Motivation

This is a subject I've been thinking about writing about for some time.

When I was younger I always wondered how athletes motivated themselves to train hard every day. What do they do to get them out of bed in the morning and go running for half an hour. Every single day. What mind tricks do they use on themselves to lift weights 4 or 5 days a week to get stronger and build endurance.

What is the motivation that gets them them going? What is it that KEEPS them going?

And I discovered, quite by accident, motivation has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!

Over the last 6 or 7 years, I've rarely missed a workout. I admit then when a disc went out in my neck a couple of years ago and I basically lost most of my grip on my right side. Lifting weights became impossible. My right lat muscle was for all intents and purposes was paralyzed for several months. Even to this day it has not regained much strength, though I am finally to the point where training it again is an option.

But the worse part was the pain. I couldn't find any position where I could get comfortable. Walking, standing, sleeping, sitting were all impossible. Except a slight recline position where I could not allow my head to relax backward or forward. I had to HOLD it in an unrelaxed position all day and all night for several weeks to allow the disc to slip back into place. Anything else was intolerable agony. After a while I found a balance point, with the aid of pillows, that permitted me to sleep an hour or two each night, always aware that if I let my neck move, the agony would return.

Thankfully the disc slipped back completely after several months. The pain lessoned as time went on, but I still found myself with very little grip in my right hand. Through training it came back SOME, but then just as I was about to start training with heavier weights because my grip was better, I had an unexpected stroke. The right side of my body was affected once more, this time in an even more dramatic way...

(More tomorrow. It's time to workout.)