Scope and Self Reflection

Motivation is one of the more personal fields when talking performance improvement. Nobody can see easily from the outside what your inner driving factors are and where you might fall off. So I think it is a good idea to listen into yourself and identify your motivational patterns.

The moderate Personality: The Archetype of Longevity => My Consistency Hero

I generally admire people with very balanced motivation who can maintain fairly consistent routines for long times (be that in learning, job routines, family life, friendships etc.).

“Slow and steady wins the race!” is the go to sentence of a colleague I highly appreciate and admire. He is one of these almost unambitional but consistent 2 times per week gym goers and 2 times per week 5k joggers. No fancy healthy food, yet highly constistent and moderate calorie intake. He is always well in shape - never really strong, yet never overweight and always ‘ready’. I think this mindset is great to age well.

While I absolutely admire people who have this immense consistency - I have to live with the fact that I am wired completely differently. However I learned from my consistency heros and developed methods that mimic some of their behaviours.

In my target setting I define a lot of targets on the minimum not the maximum! For example I try to achieve every week at least 150 activity minutes (=> Garmin tracks that automatically). So even if I am sick I try at least to walk one or two times per day around my block and count some minutes. I define my flexibility work on minimum of 4 hours per month. Targets like these kind of safeguard my lower end and strengthen consistency. Even in really bad times, to fulfil at least a handful of minimum targets generates a feeling of achievement.

Self reflection

My motivation defaults easily to very high or fairly low levels. I am either burning for a topic or I am close to ignorance. On top: I can interest myself for a huge array of unrelated topics - allowing me to easily fill my days and weeks and never be bored. I love the NEW. So I consider myself the opposite of naturally consistent.

What can I work with?

  • My inner fire usually correlates highly to measurable performance levels. Once I see progress I can get extremely eager to realize more of it

    • Naturally weight training and endurance sport offer many variables to be measured and to compare with others. EASY

    • No so easy e.g. on flexibilty, stability, consistency. On my pages I show many ways of making these aspects measurable in meaningful ways while avoiding the ‘beauro-crazy’

  • Sticky plateaus and boredom can silently kill my passion and slowly drive my ambition to something else

    • My periodisation of endurance focus in summer and strength focus in winter took significantly care of this one. I always have something to look forward to and increase the times in which I see progress (even if there are setbacks from the seasonal pattern (but motivationally this is not seen as a default, rather an intension - I don’t feel bad if I can’t squad high weights in summer)

    • Otherwise I think it is important to have variations in your workouts. New exercise from time to time. A new training partner etc…

  • I like the NEW

    • I target at least one new activity or a highlight per year. In 2023 I worked e.g. on some rope jumping tricks for a while. This year I will try a little track a field test (Deutsches Sportabzeichen). Maybe on the bike a Tour de France climb. I think these things can capture your focus for a while and at least I usually feel a big sense of accomplishment and pride - which in return lets me do the basic work again

  • I feel pleasure in physical activity and exhaustion - almost independent of the discipline

    • For that I am just thankful! As parents we tried our best to be very active with our kids and if this is in the cards for me - I hope on some active times with grand kids. I do think that desire to move is naturally in us, and we can just ‘learn’ to turn it down or kill it

Tipp: Try to find out what really motivates you (competition, camaredery, numbers, looks, …) and develop routines that build on these positive driving factors. Same for your personal detractors; the better you know what makes you stop or fail, the easier you can find ways around that.

Furthermore I realized that I follow a certain motivational patterns for almost all of my ‘passions’ (far beyond sport). In the different phases, different tricks are needed to maintain course ;-)

Over the years I learned better and better how to use my motivational triggers and how best to cycle my motivational ups and dows. Let me take you through my ride.

Motivational cycles

Every beginning is hard: At the start training can not only be tough on your body, also mentally it can be quite hard to deal with your current performance levels (be that in comparison to others, be that in comparison to your own prior results). Getting to the frustration point is quite easy and the excuse is so close: I am just too old for this $hit! => MAIN TARGET: Get through the first 4 weeks - performance and good feeling will come!

  • What can help?

    • Rule #1: Don’t overcomplicate: Try to start with only one change. Be modest. Maybe it is going to the gym twice a week. Maybe some running. Maybe a slightly improved diet. Oftentimes I observe people trying to change their whole life at once. Highly elaborated sports program parallel to a complete diet change (from couch potato to vagan pro athlete in 4 weeks). I usually see them maybe up to 3 times in the gym and that’s it.

      • A good reading on simplicity is ‘The 4 Hour Body - Tim Ferris’. How can you best improve your body in only 4 hours per week. I tried it and the results were amazing. The only caveat; I don’t think it is sustainable for the long run.

    • In general I strongly believe you need to get to your first noticeable results - then longer term motivation kicks in. This takes usually 3 to 4 weeks (be that in optics, performance or on the scale). Maybe you just countdown… Just try to get through…

‘These compliments feel good’: If you persist there comes usually the initial upward phase of fast progress. You are hyped by the look into mirror or the scale, pumped with positive attitude and high motivation for more. Oftentimes the progress comes so quickly, that your environment takes notice and you receive many compliments.

  • NO help needed here; just a tipp.

    • I try to reflect on the progress and successes in an objective (note down some numbers) and emotional way (pictures or notes of how you feel or what you have experienced). Maybe make some before and after pictures or a video log. This can be a really good memory for tougher times ahead.

    • Enjoy the moment and memorize! Honestly, sometimes when I am down, I just look at my notes from this time. Oftentimes this is enough to get me going again.

Grinding along (with positive spirits): Your rate of improvement decelerates or even stagnates. Maybe you enter first minor problems; easy injuries, an aching knee, some fatigue. Also be prepared that your normal life will give you a kick back from time to time… But in general spirits are still positive in this phase - you enjoy what you do - and you know why you do it...

  • What can help?

    • Fatigue, too much load: Maybe use a deload week, where you deliberately take out training volume. Do some non sport related things you might have neglected a bit. Maybe you go swimming (with focus on sun bathing) instead the next 5 hour cycling tour. Esp. with age recovery is getting slower and the negative effects from overtraining can persist for quite some time. So a little break might feel lasy, but sometimes warrants consistency and further improvement afterwards.

    • Boredom, missing excitement: Discover something new. A new flow or split in the gym. A new cycling tour. Hiking instead of running. Some track and field stuff, some speed work, some callestanics instead of gym… To keep things fresh is highly important for best agers; you are already working out for 2 or 3 decades and you might be in for some decades to come.

    • If you get a bit negative because of missing progress maybe it helps to compare current performance to prior results at reentry or start. E.g. maybe my 6min/km in running today feels poor compared to 4 or 5 min/km earlier in my life. However, compared to times when I couldn’t even finish an 1km without walking or had like 8:30 min/km at reentry - heck 6min/km is not bad at all.

No mountain ain’t too high (DANGER Zone 1): The first real danger zone for me is a (unplanned) peak phase. E.g. based on steady health, a new training partner, a new performance element or simply good luck I sometime realize fast performance increases on an already high level. This is a phase where no cycling tour can be too long and when I come home after several hours I really need to go to the gym and then do some yoga at night. This can feel like being in a tunnel. Personal targets just increase from week to week in significant steps and any signs from the body, good judgement or the environment start to get ignored… Fatigue or even injuries are the typical consequence…

  • What can help?

    • Work with some personal circuit breakers:

      • Increase your weekly training hours by only 1-2 hours compared to moving avereage

      • Take a look at your weekly volumes in terms of hours, miles, kgs. If you are significantly above your average weeks or on a new peak, force yourself to slow down

    • Pay close attention to your sleep, heart rate, body battery

    • Check if all non sport related duties are checked off. All bills are paid, garden is in shape, next vacation is planned and booked. This can sometimes help to get out of the tunnel vision.

Waking up in the ditches (DANGER Zone 2): Danger zone number two for me is a kind of external shock that suddenly or slowly puts your out of ‘business’. This might be an injury, a sickness or some kind of external shock from job or family. From a mental standpoint this can feel like a derailed train or a car in the ditch… Sometimes this questions the big path; ‘why am I doing this?’.

  • What can help?

    • In case of an injury (=> sudden shock): treatment comes first. Take your time to recover and build your way slowly back. While injured it usually helps to cut calories (esp. carbs) by some 200 to 300 Kcal per day. If there are alternative sports you can do, go ahead. Maybe there is still something to achieve - some minimum targets like steps - this can help the mental state.

    • In case of an external shock I mostly work like with an injury. And of course; if the ‘shock’ is heavy enough, this is not easy at all. I try to focus on my minimum targets, reduce calories if possible and get the topic dealt with as good and fast as possible. Sometimes this phases can be long, I think it is important to actively deal with them and avoid get pushed around by the circumstances.

    • In case of sickness: I differentiate fatigue or light sickness (e.g. cold) from severe sicknesses. If the normal treatment doesn’t help for a week or two; please pressure yourself and the doctors to find the rout cause and treatment. My personal experience out of some very difficult times was that doctors sometimes give up too fast. And I agreed to early. => Today I say to myself: ‘you are really fit, your nutrition is really good, your subs support you and based on routine blood work your organs and stuff works quite well. So if you don’t feel well for an extended time: look as deep as needed and rather ‘push’ the doctors to find the root cause.

    • If you really get the feeling of ‘its not worth it anymore - I just let it go’ - this is the time to look back at some of your achievements and memories you wrote down in good times and remind yourself of your longterm targets (that’s by the way, why they should be realistic and include minimums)

If you have read through this: Thank you!

And yes, this was probably from the category: too much information!

In general, I see the motivational aspect as one of the most important ones if I think longterm performance. Some of these thoughts I shared with people, who approached me with difficult personal problems and usually I received positive feedback. That is what pushed me over my internal barrier to open up and try at least to get my thoughts on ‘paper’. With that, my thanks to everyone whom we had intensive discussions about lifetime goals and alike.