Motivation

Leadership. The Army is characterized as producing leaders throughout it's history and it's own manuals state that "leadership is influencing people—by providing purpose, direction, and motivation—while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization."
As an leader in an organization whose mission is greater than just myself, I have lived humbly knowing that I represent the Army, whether I am on or off duty. I try to conduct myself accordingly and as in the past few days, I try to always accomplish the mission. To do this, I have tried to set goals for myself.

The purpose is clear, as it is the mission that I am trying to accomplish. My personal purpose is to run in, not just finish, my first real marathon. (The Walt Disney World marathon on January 11th, 2009)

The direction is a plan or road map that I set before me, check the schedule and tweak as necessary. In my plan to get up to marathon distance running, I have plugged in a couple of 5K runs and a 10K run. I also will have a few 2 mile "races" during my training, as that is the standard Army PT test distance.

But what is motivation?Motivation supplies the will to do what is necessary to accomplish a mission.

I have always been considered a self-starter, but without motivation, there is no self-starting. With out planning, I cannot get motivated. Sometimes I have planned to the point of obsession; where I know my plan with all its in's and out's. There are times, even with a mission and a plan, that the motivation seems to be lacking. It's is not by purposeful thought that I do not want to perform the the tasks in the present that will help me accomplish the mission goals in the future. Sometimes it is brought on by out side factors that bring my spirits down, Other times, I am brought down by factors under my own control and therefore take it out hard on myself.

On one of my fellow runners blogs, Shéamus on http://iRun365.com had also hit a wall. In a way, we have both wrote to each other in our blogs; I believe providing motivation for each other to complete our tasks. After his run today he wrote in his blog the following. "I've read about this before with running - whenever you make a big new breakthrough, mentally pretty much everybody reacts in the opposite way to which they would expect. Instead of being all positive and excited and going out the next day and doing it all over again, inevitably you go on a bit of a dip - a runner's low, if you will. It's perfectly understandable why - all week I'd been geeing myself up to do that 10-miles, and then when I finally did it, not only was it natural that my mind and body was going to crash a bit, it's probably necessary part of the recovery process." My farthest timed race date is a half-marathon. There is a mental barrier that I have about doing that distance again. What if I don't beat my race time? It's a wall that I have to get over.

Randy Pausch in his "Last Lecture" talked about walls. To paraphrase his talk, he said that they are there for a reason. They are there to see how badly you want something.

After yesterday's run, I tried immediately to think of the positives instead of dwell on the negatives. In the belief that there were few positives about the run, I then tried to turn the negatives into positive training points. In Army speak, I was basically giving myself an After Action Review (AAR) and looking for the points that I would sustain or improve on. I've found some comfort in the fact that I can pick out the problems I had with my weeks long-run. I brought it down to a simple equation that I could use to help me out: pace, push, power = performance.

And most importantly, my best friend in life was there to help me after my mornings run. She didn't know when she came to the door that I had had a bad run. She did care that I was dripping with sweat and my clothes were soaked (unless I tried to come into the house!) She was just there, to help me and support me and get my spirits back up.

So I've put this all into perspective. Come full circle, you might say.

1. Your comrades go through the same trials that you do. When the chips are down, because of your shared experiences together, you are able to pick each other up and get the other moving again. Even if you are separated by an ocean and 5 time zones. Thanks, Shéa. I can't wait to read your blog on day 365!

2. Conquering walls is part of life. Part of the reason I like the call sign "Spartan" so much. "Spartans never quit, never surrender!"Tonight I'll be at it again, running around Main Post like a mad-man.

3. I passed one of the hardest "mental" schools in the Army, and I have developed a plan as solid as possible. As I type right now, Ive delayed, but not cancelled a recovery run. I just prepared for it better and listened to my body when it said it needed more than a24 hour break, so the mind compromised and gave it 36 hours. It's still a run on Sunday and a run on Monday!

4. Make a deposit in the "Love Bank" more often. The returns are exponentially awesome.
Tonight I'm going to get back on the roller-coaster again, and I plan for the ride to last longer this time!

Sometimes to be a leader, we have to give ourselves purpose, direction and motivation. In Army terms: HOOAH!