is the split that happens inside a career - the moment when you realise that the group you've been riding with is heading somewhere you're not sure you actually want to go.

It creeps up on us

The tricky thing about the natural split in a career is that most people don't notice it happening. They register a moment of pause, a small gap, a brief dip in momentum. What they don't see is that others are already off, moving towards a destination that might not be right for them at all.

And so they chase.

They push harder, work longer, perform with more urgency - all in pursuit of something they assumed they were supposed to want. The result, in my experience, is weariness. Isolation. A growing sense that something important has been lost, even if they can't quite name it.

I've sat across from enough senior leaders to know that this feeling is more common than anyone admits out loud. The accomplished, respected, high-performing leader who wonders, somewhere underneath all of it: am I even going in the right direction?

The honest question

What I'd say to anyone in that moment - and I say it in coaching conversations more than anywhere else - is this: what do you actually want?

Not what you think you should want. Not what the next logical step looks like on paper. What do you genuinely value? How do you want to feel in five years' time? Because if you keep chasing something that doesn't fit what you really want from your working life, you're not just going to be unhappy. You're likely to underperform too. You can't sustain the pace towards a destination that isn't yours.

It's only when you get honest with yourself about what you actually want that you become free to pursue it properly - and to become the best version of yourself in the process.

I'll be honest: I'm still figuring this out myself. 

When I set up Taggart People last year, I thought I was building a consulting and coaching practice - effectively doing my old job but working for myself. Somewhere along the way, I've realised I want something more specific than that. I want to bring my love of cycling into the work, to connect with people I have something in common with, and to use the bike as a genuine tool for thinking differently about leadership. That's what Breakaway is becoming.

My own destination is shifting. And that's not a problem. That's the work.

So, where do you actually want to go?

If the split is happening in your career right now - if you're chasing a pace that's leaving you worn out rather than energised - it might be worth stopping for a moment.

Not to give up. Not to fall behind. But to ask yourself whether the group you've been chasing is heading somewhere you actually want to be.

Sometimes the right path isn't the one the fast riders are taking. Sometimes it's a different road entirely.