Motivation Station

Dreams are a compilation of images, sensations and emotions that our mind puts together at random usually while we sleep. The pursuit of a dream begins with an abstract thought, a desire to make reality those situations that we encountered in our minds. Making a dream a reality takes courage, hard work and involves certain sacrifices. But above all it takes constant motivation. The result of my journey will be dependent on how successful I am at executing my responses to the following questions: how much do I really want and believe in my dream? And how much am I willing to sacrifice for it?. These questions should at least in theory, provide a framework to the motivation I need to fight for my dream everyday.

Last night at the gym I found myself taking the wrong steps: I found myself with no drive and unable to find motivation. My day had started just fine, by 7:00am I was at the fitness gym doing my cardio and my rehab, by 9:30 I was at work and by 7:00pm I was ready to train at Fetzer gym.  While at work I day dreamed about my assignments at the gym (how many repetitions, which skills I want to improve and how etc) and in my head I set my goals for the day. However once at the gym, for  reasons unknown, I began to feel shaky –one of those days in which you feel a bit unsure of whether or not your body can actually do what you planned, you feel heavy, injuries hurt more than usual and you feel overall tiered, and defeated even before you start working out.- I know that on those days it is important that I find that extra motivation to push myself, to make sure I don’t waste a day of training.

In these situations I usually rely on external stimuli to get the extra motivation I need. This is sadly to admit, but most of the time I rely on Scott, his presence, his corrections and his devotion in general give me that extra boost of energy that I need to get through these days. What I realized yesterday is that in order to accomplish my dream I need to be able to find motivation internally at all times, I cannot depend on Scott. If I were 12 years old and was training following a regular gymnastics program, I could perhaps depend on him but our circumstances don’t allow it.

Feeling an off-day coming, I entered the gym hoping to see Scott ready to function as my caffeine, but he was not there. I had the feeling before hand that he was not going to make it to practice; working two jobs while studying for college finals and on the side training me, is not a very healthy lifestyle. I admire the way in how he is able to manage it all pretty consistently but off days happen to all, to my bad luck it happened at the same time that I was having an off day. I have to admit that at the moment I was mad, and frustrated at him for not being there and at the same time I felt terrible for being mad and frustrated because I knew how much he sacrifices for me every day. I knew that I had to push myself beyond my usual not only for myself but for him, as a pay-off to all the time and energy he puts onto my training. But I didn’t, I stared at the empty gym for almost half an hour, when Kristen and some of my other UNC teammates showed up I pushed myself to do a bit of beam but nothing too complicated. Even though I knew what I had to work on, things I didn’t need Scott there for, I didn’t do them. I found excuses in my head to get around them (mainly got around it by thinking: what if I get injured?) and did nothing at all. Scott finally showed up about half an hour before the gym closed but even then I found excuses to not do what I had supposed to do (it is too late, he needs to study etc)

By the time I got to my car and drove home, the shame and guilt for having wasted a day at the gym hit me. I felt disappointed and mad at myself for having done that. I tried to blame Scott for it but of course pretty quickly  I came to the realization that this had nothing to do with Scott and all to do with me and my inability to find internal motivation during off-days. If I want to be a champion, I have to be able to work pass this. Going back to my beginning paragraph, I need to constantly ask myself how much do I really want this? How much am I willing to sacrifice? The answers to both questions is: a lot, and so I say to myself right now – prove it, prove it every day because every day counts. However, this exercise can only work so much as a motivator. The problem with it is that, it is of course easy to answer the questions but hard to push oneself, especially during off-days to "prove" through actions the answer.

Bottom line, I need help. So far I had the suggestion to begin writing down my workouts (putting check marks on what I do, somehow keep myself physically accountable of my workouts) and so I guess I will sit down with Scott and work on that. However, if any of you readers have any other suggestion, please tag it along.

So the message of this post is that in order to make dreams a reality it is necessary to find that internal drive that motivates the action to keep fighting. When we face the low’s of the journey it is important to find ways to push ourselves and surpassed our own feelings of self-defeat. Doing so internally is the key, finding ways to push the feelings of defeat away and exchange them for reasons to keep fighting.  After all, the dream itself is internal and personal, and it is up to the individual, in my case, me and no one else, not even my coach, to not give up and to keep fighting.