Coach is known for his inspirational pre-practice speeches. Sometimes they may free drawn out, repetitive, or boring but when thinking about them later, and I guess I can see why he tells them. So this is going to be a classic John Oliver speech but also what I've taken and done with it over the past two years.
So the idea of your "why" is that it needs to be at the center of your purpose. You think of it like a circle where you start at the core and move out. The middle has the "why you do this”, then you worry about the "how do you do this", and lastly you worry about "what you're doing". Everyone knows WHAT we are doing, so there's not much to say there (I'd be a little concerned if you didn't know this one). The "what" is extremely surface level and won't keep you going when things get tough. We also know HOW to run, HOW to do all the things to stay healthy, HOW to push ourselves to the limit, but that's still not the hard part. I mean yes, it's hard to push yourself to the limit at the end of the race, but if you know WHY you keep putting yourself through that pain, the motivator to keep going grows stronger.
Coach followed up that definition by talking about how your "why" needs to come from within and cannot be from external uncontrollable factors. Some examples are, "I run for the cool athlete backpack", "I run for the crowd to praise me" or "I run to win". Now there is nothing wrong with letting these motivate you, because we all know winning is better than losing, it's always a motivator. The problem with these being your "why" is that the externals are uncontrollable. If you get injured, or have a large setback, the road back can be challenging. If you are driven by the crowd praising you, it may be discouraging, because you are going to start further back than where you were when you were winning and receiving praise. Thinking back, I think these things come to mind first as a "why" because they are huge motivators and are super fun, but there is really a deeper why, it just takes some self discovery to find.
Okay, so now that you know what I'm talking about, here's my initial reaction, my interpretation, my why, and what I do with all of it now.
I first heard this speech the fall of my freshman year, and at first I panicked and felt shallow, like I've been approaching this sport the wrong way my whole life. High school was an extremely linear, easy progression with little to no setbacks or challenges. It worked really well to only focus on times and winning, and that's all I really cared about. The fact that high school went so smoothly meant I didn't need to know my why because winning and PRs were frequent and I didn't need any other motivators. Now that I have spent a couple years in college and hit tough spots, my "why" has become increasingly important.
So now: My "why". It literally took me an entire year to come up with it, But eventually I figured out that it boils down to: I love seeing myself improve. Now in high school this was still my why but it had any and everything to do with the time on the clock. With that being said, these days I try hard to think about all the ways I could be improving because there is a lot more to the sport than time.
A few examples:
Fueling: I have been working on my relationship with food a lot. Seeing the correlation between both what and how much food I ate could impact my performances, put food on such a pedestal and made me forget all the other factors that go into running (that was written in past tense but is still very much something I am working on). Obviously food is important and I remind myself of that everyday, but also what I've worked to remember is that one misstep is fine, all food is good, and I can trust my body because what it's craving is what I need in that moment. With all that being said, my "why" keeps me talking about my problems and improving that relationship everyday. I could get to a point where the intrusive thoughts have died down and stop there, but my "why" gets me to keep improving until I get to a point where I fully trust my body, truly enjoy the food I eat without judgment, and focus on all the other parts of running and life that are so enjoyable when food isn't taking up 90% of my brain. My "why" allows me to think that I can't be "too recovered" and there is always a way to improve.
Race preparation: At the start of the year I couldn't start a race without sitting down to lower my heart rate because I was so nervous. In some regards, fixing this does relate to improving the time on the clock, but learning how to enjoy the race also makes it wayyyyyy more fun. So because of my why, I've also worked to use tools to calm those nerves and think about what I find fun about the race. Going into the races this spring I was able to leave proud of the progress I've made relating to my race preparation regardless of the time on the clock, knowing it will all come in time. (let me know if you want to know more on this topic, because it can be a whole other post)
Team culture: As a team, we are very close and have fostered a great environment. With that being said, there is always something to improve, so as a team we've worked all year to fix little problems and get us to our full potential. Performance is part of this, but also working on our energy at practice, support for each other in practice and races, and so many other things. We could all stay in our own bubbles and fix our own problems, but since a lot of us share this drive in our why, we are able to get together and create the best team environment possible.
These three things are just a few of the ways I've found to use my "why" to keep me going even when my times may be plateauing or I'm not making as much progress as I expect time wise. I think finding the bigger picture to all the things that really can impact your performance
- Is an important thing to remember to keep everything in perspective
- Allows you to appreciate ALL of your progress
- A lot of the time it just makes the sport more fun!
That's all my insight on the topic of defining your "why". If you are trying to come up with yours and find yourself struggling, don't worry, it doesn't mean you are any less invested in this sport, it just means you will need to look inward and figure out what has driven you to love this sport, even when it's tough. Other than that I hope you found something helpful or insightful here, thanks for reading!
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Coach would be over the moon to see this. Your blog is phenomenal!
Stawp your making me blush 🤠also don’t you worry, coach got sent the link