My brother and I recently completed a 20 mile run in the heart of the English countryside at Bramley, between Reading and Basingstoke.

We finished the race well before the time suggested by the required training program and were delighted with the result.

I posted the result on Facebook and shared some photos of me and my brother in our matching running vests and was amazed to see so many people commenting and emailing me about how they want to run longer distances and how they lack motivation. I promised that I would write and share my own motivational strategy.

On a basic level, when I’m training alone, there are a lot of things I do that keep me motivated at the time, like varying my routes, running with uplifting music on my ipod, having a goal (like a 10k, half marathon or marathon race). ) to work, and how I feel in my own skin enjoying the health benefits of being slim and fit. While running with others and having people to run with is one of the best ways to keep momentum and be accountable, it’s not always possible to run with others, so we need to be highly motivated.

However, this is not what people usually want to hear from me. They want some psychological process, so I am going to share what I use the most to stay motivated and motivated, which involves mental rehearsal and imagination.

For most people, the main reason for mentally rehearsing is to prepare yourself, using your imagination in a way that ensures you behave, react, and respond to a certain situation in the future. However, I also find that remembering and recalling mental rehearsal when I’m training or messing up an event, makes me even more excited when my legs are screaming for me to stop!

This type of motivational process, when done vigorously and convincingly, should stimulate, inspire, and propel you with real energy toward your desired outcome.

it’s that inspiration and motivation that gets you through the dark and lonely winter mornings and evenings of running alone, on my own stage anyway.

Many people find it hard to get out of bed early, or run out after a day of work and many times we end up experiencing some conflict, as Aristotle said:

“The appetites oppose each other, which happens when a principle of reason and desire are contrary and is only possible in beings with a sense of time, because while the mind orders us to stop for the future, desire is influenced by what is just. at hand: a pleasant object that is right at hand is presented as pleasant and good, without condition in both cases, due to lack of foresight of what is further away in time.”

So while you’re enjoying the warm, sleepy comfort, curled up in a bed in the morning with your loved one, it’s that instant pleasure and comfort that can seem irresistible, and instead of looking for an opportunity to get out, run and be healthy, fit and free, he finds the prospect of running cold, dark and unpleasant. The long-term end result is not convincing enough compared to the comfort and joy of the moment.

One way that an NLP training from Robert Dilts that I enjoyed several years ago helped me establish a way to overcome these kinds of conflicts was to use the “as if” framework. Something I have written about in great depth here and something I teach in many of my trainings.

The “as if” framework helps us make long-term results and benefits more compelling and allows us to “experience” what things will be like once we have achieved that result, and outweigh the short-term pleasure that comes from doing it. Don’t do it (for example, going out for those first few races when you lack initial fitness and the gains seem minimal).

The goal is for us to create a sense of expectation within ourselves and then we can start to feel driven and motivated.

Our own sense of motivation is often driven by our values; things that are important to us. I mean, anyone who’s thinking about going for a run is doing it because on some level they think it’s important in some way, maybe to lose weight, get in shape, be able to run to catch the bus, play with the kids without pooping. , or even run a big race of some kind and accomplish something that you think is important.

To Build Your Own Values ​​If you’re not sure why you’re considering doing something you want to be more motivated to do, ask yourself what motivates you. What is it that inspires you, drives you, or makes you want to go and do this?

You may want to experience success, however you interpret it. You may want the praise and recognition that comes from doing it. You may be looking for love and acceptance or you may just want the satisfaction of setting a result and achieving it; in the example of running (although it can be applied to most other aspects of life), this can be having a slimmer body, helping a worthy person. cause by organizing an event for charity, being able to set a big goal in life or just feeling fit in general.

These are all examples of “values” that form the basis of people’s motivation to do something.

So the key is that if we connect our future plans and desired outcomes to these values, those outcomes subsequently become even more compelling and we feel more inspired to strive for them. The simple sentence that Robert Dilts showed us in our training and that I still use today was the following:

_____________ (My goal) will help me better achieve ___________ (My value(s)) because _________ (The connection between them)

There are many ways that our own internal representation of desired results influences us. So when we imagine (based on my example scenario above) that if we go for a run it’s going to be cold, painful, dark, unpleasant and we talk to ourselves in a gloomy, defeating way, then it’s just not going to happen, is that it?

Think carefully about how you think when considering taking the necessary steps to achieve your desired result. Because it affects your motivation.

When I watch the London Marathon on TV, what makes me want to be there running with those thousands of other people is not just my own personal values ​​and desires as we discussed earlier… The way the TV broadcasts it increases my motivation – They use music that moves me, they use full colors, they show the sights, they provide inspiring stories of people running the race against all odds, the words the runners use, the tone the commentators use, and much more all come together to build an amazing condition inside your head that makes you feel incredibly inspired and motivated.

Why not use that for our own benefit too? Inside our own heads? Behave like the TV announcer!

You can do it with this very basic motivational process that I use, that I learned in NLP training all those years ago, and while it’s simple, you can adapt it to really get you going:

Step one: Imagine that you have already achieved the desired result. the result that matches your values. Imagine that you get great pleasure and satisfaction from doing this. behaving “as if” it were happening and mentally rehearsing the scenario, being on that scenario performing well and being happy as a result.

See what you see, listen to what you hear and enjoy the wonderful sensations.

Second step: Be the inspirational TV host in your own head now, adjust the scene in any way you can to really drive it. Add music, sounds of loved ones cheering and congratulating you, imagine what you will say to yourself, add colors and wonderful things that make this inner representation even more motivating and compelling.

Use inspirational language to encourage yourself, use a tone that you would use if you were encouraging any other loved one. Use whatever you need to make this as moving and inspiring as you can.

Step three: Now begin to associate those thoughts and feelings with achieving your result and also begin to think about all the actions you need to take to achieve it, so that you associate the journey (training) with all those great feelings. make the training as pleasant as the result!

Imagine all those moments when you go out, encourage yourself, enjoy the process, etc.

Step four: Do this repeatedly whenever you have some free time and keep it in your mind.

step five: Use the feelings, images and experience of this process whenever you need to. Let it help you out of bed, let it help you reach your running shoes, let it help encourage you to run that extra mile and push yourself healthy throughout the journey.

This is looking at the outcome, of course we all need to learn the right behaviors and actions to take to make things easier and healthier for us too. So make sure you get the right information and training programs if you want to run marathons, for example.

This process here is designed to continually motivate you, and it’s what I use to help me mark each new marathon event and the accompanying training program each year. I hope you (runners in particular) find it useful.