Motivation vs. Commitment

I've been finding it hard to find motivation lately.  I seem to target a date to really get back into the swing of things training wise and then something invariably comes up and gets in the way.  Then I seem to find something to spur me on and then again the motivation is gone.

I subscribe to a motivational speaker's website Craig Harper and the other day received an email, one like I regularly get from him, but this one really hit home.  It was titled "Motivation is Not the Answer", so I read on with great interest!  These following lines certainly made me think " Motivation (on its own) rarely leads to any kind of lasting positive transformation.  Commitment, on the other hand, is a non-negotiable mindset.  It's absolute.  It's a force.  Unwavering. Constant. Powerful. Unlike motivation, it's not a day to day proposition; it's your default setting.  It's not a 'sometimes' emotion but rather, an 'all-the-time' habit.  Committed people make things happen, even in the absence of motivation."

This made me realize that I was looking at my training all wrong.  I started thinking back to last October when I decided that I wanted to get fitter and stronger, it was commitment that kept me going.  So it has made me think about what I need to do now that the new year is approaching.  I am currently in country Victoria in the beautiful town of Bright on a cycling camp with my coach and the Kelly Cycle Coaching group.  I have used this as a starting point for concentrating on my next goal, winning the World Cycling Championships in August 2013.  So I have decided that I am not going to focus on motivation but commitment and I have started that process as of yesterday's ride!

My training partner Hannah and I were told to go for a ride between 3-4 hours, just to start building our endurance, so it was decided that we would ride to the town of Beechworth and back.  There was a method in our madness and that was the famous Beechworth Bakery with all its lovely sandwiches, cakes, pastries and coffee!  About 10 km from Beechworth we hit the biggest bloody hill that I have tackled in a while!  It took almost 40 minutes to ride just over 5km due to the 12-14% grade of hill!  I must say that there were definitely a few times that I kept thinking "this is nuts" and wanting to turn around.  But then that word 'commitment' kept popping into my head, so I kept going.  The reward for this was a lovely lunch at the bakery and then the massive downhill ride back to Bright! 

All in all it was the longest ride I have ever accomplished, 118km for the day.  We backed that ride up with a ride today of 65km and I honestly believe that I am well and truly back on track with my training.  We have a week here of beautiful rides with amazing scenery to go along with them and I am looking forward to the commitment of getting ready to attain my next goal.  So thanks to Craig Harper for his wise words of wisdom, I know that my motivation of attaining the status of "World Champion" is in my heart but without the commitment to the training needed, I will never be able to attain this goal.