How are your New Year running plans holding up? Are you lacing up, getting out there and placing a satisfying tick next to every session?
Or maybe not..? Perhaps you seem to have lost all motivation? Remember motivation is not a constant-it’s not something you get and then keep. It’s an emotion which comes and goes. It’s high when we first start, but after a couple of days or weeks our old behaviours, habits, and beliefs kick in, pulling us back into our comfort zone where everything is familiar and we’re rarely challenged.
You get distracted by day-to-day stuff, you forget about your goals, and this is when things start to slide.
Doubts creep in too. What if I put ALL that effort in and I’m no good at running? What if I fail? Better to stop now, maybe?
And if you did embark on your running programme at the start of the year then you’re likely not seeing any results just yet.
Success is a long journey, and not a short sprint. You have to cling tightly to your goal and drag it through all the good and bad times ahead.
This is all completely normal.
Without a compelling reason driving you to run, it’s going to be all too easy to pull up the duvet and turn over when the alarm shrills.
Even if you only managed to stick to a few sessions this year before your resolve crumbled I’m here to tell you it’s not too late to get back on track.
GET IT DONE
The whole point of what you’re about to read is to get you to The Tipping Point – this is the stage at which resistance to your running plan drops off just enough to ensure you get out there and get it done. Unfortunately, resistance never disappears completely. This is something you will always have to contend with; even folk who’ve been running for years constantly battle with this. So you absolutely must set up a ‘Get Me Out The Door’ system that works for you.
Here is what works for me and many of my friends.
- REVISIT YOUR WHY
Why do you want to run?
I wrote a whole post about this and you can read it here.
Once you’ve established your ‘why’, it’s time to make a commitment.
- NO EXCEPTIONS RULE
When I first started running it was so hard to get my workouts done. It was all so new, I wasn’t ‘a runner’ in my head yet and it hurt! Before setting off on each run, a similar scenario would always play out in my head:
Should I go for a run or not? I’m a bit tired and it is quite late in the day. I could leave it til tomorrow. Or maybe I could just do a quick run? Or…
I could waste half an hour like this agonising over the decision. I knew I had to do something or-yet again-another goal would bite the dust.
I’d first come across the ‘no exceptions rule’ in Jack Canfield’s book ‘The Success Principles’.
Jack’s rule says that once you make 100% commitment to something then you no longer have to wrestle with yourself over whether or not to keep your commitments and stick to your goals. The decision is already made. You are 100% committed to your plan. You have a ‘no exceptions rule’ therefore you make no exceptions! You don’t think. You simply just do it.
In a lightbulb moment I realised that being 100% committed to something was a hell of a lot easier than being 99% committed or less. Think about it!
There would always be major life events and occurrences that required me to reschedule my plans but – aside from that – I decided right then that I was 100% committed to my running plan.
It didn’t matter if it was raining, if I’d had a late night, if I was travelling – I’d just do it.
I could free up all that energy that I usually wasted on a raging internal debate.
Don’t Think. Just Go.
- MENTAL ACTIONS
Remind yourself how you’ll feel bad all day if you don’t go
There’s one thing that I knew would work for me; the fact that I knew I’d feel bad for the rest of the day if I didn’t go. I’d already experienced it in a hotel in Manchester. For a good half hour I’d watched the rain streaming down the window. ‘If you’d just gone out,’ I thought to myself, ‘you’d be back and in the bath by now.’ All day long I couldn’t shake the thought. I was so disappointed in myself.
Tell yourself that the run will all be done and dusted in X minutes, GO and then bathe in the glow of accomplishment for the rest of the day.
Runswitch
Here’s another mental game I play. If thinking about your upcoming run is not making you feel good then it’s a negative influence and needs to be flipped over until you feel more up for it.
Here’s how it works:
Whenever you recognise that you are feeling a negative emotion simply flip your attention to something positive such as an image of you out there having a good run. Hold that image in your mind.
RunSwitch is a simple concept but takes practise. Your habitual patterns are so well entrenched that Runswitching will take practise and persistence. Have faith – you will become really good at this.
Refocus and refeel…refocus and refeel…
- PHYSICAL ACTIONS
Get up, dress up, show up
While you’re still convinced you won’t go, just pull out your running gear and put it on. All of it. Belt, keys, phone… Do you feel your chance of getting out there shift a little? Most people do. Well, I suppose now I’m dressed, I might as well just …
And talking about the ‘Get Up’ part of that quote-if you’re having to set your alarm for an early running session then put your alarm clock or phone out of reach so you have to get out of bed to switch it off. Gets you up!
Arrange to meet a runner friend
You are SO much more likely to go run if you’re meeting a buddy. You don’t want to let them down.
And to take this a step further…
Join a running club
Having a set time and place to turn up perhaps with the promise of a coffee afterwards is a great way to drive you towards doing your session. Club meets are usually sociable, friendly and very supportive and encouraging.
Hire a coach
If the budget will stretch to it then having someone in charge of your running will get you turning up. Sometimes running clubs have coaches and you can join in with group or individual training.
Text exchange
This is a cracker! It’s probably the one that works the best for me. Arrange to exchange texts (or use something like Whatsapp) with someone either before or after your run. After is best. Ideally, this person should be someone on a similar journey to you. You both exchange your running timetables. The idea is that after each planned session you message your textmate to say ‘All done!’ And… if he/she doesn’t hear from you at the expected time, they’ll send you a ??? Really gets you out there, I promise!
Once (way before instant messaging) when I was in a small group of runners doing a couch to 5K programme I set up a text chain for the times we’d all agreed to run at the same time but were not actually meeting up to do so. I let each runner know who they were responsible for texting. I would start the ball rolling as the session time approached by texting ‘my runner’ to say ‘Go now!’ then she would text the next person…and so on. Now, of course, a Whatsapp group or similar would be the thing. Extremely effective.
The bottom line is that you will always find time for the things that are really important to you.
So the thousand dollar question must be: what really, really matters to you in this life?
