The Importance of Why
It’s been six weeks since I signed up for Challenge Daytona and started training. It has already been quite a journey for me. The first four weeks were fantastic. I felt a ton of momentum and really felt like I was making progress. Then last week I had the hardest time finding my motivation. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was tired or just being lazy. The more I dug into my feelings, I started to realize that my lack of motivation stemmed from self-doubt. I’ve caught myself during a couple workouts, especially on the bike, thinking “there’s no way I can do this,” “I won’t be ready,” “I must be kidding myself.”
I know deep down that I have the capacity to accomplish my goals. I am capable of being persistent to a fault and really digging in when I want something. So, what do I want? I want to complete a 70.3.
When I first started being coached by Billy, I had to complete this questionnaire. At the time I felt like it was dumb and asked too many questions. However, some of the questions asked to describe past challenges/struggles and most importantly, WHY do I want to do this. Why do I want to do triathlon? My answer was multifactorial. 1) Triathlon is an ultimate challenge and something in which I can be proud of succeeding. 2) I want to prove to myself that I can do anything I set my mind to. 3) I would like to be able to use it to motivate my future patients to make lifestyle changes, if I can do it, they can do it.
Are any of these reasons strong enough for me to hold on to use as motivation to push myself in these times of self-doubt? I am sure that I’ll have another period like this one between now and December. I need to have some high-octane gas for the engine to propel me forward. It comes down to that second reason. “I want to prove to myself that I can do anything I set my mind to.” Looking back, I have never met a challenge that I didn’t overcome. So, moving forward, I’m going to change my internal narrative. Any thought that is negative or hints toward self-doubt will be transformed into positivity. I can. I will.
These thoughts remind me of a story from childhood. “The Little Engine that Could.” In summary, all these big strong trains tried to pull a heavy load over a hill but were unable to do so. A small engine took the load by thinking to itself “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can” the engine chugged away up and over the hill. So I don’t just think I can, I know I can do this.
So, what do I do to overcome this doubt? Take each day as a new day, workout by workout. Meet up with my coach to work on some bike handling skills and remind myself daily that if I believe it I can do it.