Motivation
Ask someone why they don’t maintain great exercise habits and motivation would be one of the most frequent answers. Why is this? Do some people really have absolutely no motivation. Why is it some people are quick to make excuses and not just get out there and say yes. What allows me to set my alarm for 06:45, roll out of bed and be out the door by 07:00? Passion, not motivation. I genuinely look forward to my next run or ride. Yes I still feel a reluctance to get out of bed when my alarm goes off and I realise the time, but once I flick the light on and start drinking a glass of water I’m pretty much awake and raring to go.
One of my greatest frustrations is when people say that you’re lucky to enjoy running, or you’re lucky to be good at cycling. It’s not luck, it’s belief. It’s all you, fight for it. Fear robs you of your dreams. It’s the voice inside your head telling you that you’re not capable. Why give up on yourself? I don’t believe I’m lucky. Yes I’m willing to admit that physiologicaly I must process certain genes that allow me to recover from exercise faster than the average person, have a greater maximum oxygen uptake, a higher haemoglobin mass and more red blood cells than the next person. Lucky, I think not. The endless training every week is what allows me to do what I do, not luck.
So how do you maintain that passion for your sport? Goals! That’s the simple answer. Every day I’m getting closer to accomplishing my goal of competing for Team GB. The day I receive my vest will be the proudest day of my life and my biggest accomplishment. The thought of that raises my heart rate and excites me. Every session I do is a step closer to realising this dream. It’s each component every day that’s helping me to realise thais goal. From the amount of sleep I get, my nutrition, training and stretching, it’s either bringing me closer to my dream or further away. It’s the details that are important.
One of the most important factors to your success is mental toughness. Limited understanding of how to build mental toughness leads to confusion. From my own personal experience and existing literature every second of the day we are either making decisions which go against the easy option or we the the easy option. It’s easy to sit and watch a football match, but when are you going to realise the satisfaction is in playing the football match yourself. The satisfaction comes from the training sessions that allow you to do what you do on Sunday morning against another team in the league.
Building mental toughness begins with making positive decisions daily that you can draw upon to make positive decisions in the future. The example I always give people is setting an alarm clock to get up and go to the gym. Imagine your current situation, it’s the weekend and you have the day off, how likely would you it be for you to get up at 8am, eat breakfast and be at the gym for 09:30? What if we make the time you get up 6am to be at the gym for 07:30? If you set your alarm for 6am, but you hit snooze and go back to sleep you are more likely to not only repeat this action again, but also make negative decisions similar to this one. In comparison the 8am wake up might be easier and you may manage to get up. You have in this action accomplished you’re goal to get up earlier to train. This builds mental toughness to increase the probability of you repeating this action, but also to make other good decisions similar to this one.
Stay moitivated by doing what you enjoy. Break your goals into manageable chunks and prepare to tick them off.
