How Bad Do You Want It? Commitment To Your Goals
In the last issue of Holeshot magazine we went over how to create your season goals and how to identify training objectives based on these goals. These goals and training objectives are merely words on paper if you don’t execute. How well you execute depends on what level of commitment you bring to your program.
This article is to help you mentally and emotionally grasp the idea of commitment and how to ensure that this level of commitment matches the importance of motocross in your life. Deep!
A dictionary defines commitment this way: an agreement or promise to do something in the future. You went through the process of creating season goals that are a stretch for you. Commitment then means that YOU made a promise to YOURSELF to achieve these goals. You then identified several training objectives that YOU must actively do to overcome specific limiters that can hold you back from achieving your season goals. This means that you MUST complete the training objectives in order to keep the promise you made to YOURSELF to achieve the season goals. The last person you should break a promise to is yourself!
At this point you have to determine how important motocross is within the scope of your life. You can simply rank it between 1 and 10. 10 means it is the most important thing in your life, 1 means that motocross is not important at all and 5 is in between. I bet that most readers of Holeshot will rank the importance of motocross in their lives at least an 8 if not a 9 or 10. Motocross is a very high priority in your life, maybe the highest priority in your life. This means that you MUST carry a high level of commitment towards your training program. You MUST place a similarly high priority in completing your training objectives since after all you made a promise to yourself to achieve your season goals in this high priority item in your life.
OK, heady stuff for sure but what is the practical meaning of all this? Your level of commitment will determine if and how well you complete training objectives that will lead you to your season goals. You probably gave the importance of MX in your life a 9 or 10. In most cases riders’ efforts during motos and training does indeed match this level of importance – you train hard (and smart hopefully!), you hammer out the motos and push yourself through pain, exhaustion, and discomfort to complete your training tasks. You do what your training program calls for; you ride the motos, run when you are supposed to, ride your bicycle, you lift the weights. But are you committed in the rest of your life? Does your lifestyle and daily living habits support the level of importance you gave motocross in your life? What the heck am I talking about?
A way to understand this is to see what happens when you are NOT committed all the way. We have all seen it: a superstar young rider; a racer with unbelievable talent and riding skill. They float around the track and make it look easy. They are a natural on the bike and seem untouchable. Their parents support them fully and they are backed by a slew of sponsors. But…they never make it. You cannot understand why they were flying when they were younger but maybe in their teens they are nowhere to be seen. Maybe they were amateur speedsters but once they reach the pro ranks they just fold. What gives? Oftentimes their level of commitment never made it up to the level of how important motocross was in their lives and because results started to falter, these riders decided that motocross was not as important as it once was. This cascading string of events just causes a downward spiral that only ends in disappointment and often in retirement from the sport. Do you follow? Motocross was important to these people but they never fully committed to the level of how important they claimed it was in the scope of their lives. Since the commitment did not match the importance of motocross in their lives, maybe some things became more important than completing their training objectives. If training objectives are not met, then limiters are not fixed and results do not get better and can get worse. A few bad results and suddenly MX does not seem so important so the level of commitment drops even more and the downward spiral starts until one day the racer just quits racing.
Let’s say you are tired after dinner. You had a great training day, you hit all the lap times and you busted it out in the gym. You ate healthy and now you are getting ready to get a good night’s sleep so you can have another good day of training tomorrow and the phone rings. Your buddies want to go out and do something late at night….you gave motocross a ranking of 9 in your life…is going out with your buddies this one random time rank a 9 or better? Do you commit to your program, to your training objectives, to your season goals? Do your actions at this point match how important motocross is in your life? Do you keep the promise you made yourself? Do you have the commitment to make it?
Think about it . . .
Seiji Ishii is founder and president of Pinnacle Elite Fitness in Austin, TX and head coach of www.coachseiji.com. Pinnacle Elite Fitness is a personal training and testing center and coachseiji.com provides coaching services to motorsport and endurance sport athletes.
This article is to help you mentally and emotionally grasp the idea of commitment and how to ensure that this level of commitment matches the importance of motocross in your life. Deep!
A dictionary defines commitment this way: an agreement or promise to do something in the future. You went through the process of creating season goals that are a stretch for you. Commitment then means that YOU made a promise to YOURSELF to achieve these goals. You then identified several training objectives that YOU must actively do to overcome specific limiters that can hold you back from achieving your season goals. This means that you MUST complete the training objectives in order to keep the promise you made to YOURSELF to achieve the season goals. The last person you should break a promise to is yourself!
At this point you have to determine how important motocross is within the scope of your life. You can simply rank it between 1 and 10. 10 means it is the most important thing in your life, 1 means that motocross is not important at all and 5 is in between. I bet that most readers of Holeshot will rank the importance of motocross in their lives at least an 8 if not a 9 or 10. Motocross is a very high priority in your life, maybe the highest priority in your life. This means that you MUST carry a high level of commitment towards your training program. You MUST place a similarly high priority in completing your training objectives since after all you made a promise to yourself to achieve your season goals in this high priority item in your life.
OK, heady stuff for sure but what is the practical meaning of all this? Your level of commitment will determine if and how well you complete training objectives that will lead you to your season goals. You probably gave the importance of MX in your life a 9 or 10. In most cases riders’ efforts during motos and training does indeed match this level of importance – you train hard (and smart hopefully!), you hammer out the motos and push yourself through pain, exhaustion, and discomfort to complete your training tasks. You do what your training program calls for; you ride the motos, run when you are supposed to, ride your bicycle, you lift the weights. But are you committed in the rest of your life? Does your lifestyle and daily living habits support the level of importance you gave motocross in your life? What the heck am I talking about?
A way to understand this is to see what happens when you are NOT committed all the way. We have all seen it: a superstar young rider; a racer with unbelievable talent and riding skill. They float around the track and make it look easy. They are a natural on the bike and seem untouchable. Their parents support them fully and they are backed by a slew of sponsors. But…they never make it. You cannot understand why they were flying when they were younger but maybe in their teens they are nowhere to be seen. Maybe they were amateur speedsters but once they reach the pro ranks they just fold. What gives? Oftentimes their level of commitment never made it up to the level of how important motocross was in their lives and because results started to falter, these riders decided that motocross was not as important as it once was. This cascading string of events just causes a downward spiral that only ends in disappointment and often in retirement from the sport. Do you follow? Motocross was important to these people but they never fully committed to the level of how important they claimed it was in the scope of their lives. Since the commitment did not match the importance of motocross in their lives, maybe some things became more important than completing their training objectives. If training objectives are not met, then limiters are not fixed and results do not get better and can get worse. A few bad results and suddenly MX does not seem so important so the level of commitment drops even more and the downward spiral starts until one day the racer just quits racing.
Let’s say you are tired after dinner. You had a great training day, you hit all the lap times and you busted it out in the gym. You ate healthy and now you are getting ready to get a good night’s sleep so you can have another good day of training tomorrow and the phone rings. Your buddies want to go out and do something late at night….you gave motocross a ranking of 9 in your life…is going out with your buddies this one random time rank a 9 or better? Do you commit to your program, to your training objectives, to your season goals? Do your actions at this point match how important motocross is in your life? Do you keep the promise you made yourself? Do you have the commitment to make it?
Think about it . . .
Seiji Ishii is founder and president of Pinnacle Elite Fitness in Austin, TX and head coach of www.coachseiji.com. Pinnacle Elite Fitness is a personal training and testing center and coachseiji.com provides coaching services to motorsport and endurance sport athletes.
