I remember the first time I truly understood the phrase “Where you look is where you go.” I was sitting on my Kawasaki ZX6R at Pendine Sands, staring down a strip of wet sand stretching out into the horizon. My hands trembled slightly inside my gloves—not from the cold, but from the weight of what I was about to do.

 

Until then, I’d only ever heard the phrase in riding lessons, barked out by instructors as I wobbled around cones. But suddenly it took on a deeper meaning. Because out here, on this lonely Welsh beach, where I looked wasn’t just going to decide my line on the sand — it was going to decide everything. My confidence. My speed. Maybe even my survival.

Motorcyclists know this truth instinctively. Fixate on the kerb in a corner and, sure enough, your bike drifts toward it. Obsess about the pothole and — bam — you’re riding straight into it. But isn’t that just life all over?

 

Fixating on Obstacles

Most of us spend our days staring at the metaphorical potholes. Bills. Deadlines. That awkward conversation we’ve been avoiding. We fixate on problems, replaying them on a loop, as if worrying enough might dissolve them. It doesn’t. It just steers us straight into them.

When I first began riding again after 24 years away from bikes, I was petrified of everything. The road surface. The weather. My own capability. My eyes kept darting to danger, and — surprise, surprise — that’s exactly where I kept ending up.

It wasn’t until a seasoned rider shared the phrase again, almost as an afterthought, that I started experimenting with it beyond the bike. Could I, I wondered, point my attention toward possibility instead of fear? Toward solutions instead of problems?

 

The shift was subtle but profound.

 

Choosing Your Line

In racing, riders are taught to “choose your line” early. Once you’re committed to a line, everything else flows from it — your speed, your lean angle, your braking. You trust the line. You let the bike do its thing.

In life, we can do the same. Choose a destination. Focus on the horizon. And yes, there’ll still be crosswinds and the occasional sheep standing exactly where it shouldn’t, but you adjust and keep looking forward.

When I knew I had only ten days to get organised for sand racing on the beach at Pendine, I didn’t know how on earth I’d get there. I didn’t own a fast bike. I didn’t have racing leathers. I didn’t even have a racing license. But I pointed my mind in that direction anyway, and somehow the universe (plus a lot of begging, pleading and unsung heroes) conspired to help me. One day I was awkwardly strapping my wet bag onto the tail end of a cheap ZX6r in my driveway and three months later I was flat out on the salt at Bonneville.

 

Where you look… you really do go.

 

A Wider Field of Vision

There’s a catch, though. Riders are also taught not to get “target fixation.” Stare too hard at any single thing and you lose awareness of everything else. In life, too, we need peripheral vision. Goals are great, but rigid tunnel vision can make us miss unexpected opportunities — the side roads, the scenic routes, the chance encounters that change everything.

One of my favourite rides took me off my planned route entirely. A wrong turn in the Pyrenees led me to a quiet mountain pass where I spent an hour watching golden eagles soar overhead. I could have cursed the mistake. Instead, it felt like a gift.

 

Point Your Mind Forward

So what about you? Where are you looking? Is it at the obstacles? The regrets? Or is it the open road ahead?

You don’t have to know exactly where it leads. You just have to pick a direction that feels alive.

And when doubt creeps in — and it will — remember: the bike goes where your eyes go. Your life does too.

 

With gratitude and grit,

Louisa

The Existential Biker