Motivation

Here it is. My first motivational training crisis this year. I find it kind of interesting that I’m carrying the motivation thoughts for 2 or 3 days now. I’m 2 weeks here in Australia now, doing nothing else but training, eating, resting, sleeping and internet surfing and I needed this. I needed this period off to decompress, relax and focus on nothing else but physical development. But after 2 weeks I have to say: I’m getting a little bit bored. No problem at all because tomorrow I start my 2 weeks trip: Sydney, Melbourne, Alice Springs and Uluru and back to Sunshine Coast.

But back to the motivational thoughts.

Motivation is defined as:

Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested in and committed to a job, role, or subject, and to exert persistent effort in attaining a goal. Motivation is the energizer of behavior and mother of all action. It results from the interactions among conscious and unconscious factors such as the (1) intensity of desire or need, (2) incentive or reward value of the goal, and (3) expectations of the individual and of his or her significant others (www.businessdictionary.com)

What’s interesting is the term continually interested. In case of a job I suffered some big motivational crisis in the past. I guess there was missing something stimulating. So I found other things to focus on. Triathlon. I was committed to my job, but not 100% interested, as there was nothing new about it. From the 2^nd year on it was the same thing. No goal but the yearly audits, but at the end not even the audits could cause the adrenaline I needed. So finally I quit.

When we talk about motivation, there’s always the hierarchy of needs which are physiological, safety, belonging, self esteem and self actualization. I’m lucky that the aspects I’m talking about are definitely not the first two. There’s something about the belonging, as work and sports are socializing. But I’d put this luxury problem that  I’m thinking about on the self esteem and self actualization shelf.

When you are working you (should) receive an incentive for it. The first one is the financial one. But money doesn’t motivate. The biggest motivational factors in studies about motivational theories are the circumstances you’re working in (working climate), sense of achievements and feedback of your superior.

In sports (if it’s not your job) there is the socializing factor which you can compare with the working climate. Sense of achievements: well, here is the cause of my motivational problem. I’m training very well here for 2 weeks now. I’ve never done so many km in the water, didn’t ride so much so early in the IM training. I was running quite well in Spain and so did I on the treadmill the other day. And then, suddenly you find yourself in a training session and NOTHING is working. You feel shitty. Yesterday I couldn’t even keep up with the bunch till the beginning of the hill (last week I went up the hill with them and could stay a little bit longer with them). After the bike I had a 30min run to do, with some fast 5min sets. No way. So there it is. No positive feedback. I was riding and running alone, so: no belonging or social interacting to distract you from your poor performance. But: there are these amazing moments, even if you’re feeling bad you get a feedback. I was riding towards Cooroy, alone as I said before and it started to rain. I was thinking: That’s what I needed now. And there it shows up a beautiful double rainbow and lets you know that it’s worth it to be out there!!

Some more things of this week to be mentioned:

When I went to the beach the other day, I saw a really funny kind of tree, what are you thinking?

I probably have a new wetsuit, haven’t tried it yet in the water, but had a funny photo session on Nebula St :D

We (Amanda, Luke and I) had an awesome dinner in a fancy restaurant on Friday night, I’m so happy to have them had around here. They have been helpful and lovely with me all this time and I want to say: thank you, I really appreciate to stay with you guys and I’m lucky that I could help Amanda a little bit with her injuries…

Another training session on the garming hill:

Sunday night another delicious dinner with the lovely Granger family, it is soul caring to live some family time, even if it’s not yours.

Yesterday, Tuesday 8^th (happy birthday Jutta ;) I went to Brisbane with Amanda and Luke, picked up Amanda’s second passport with her (by the way, the fellow on the passport desk asked Amanda if I was her mother?????????? Or a triathlete? I may think about taking some antioxidants, LOL)

And then it was time to say goodbye. I left my sweeties at the airport; I really hope that Memphis made it to the upgrade to business. Good luck Luke and Belinda in Abu Dhabi!!!! I totally managed the home driving on the wrong side of the road, was a good driving lesson though, but it’s still feeling a bit weird. Maybe I was training both parts of the brain; they say that you do so when you write or do something with your left hand being a right hand writer, so I think I did some brain training yesterday too ; )

Right now I’m on my way to Sydney, first stop on my 2 weeks trip:

9-13.3.11 Sydney

13-17.3.11 Melbourne

17-22.03.11 Alice Springs and Uluru

22-23.3.11 Melbourne (just to spend the night)

23.3.11 Back to Sunshine Coast

I’ll take the day off. To recover, relax, enjoy and get power and motivation back. Tonight twilight sailing with Alice, that’s motivating! :D