A lot can be said about motivation and know doubt you’ve heard a lot. We all tend to be great starters but poor finishers. We’ve all seen countless people start something with excitement only to stop after a few weeks or months. How can we get motivated and stay motivated? Let me respond by taking you into a great story. Emil Zatopek was born in the Czech Republic in 1922, he later entered the military. The thing that stands out about Emil is his love for running, but hang on, Emil looked and acted anything but a runner, he ran very strange, in fact people that saw him run said he looked like someone put a knife through his heart, they compared him to Frankenstein!! Wow! Getting and staying motivated in any area of life is not about how well you do it, or how great you are rather like Emil it’s about your love for what you are doing. So to get and stay motivated love what you do.
Emil would run twenty miles at night through the woods wearing combat boots and carrying a flashlight. He averaged 165 miles per week plus competed every other week in a race for three years and never lost.
If you don’t love what you do, then love why you’re doing it. To get and stay motivated we need a reason that’s bigger than us. For Emil is was not about winning or achieving as much as it was about enjoyment. The same is true for us, to get and stay motivated we need a level of enjoyment, if that’s not there we won’t last.
In 1952 Emil Zatopek went to Helsinki to compete in the Olympics. He took gold in the 5000 meter, gold in the 10000 meter. He decided to compete in the marathon, something he had never done. The favorite to win was Jim Peters from England, at the ten-mile mark Peters was ten minutes under his best time, when all of a sudden here comes Emil, running like Frankenstein, he asked Peters if they were running too fast or too slow. Peters shocked that anyone would have a conversation during the Marathon looked at Emil and said with disgust, “Too Slow” with that Emil picked up his pace and took Gold!
So how do we get and stay motivated? Love what you do or love why you’re doing it. Find enjoyment in it. Don’t compete or compare yourself to others, make it fun and keep running.
You can preview the first part of the series “Born to Run” and begin your journey today.
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