Sharing a challenge: Motivation

I have found a great site for helping me work towards my half-marathon race goal. It’s appropriately called The Fitness Motivator. For the next several posts I am going to follow the various topics I am reading there.

The first topic is motivation.

Good one. Why am I running this race? What is going to keep me from losing interest like I did last year when I ended up watching my brother run from the sidelines?

First of all, I am inspired by a couple of books I read recently. What Should I Do With the Rest Of My Life, by Bruce Frankel, has a chapter on a woman who didn’t run a single race until she was sixty. Now in her seventies, she is professional elite runner. Her race times would depress my brother who is thirty years her junior.

If she can start running at sixty, I can continue running at forty-seven.

But it was this story in combination with another book I read that caused me to stop waffling and sign up for the race. Al Weatherhead, in The Power of Adversity, advises changing the thought process ‘I have to do it’ to ‘I have it to do’.

This is quite brilliant. ‘I have to do it’ implies a hardship that you really don’t want to undertake. ‘I have it to do’ says the decision is made, and now it’s time to simply get on with it.

So, I signed up. Done. Decision made.

But what is going to keep me training? What am I going to repeat as a mantra on those days I just don’t want to get off the couch? Or keep me putting one foot in front of the other when running into ridiculous head winds along the river?

I sat quietly and asked myself these questions, and the following popped into my head:

“I want to work in harmony with my body.”

Now, that’s interesting!

In the last year, my body has been going in one direction and my mind in another. My body is developing wrinkles, failing eye sight, and a stuborn increased belly girth. My mind, on the other hand, is becoming more youthful. I am calmer, more carefree, and happier than I have ever been in my life.

Running will require my mind and my body to work together.

My mind will get me out the door. My mind will insist on pushing my limits regardless of hills, wind, rain, or whatever other challenges I meet on a run. My body will take me greater distances on each run, or move me faster. It will push into the wind, and propel me up hills.

And as I become more powerful, my mind will become concious of my body.

There are glorious moments when I am in peak physical condition when I get the overwhelming feeling of moving like a jungle cat. Graceful and sleek, yet capable of great bursts of speed and strength.

It is a moment of complete harmony between my body and my mind. It is a feeling like no other.

That is my motivation. To enjoy this complete harmony more often than not.

And on the days I am trying to convince myself to keep going and not turn back to the couch, I shall conjure up my panther totem. And she’ll run beside me, reminding me that I can be just like her.

Have your say:

What is keeping you motivated facing your challenge? Or, if aren’t tackling a particular challenge at the moment, what got you through a past challenge?

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