Today I want to talk about figuring out how to motivate yourself to meet a goal. When I've talked to CHS participants over the years, many of them have mentioned that part of the reason they liked the course was that spending the money forced them to get out and hike more. Now of course we don't literally force you at gunpoint to come out and hike with us when you join, but to some extent, spending a not-insignificant amount of money to join CHS can provide some people with the right motivation to finally set and meet some physical goals for themselves. The expectation that participants hike at least two hikes per month is also motivating to many CHS participants.
Personally I am motivated to meet my goals by announcing them publicly, thus risking humiliation and defeat in a public arena if I fail to meet those goals. I am most successful in meeting goals if it means that my lack of meeting them will be noticed by people whose opinion I care about. And aside from a half-baked attempt at doing the Seattle to Portland bike ride about 20 years ago with my then-boyfriend Matt, I have succeeded in meeting my goals when I announce them to my friends and family.
My most current success was taking up the sport of running in order to stay in shape during the non-hiking season. I don't know if a lot of hikers do this, but when it's rainy, cold, and yukky outside, I like to sit on the couch and watch tv. My weakness is for football. And not just watching a game or two, but all of the college and professional games that are on during a weekend. I can sit on my behind for a whole weekend and not do much but surf the Internet and watch one game after another. Plus I tend to enjoy food such as pizza and other calorifically carbohydrate-based foods like that.
Lack of exercise + eating too many calories = weight gain.
In the spring, I would struggle from the extra pounds I had gained and my lack of conditioning over the off-season and have to get back in hiking shape if I was to keep up with all the new gung-ho participants. It was a pain. I needed to find a way to keep in shape in the off-season that would allow me to still watch football in the winter, yet would burn enough calories so I didn't gain weight and get out shape. I'm not much of a gym person, and the thought of walking on a treadmill or some other exercise contraption wasn't motivating.
In March of 2012 after yet another season of couch-potatodom, I was talking to a hiking friend who was planning to run a half marathon in Moab, Utah in October of the same year. It sounded like a cool thing to do in a cool place, so I decided that I wanted to run that half marathon with her. I was not a runner in any shape or form at that time. I'd done a few 5K runs, but that was it. So I hired a personal trainer who would help me build up the mileage gradually and announced to all of my friends and family that I was going to run a half marathon in October. Every time I saw these people they asked me how my training was going. I couldn't let them down by saying that I'd ditched it--even though some days I felt more like a wreck than someone who could successfully run 13.2 miles by October. Some days the thought of admitting defeat to these people was the only thing that kept me going out and running.
Then my motivations starting building on top of the initial one of avoiding humiliation. And you know what, I actually started enjoying running. Not necessarily every time I went out, but more often than not I felt pretty good after my run and that was motivating. I even bought myself a cute outfit (which is saying something for me) to wear for the Moab race and the thought of wearing it was motivating too! I also saw some of my extra weight drop off and got a little firmer in the behind area and that was motivating also! With so much motivation going on, it was easy to go out and meet my goal of running that half marathon--and it was actually fun too.
The point of all this expository writing is not that you should announce to friends and family that you're doing the CHS course and will be doing long distance hikes with a hefty amount of gain by the end of the season. You're certainly welcome too, but that may not be motivating to you. Figure out what does motivate you to complete the course and make sure you build that motivation into your life so that it keeps reminding you over and over again why you're getting up at 5:00 am on a Saturday to go walk 15 miles in August when you'd rather just sleep in. Just paying good money to join the course may not be enough to provide enough motivation for you to meet the goal of completing the course. Like me, you may need something more. Figure out what that more is and build it into your summer plan!
No comments:
Post a Comment