Self Motivation / Arnel Sugay

By Arnel Sugay

Have you ever told yourself that you will run in the morning, only to find yourself crawling back in bed? Several times I would forego on my plan to run because I never “feel” like running. I want to because it is for the benefit of my health and endurance but I just did not “feel” motivated to go out and run.

I guess a lot of people can resonate with my experience. A lot of us make decisions based on our feelings. I realized that if I wait for the right feeling, sometimes, or more often than not, it doesn’t come.

You wait in vain and you will feel disappointed because your plan did not materialize. To address my personal issue of planning and wanting to run to actually running, I read books on motivation and habits. I referred to three books, to wit: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz, Ph.D.

Culling bits and pieces from these books, I asked myself “What am I doing wrong?” Duhigg and Clear both advocate creating a cue. Since I am a visual learner, I told myself this is what will work for me. I placed my running shirt and shorts on my bed as a reminder that I am scheduled to run. Cue alone will not compel me to run. That is what I have observed.

If I will reward myself after the run, would that work? What is missing in the equation? There was a smile on my face as I probed because I am a work in progress. I like studying and challenging myself. There is a chapter in Schwartz’s book that talks about doing an action and you will be in the feeling and thinking mode. He was talking about confidence. I can tweak this even if confidence and running are seemingly unrelated. I ruminated on the concepts and tied it to running. I want to experiment by testing if it will work for me.

The next day, I did not feel like running but I am interested in experimenting with what will work for me. I put on my running apparel and went out. I did not feel like running. I kept on walking for about one kilometer. I asked myself “what now?” I realized that when I am out in the sun and on the road I began walking briskly and then it led to jogging. This was my “aha” moment.

This principle of “Do-Feel-Think” is now my recipe for being consistent in running. I was doing it incorrectly before. I was waiting for the right feeling and I would use my feeling to decide if I will run or not.

Try “Do-Feel-Think” if you are stuck in executing what you plan to do. Let me know your experience.

You can reach me at arnel.sugay@gmail.com

Arnel Sugay

Jeepney Press