Triggers

I've found myself in a bit of a cloudy mental state.  I'm still training.  But I'm making myself train, rather than wanting to train.  I've learned previously not to let myself stop the physical training, regardless of my mental state.  But you never want to leave anything left unchecked for too long.

It was suggested that I analyze this a bit further and try and see if I can put my finger on what is sapping my drive.  I've been challenged to determine the triggers that fuel my motivation, and the triggers that extinguish my motivation.  It will be important to recognize both.  So here we go.

In general, the following are things that really motivate me,

- Specific goals with deadlines

- A well-rounded plan

- Group challenges

- Being accountable to others or having others relying on me

- Personal challenges...but I need someone else to share these with

- Taking part in special events

- Learning new information (forms, techniques, etc)

- Analyzing and breaking things down in order to understand the whole

- Being tested

- Motivating others

- Tracking numbers and hitting milestones

- Measurable progress

- Making key discoveries

- Organizing and planning challenges/events/etc

- Being told I can't

- Blogging (both writing and reading)

- Regular meetings or interactions with instructors/mentors

- Sharing in the success of those around me

- Making lists

- Reading

And in general, these are the things that sap my motivation,

- Breaks in routine

- Injury or illness

- Ongoing external negative energy or influence

- Excessive change/uncertainty

- Personal or professional conflicts

- Long term lack of sleep

- Perceived or actual lack of progress

- A stagnant training regime

- Extended periods of unhealthy eating

- Unwanted responsibility

- Lack of a plan

- Focusing on too many things at once

As a further exercise, I've hi-lighted those that are currently "in play" above.  There might possibly be some argument that some of the things I have left UN-highlighted are still relevant or perhaps always present or available in the background.  But I have only highlighted those that I feel I am actively experiencing (or utilizing) right now to the degree that I normally do.  I'm sure I could continue to add more, to both sides, and perhaps get more and more specific, but for the purpose of this blog, I think I've established a good idea of what my triggers are.

One thing I'm disappointed about it is that I knew that a break in my routine would be a trigger.  I blogged about it!  By recognizing it in advance, I guess I thought I could simply avoid it.  But I failed to address it head on with a plan, and so it still wreaked havoc.

Now that these are on paper, I can see that I've got quite a few things working against me at the moment, and not enough things working for me.  There will likely always be 1-2 things that will be going against me at any given time, but when they start to pile up, and if they last an extended period of time, even the most positive attitude I can muster will eventually succumb.  And it obviously has.  

I suppose my next step here is to address and eliminate the things on my "bad" list.  There are definitely a few things on there that are directly in my control.  And if I look closely, by eliminating some of these from the bad list, they will automatically add something to the good.  Once I do that, then I'll have a look at my motivators and see how I can get more of those in play.

Regardless of how I managed to let these things pile up, or how I let my motivators slip away, the majority of these are in my control.  And having outlined these things above, I already feel better about moving forward.