Staying Motivated - 2024

If you struggle with staying motivated, just know that you're not alone. Keeping up with work and family obligations is often stressful enough. Throw in some competitive racing goals, and you have all the ingredients necessary for anxiety and loss of motivation. So, what to do?

Prioritize your life. From the top down approach of "what's most important" to the daily organization of your time. If you're a busy person, don't waste time on useless endeavors. You need to be efficient. Streamline your existence!

The top down question is important to answer. We're all motivated differently and need to understand ourselves well before throwing ourselves into the world. What matters most to you may be wildly different than the person next to you. Hopefully you match up reasonably well with your spouse or significant other.

On top of these general life questions, you then need to overlay your athletic or competitive goals. How will these goals enhance or inhibit your other important obligations?

Then, you have to commit to not overcomitting! I have seen way too many people take on too much, then fizzle out somewhere along the way. It's difficult to manage a 40+hr workweek with parenting, spousing, and some sort of endurance racing goal. It's virtually impossible to do it on a 60+ hr workweek. I mean, why even bother? At that point your goal is really to just live 'till tomorrow and hope your family remembers who you are.

So part of staying motivated requires finding balance and stability.

Once you're there, you have to define goals, milestones, and find some sort of satisfaction from your pursuits. It doesn't necessarily need to be joy, but that doesn't hurt. A feeling of a job well done, recognition from your friends or family, or just some internal checkbox are all OK. As long as you gain something from the experience.

Goals and milestones are a lot easier to define. A) Pick your target and B) come up with a plan that hits other targets/milestones along the way to make (A) realistic and achievable.

Within your daily existence, one of the best ways to remain motivated is to stick to a routine. A routine lets you turn your brain off and enjoy the journey. Your routine is yours; it doesn't need to match some random pro you read about at SuperTriathlete.com.

If you've lost the edge with one type of motivation, look for another angle. There are all types of athletic events out there. Maybe you don't run as fast as you used to, but you like crawling through mud or running through the forest? Or you can use some random triathlon as an excuse to visit an area of the country you've never been to.

I mean, look, you can afford to be creative out there. It beats sitting around all day! Your future self will thank you for taking care of present day you. Here are at least seven good reasons to keep moving explained by the Mayo Clinic.

Marty Gaal, CSCS, is a USA Triathlon coach who lives in the Triangle area of North Carolina. Marty has been coaching endurance athletes since 2002. You can read more about OSB coaching services at www.osbmultisport.com.