As I look over my log of exercise this month, it’s not perfect, but I’ve definitely worked harder than in months past. The last time I found myself getting out and exercising this often was when a friend signed me up for a 30 mile mountain bike race last fall. I had 3 weeks to train for the race. I rode my bikes a lot in those 3 weeks! The last time I actually ran as much as I have this past month was when I did the Marine Core Marathon in 2003. My wife likes to tell me that I didn’t really train for a marathon, but I definitely did run more than normal (normal being not at all) in the months leading up to the race.
All of this is interesting to me, because as I look back I can see what has motivated me to exercise. Motivation is interesting. I have clearly been motived to exercise by simply stating my plans to on my blog. I put it out in a public space, and have found that enough to keep me motivated to get out and exercise. In all reality, I have found blogging to be an incredible motivation tool for a variety of things. Each behavior I’ve embraced or refrained from so far this year has been helped along by just writing about it on the blog.
For exercise, I can also see that being signed up for a race has been pretty motivating for me as well. This is true for a lot of people. I thought it would be true for my wife, so I encouraged her to sign up for a race. She told me that being signed up for a race would actually be a negative motivation for her! I guess we are not all motivated by the same things.
So what motivates you? It might not be writing in a blog or signing up for a race, but if you sit down and think about it for awhile, I bet you can come up with a few things that tend to really motivate you. I’d like to hear what it is for you that keeps you working towards your goals.