What strategies can help me strengthen my perseverance in sport?
Motivation is not a simple topic. Motivation begins with the power of our thoughts. And to maintain motivation, patience is also necessary. Health, physique and the achievement of sporting goals are not handed to us on a plate. It is hard work. And it simply takes time to make improvements in these areas. Life is not a sprint, it is a marathon. It is not enough to do everything right in the short term; we have to stay on track for our entire lives. A few tricks and tips and perhaps a few punchy motivational quotes are not sufficient for that. It is also a matter of self-discipline.
How can I maintain my motivation in the long term to achieve my sporting goals?
The most important step in being able to reach your goals is to actually set goals in the first place. That requires planning and effort. Those who expect nothing of themselves easily lose sight of their goal and stray from the path. Those who set themselves clear goals, however, stay motivated.
It is important, particularly at the beginning, not to set the bar too high in order to maintain motivation. Small interim goals are initial milestones, and reaching them is associated with a sense of achievement. It is therefore worthwhile to divide your big goals into smaller sections and to collect these feelings of success regularly in order to stay motivated. And precisely this detailed planning requires a considerable amount of (mental) effort. The first step is to gain clarity about your individual starting point. If I do not know where I stand, then I cannot plan the route to my goal precisely either. So we begin with a stocktake of our current situation. What conditions are in place? From there, we define an attractive yet realistic goal. Once the start and the destination are clear, we can set about planning the journey – in the right direction, with breaks and milestones whose achievement we celebrate and for which we should also reward ourselves. In this way, we can continue with long-term motivation on the journey towards our goal. Through systematically built-in progress checks, we ensure that we are still on the right path or whether we need to correct our course.
What role does self-discipline play in maintaining motivation?
What matters here is a certain degree of consistency. And that is where self-discipline comes into play alongside motivation. We cannot be equally well motivated every single day. And giving in on one of those days and simply taking a break can be both right and important. However, if the exceptions start to pile up and we swing between full throttle and standstill, we never settle into a routine and are essentially starting from scratch over and over again.
Here, of course, everyone must find their own balance between challenge and overexertion in order not to lose motivation. It is therefore important to be clear about your own starting conditions, to plan the journey well and never to set the hurdles too high – particularly at the beginning, but also as you progress further – so that the feelings of success keep coming and can lead to fresh moments of motivation.
How do I find the right balance between challenge and overexertion so as not to lose my motivation?
It is in human nature always to strive for more and to set ever higher goals, but particularly in the sporting arena – and even more so as a recreational athlete – one should also be aware that this performance pressure leads to stress, and this stress in turn produces negative hormones that fundamentally inhibit growth and progress. Only when we manage to release this pressure does our body also have the opportunity to do its work.
What mental techniques and approaches can support me in maintaining my motivation?
The power of our thoughts should by no means be underestimated. We should not only set goals theoretically; we must also visualise them – that is, imagine what it looks like and feels like when we achieve these goals. For the anticipation of the result of our work that we experience in this way sets all the switches in the body for the necessary change. The body cannot distinguish between feelings that are actually experienced and feelings that we merely imagine. In both cases, the same positive hormones are released. In this way, mental training through the visualisation of our goals can take us a good distance in the right direction. Together with the consistent implementation of the plan we have drawn up, mental strength brings us to our goal with motivation intact.
How do I deal with motivational lows and find my drive again?
How can I use setbacks and failures in a positive way?
If we manage to translate motivation into positive behavioural, thinking and action patterns that become habits over time, then it also becomes easier for us to find our way out of any motivational lows that may occur – simply by calling up and running through the practised behavioural patterns, even when we do not particularly feel like it. Those who know why they are doing something and understand what is right for them can motivate themselves more easily and become active again.
What positive habits and routines can I develop to motivate myself in the long term?
Knowledge is therefore also an important factor for long-term motivation. Programming in a new behaviour typically takes around 30 days. After that, it becomes automatic – daily exercise, for example, becomes a need that makes itself felt quite naturally.
A factor for motivation that should not be underestimated is the enjoyment of what you are doing. One should therefore try out different forms of training to find out which ones suit you and bring you joy.
What role do external motivational factors such as training partners or competitions play?
The right coach or training partner can also be decisive. Those who train together can pull each other along when one of them is having a bad day. Arranging training sessions as fixed appointments – commitments made not just to oneself but to someone else as well – bring with them a certain obligation that can help you stick to the plan. What is more, it is also more enjoyable to celebrate successes together.
In this context, for some people it can be an additional source of motivation to enter competitions or other challenges in their sport. What serves as a spur and a motivating sense of achievement for one person can, however, mean performance pressure and an unnecessary stress factor for another. Everyone must find out and decide for themselves how they are inclined. There is nothing wrong with wanting to measure your performance against others. But ultimately, our progress is measured only against ourselves and our own development.
„Motivation begins in our thoughts, it involves planning and effort, and in the long run sometimes sheer discipline and the embedding of patterns are what help."
Motivation needs goals and their visualisation, feelings of success along the way, and allies with whom we can share them. But enjoyment is also a very important factor, whereas pure pressure alone will not get us to our goal.
How can I overcome my inner barriers and consistently stay on track?
What we must by no means forget, however, is our old fundamental principle that nothing can come from nothing. This applies to motivation as well. When our tank is empty, the strongest will and belief count for nothing. In order to perform sustainably and to generate motivation, our body always needs all the necessary nutrients. Restricted energy intake as part of a diet and deficiencies in the area of micronutrients hold us back. Under such conditions, no motivation is possible. Motivation is a chemical reaction in the body that can only occur when all the necessary building blocks are available in sufficient quantities. And one of the most important building blocks for motivation, by the way, is tyrosine – an amino acid.
So: fill the tank, create the mental foundation, set goals – and then nothing can stop us.
