Lack of motivation is not your problem. Here’s how to get going again
My career in sports has taught me a lot about the value of motivation. This is how you can benefit from my strategies in your professional and everyday life.
From time to time, I meet fellow athletes who tell me they lack the motivation to keep up the hard work that needs to be done to compete at the highest level in their sport. Even world champions and Olympians choose to quit when the flame within has gone out.
But if you ever feel like motivation is what is keeping you from reaching your goals, consider that the challenge may lie deeper within your mentality.
Of course, if an athlete is pursued by injuries, sickness, and other hurdles in their career, the drive to continue will eventually disappear. The same applies for different types of goals in people’s lives. But shorter periods where one is lacking motivation should not be a reason to stop following your dreams.
Lack of motivation is inevitable
The thing is, the motivational drive will never stay at a stable, high level at all times. Let me explain with an example from my world of cycling:
Many people assume athletes wake up every morning with a roof-high motivation powering them through their workout(s) for the day. Whether it is a high-intensity running session or a 7-hour bike ride in miserable weather, the best athletes out there will plow through it like nothing, right?
Well, not quite. Even though they are used to pushing their body to the limit, the top athletes in the world also experience tough days, both mentally and physically. Most of the time, the bad days may even be in majority, compared to those good days when you feel indestructible.
So, how do these seemingly unbeatable champions keep working hard every single day throughout the year?
It’s all down to a crucial quality called discipline.
I could be the fittest person in the world, but physical exertion will always require effort. There is no such thing as a pain-free recipe to success. And whether you are building a business from scratch or taking a challenging college degree, you will have to step outside your comfort zone from one time to another.
You can undoubtedly find motivation in your future goals that will help you get through the hardest of times. But that is not always enough. That is when discipline enters the pitch: the ability to just get it done.
Luckily, discipline is a trainable quality. It is one of those situations where mental strength can result in physical performance. I will present a situation from earlier this year to illustrate how I utilize my discipline every single day as an athlete.
The benefits of a plan
After spending almost the entire winter in southern Europe, with the best possible training conditions for cycling, I looked forward to getting back home and continuing the good experiences in nice, Norwegian spring weather. However, one morning I woke up to roads covered in snow, even though the calendar showed late March.
My plan for this day was a long, easy training ride. In these weather conditions, that meant sitting on the indoor bike trainer, staring into the wall and pedaling for at least three hours. But I knew the work had to be done. The driving force behind that one session cannot be described as anything else than sheer discipline.
So, what is the key behind this achievement? Well, I had a plan and I executed it.
For me, the disappointment of not following my pre-defined plans will almost always be bigger than the pain of pushing through a session with zero motivation.
And as you have probably understood by now, I am not writing this to motivate you. Motivation only gets you so far, simply because the feeling of motivation fluctuates. My goal with this post is to inspire you to improve your discipline.
And aside from physical performance, good discipline can bring benefits in many areas of life.
You have probably made countless to-do lists throughout your life. For me, they have turned out to be one of my most used tools to get things done. If you set aside two minutes, either the evening before or in the morning, to put together a list of all the things you need to do that day, you can massively increase your productivity and drive to complete these tasks.
In my everyday life as an athlete, most of the planning is taken care of by my coach. He makes a weekly training plan for me, that I know will make me a great cyclist if I can execute it without too many errors. This helps me create a picture of how much effort needs to be put down every day, which in turn shows the «amount» of discipline required.
See how these two are quite similar?
I have never really liked planning too much, because I have felt that it sometimes leads to unwanted commitments, which in turn leads to less freedom.
However, lately, I have learned that these commitments also can influence your life positively. Too much freedom can in my experience increase the chances of me being content with an effort that in reality is quite mediocre. The times I made a plan beforehand, I usually walk the extra mile to finish in style.
Your perception relies on comparison
Your experience of life is always down to what you compare every unique situation with. I believe that if you teach yourself the ability to push through the tough days, you will learn to appreciate the good days even more. For me, that is on its own enough for me to focus on improving my discipline every day, whether it’s about athletic achievements or developing a professional career.
My advice to you: take a step back, and review if your end goal is worth all the hard work. If the answer is yes, start making plans for how you are going to take further steps toward that goal.
If your answer is no, well, chances are motivation may not even have been present in the first place.
Originally published at https://antonstensby.com on April 4, 2023.
