(Hint: The Answer Is Never “Never”)
I’m Busy, Why Do I Care? It’s said that quitters never win and winners never quit, but is this true? For highly motivated people, the drive to achieve can be a direct line to accomplishment or into a dead end. The key is the ability to discern when our goals no longer suit us. Ironically, this can be hardest for the best-motivated.
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I stumbled across this question recently in a running newsletter:
Hey Coach: Races at the end of the summer and even into the fall are being canceled, I've lost motivation to train...what do I do?
It’s a great question. Right now all of us are finding our assumptions, plans and sometimes futures thrown into disarray. But even before the virus of 2020, this has been an issue for many of us.
If you identify as a high achiever, even asking this kind of thing feels unnatural. We’re raised on phrases like “winners never quit and quitters never win,” which push us to put our heads down and bull on through difficulty.
What we feel inside is reinforced from outside. Our culture celebrates noble and glorious victory, be it in politics, business or sports. The longer the odds or harder the struggle the better.
It’s natural that it’s hard to handle when the idea of “victory” starts to look hollow. It’s not weakness, but just a matter of time: at some point, you will find you’ve poured your heart and soul into something but the fire is gone.
The advice was thought-provoking:
Answer: stop training. Seriously, training is a formal and programmed approach to preparing for a race, event, or adventure. You don't have to be in training all year long or when you don't have something on the calendar.
Stop training. A simple idea, but not intuitive or even very natural.
Does this even apply at work? Most of us aren’t running for a living. Not training for a hobby has a lot less downside than, say, quitting your job.
Before writing this off, it is definitely not suggesting giving up on effort:
I'm not suggesting that you stop exercising. You should try to maintain your base fitness but you don't have to be very structured to do that. If you've lost motivation for 'training', then drop the plan, decide to still go out every day, and go by feel. Aim for 80% of your peak volume (time or distance) from the recent 3 months and focus on finishing each outing with a smile. Continue to sleep well, think well, and eat well!
This says we’re more than our short-term goals. Our ability to flourish--whether as athletes, professionals or just humans--depends on maintaining a healthy balance.
One way to look at this in terms of level of effort--for running, something in life, projects at work—across the many things we do, we have to put out some level of effort to get things done. Simple as that.
It’s easy to feel like we need to be putting out a constant level of effort and attention, no matter the circumstances. What would happen if we thought in terms of pulses instead?
We would have periods of purposeful high effort or output alternating with less busy, slower periods where we take stock, and if we need to, recharge for the next round of higher effort. It’s insurance against burnout.
Implicit in this advice is a question: Is what we’re doing really moving us forward? For the runner, training for a canceled event is not. But making sure they stay in motion is, because it sets them up for the long-term.
We should be asking the same question to ourselves regularly, including at work. It’s easy to get sucked into an endless series of short-term goals which require enormous outlays of effort and energy. Hopefully these add up to progress and a sense of purpose that can animate us to keep going.
But now and then it’s worth stopping and asking, “What is this really getting me?” Now and then the answer is not enough, or too much of the wrong things. This isn’t an invitation to quit. It’s a sign that it’s time to shift gears and find a new direction.
(Incidentally, this advice comes from Dr. Shawn Bearden. He’s the host of SOUP, the Science of Ultra Podcast and professor of physiology at Idaho State. He fielded the question above and gave this answer via his excellent “Three Things Thursday” email newsletter.)