Credits go to Nico Pollo, TeamGetLost Ambassador:
His Website: https://nicopollo.com/
His Instagram: https://instagram.com/nico.pollo/

What Motivates You?

We are in the middle of the season, and fatigue (especially physical), begins to play a key role in the activities we do. Every time seems a little bit harder to start, the excuses become a constant, “the weather sucks”, “I’m sure everything is frozen”, “I’m tired”, “I work all day”, “today the weather is too great”…”Ok, brother, wth? Come on, go! That’s the worst excuse ever…” Immediately after, I see myself preparing my backpack.

This is the moment when motivation is crucial, whatever we are doing. Could be studying, working, doing paperwork, training, or, in my case, skiing.

A misleading question has been going around in my head the last week. “Are you going to ski today?” A part of me says, “OBVIOUS!”, While a small percentage of my psyche says “take the day off”.

I must admit that I’m not usually in favor of days off. If we want to improve in something, to get better, I think we have to “give it all” in every situation that comes our way. However, it is essential to know how to listen to ourselves, since often over-training tends to have awful results in our body.

In my case, I work 8 hours a day while standing, and I also ski at least 3 or 4 hours a day. It is more than understandable that the body asks us for a time off.

However, the thing goes beyond physical and psychological fatigue. Many times the hard part is to start, but once in movement, in the activity, all the excuses and doubts about what we do, take a back seat.

“The one who wants, looks for the way … the one who doesn’t, excuses”

This phrase has been part of my mental structure for several years now. It is very easy to give up, throw in the towel, hang the gloves or whatever you want to call it. The difficult thing is to keep going. But what brings greater benefits? Or, rather, what is more fruitful for our mind when it comes to achieving a goal? “What easy comes, easy goes,” they say …

That is why I began to inquire about motivation. Based on what I have studied in Psychology at university, two types of motivation come to mind:

• Intrinsic motivation: that is, one that comes from the person, and their willpower to perform a certain activity, in order to satisfy their desires for self-realization and personal growth, or because such activity brings with it a sense of well-being , pleasure, enjoyment, etc.
• Extrinsic motivation: it is the one that comes from outside, either because of a question of social recognition, to receive some type of remuneration (whether in money, prizes, etc.), etc. That is to say, the motor of the action, what impels us to act, comes from outside the person.

As stated by David McClelland, in his book “Study of human motivation”, the motivation of an individual is due to the search for satisfaction of three needs:

• The need for achievement: related to tasks that pose a challenge, the struggle for success, personal improvement.

• The need for power: referred to the desire to influence others, to have an impact on the rest of the people.

• The need for affiliation: refers to the desire to establish relationships, to be part of a group, that is, to relate to others.

In summary, I could say that my sources of motivation are directly related to what was raised by this author. Personal improvement (I always say that my life – and also when it comes to skiing – is a constant learning), to be able to influence people (encouraging them to do a new or already known activity that personally brings me a lot of satisfaction), and, in this way, to be able to relate to others, meet people with the same passions, or awaken that “curiosity bug” in people who have not practiced the activity and wish to venture into the world of physical activity and life around nature.

As to finish, I would like to mention some “strategies and psychological keys to motivate oneself”, proposed by the social psychologist Xavier Molina, and add others that I have been learning for a few years and that have surprised me with the results. “Believe or burst”.

1. Think positive: your thoughts will decisively influence how to deal with each step you take. We all have that inner voice that can help us or boycott us. We must learn to manage their influence and be aware that our mental state is the key so that we can set goals and fulfill them.
2. Be grateful: for everything, however insignificant it may seem. The victories are the final prize, but the hundreds of mistakes in the process are the lessons that we should thank more.
3. Write our objectives, graph them: in this way, we can become aware of the progress we are making in the short term.
4. Imagine achieving the proposed: mentally visualize the result we want to achieve, for a few minutes and with many details.
5. One day you can fail … but not two: We all have a bad day when laziness paralyzes us. But the golden rule is not to let that laziness (or any other excuse) win us two days in a row. We must put our heads up, remember our motivational sources and get down to work.
6. Friends are a great source of motivation: for example, with certain people we have common goals, or similar, and we seek to achieve them little by little, encouraging and motivating each other, so we can reach the proposed goals, and not so much as a matter of comparison with respect to the other person. We must understand that we are all different, we have different lives, and we will not always be able to achieve the same. For example, with my friend Maxy, we have decided to climb “The Virgin’s needle”, in Piedra Parada, a 130 mts multipitch whose maximum difficulty is 7b if I remember correctly. Even though I have not climbed for more than a year, in addition to have never climbed a 7b in my life, Maxi constantly writes to me about the routes he has climbed, what he is going to do, and he reminds me all the time of the pleasure activity provides us, which encourages me to start training again.
7. Prepare our mind for the slump moments: If we are aware of them, we can manage them so that they do not affect us.
8. Make a list with reasons to stay motivated: It is the perfect antidote for excuses, laziness and mental kidnappings.
9. The importance of a good counselor: Having the support of a person with long experience can be key to explain some tricks and reflections to achieve what we propose.
10. Discover our passions: we must build our lives based on what we like to do. In this way, motivation is included in the combo.
11. Inspire with the little things of everyday life: be a person open to the world and find inspiration in the small everyday details. A sunrise, a talk, a shared moment, anything…

Applying these principles, we can make the mid-season slump disappear.

What motivates me to keep going? The possibility of continue learning

And how about you? Comment below what motivates you!