The Roots of Motivation and Searching for “That” Feeling

Where does motivation come from, what is it, is it necessary, does it even exist? Entire books have been written and countless debates waged over motivation, its existence, origins, and purpose (or lack thereof). It seems that the central debate is a classic “chicken and egg” scenario: do you need motivation to undertake a new endeavor, to get started on a project, to change your life? Or do you start taking the steps in the direction you want to go, take action, and the motivation to continue will follow? This past year has provided me with a different perspective on it than the one I held through the majority of my professional athletic career. One that I thought others might find value in, especially during a time that is challenging the motivation of many around the world.

For as long as I can remember, all throughout my younger years, I had one driving force that carried me through all of my pursuits, especially the athletic ones. From swimming in junior high, cross country in high school, to preparing for the Tour de France several years later, I had one goal: To be the best (let’s be clear, I was never the best in any of those, but it didn’t stop me from trying). 

The thing was, I didn’t just want to be the best in a healthy, intrinsically motivated sense. I wanted it in a very external, very visible way. I didn’t want to be better than I was a month or a year ago, I wanted to be better than every single one of my competitors. I was not content with getting the best out of myself, I wanted to win. As I progressed during my first few years in the sport of cycling, that motivation changed slightly, but not much. Certain races I still wanted to win, to cross the line first and feel that moment of elation that nothing else could match. Other times, the “win” took on a different form, although it was still measured by the results sheet. A top ten in the Tour de France, podiums in one week stage races, a top five in a Grand Tour,  and a win in the national championship time trial were just a few examples of the goals I set for myself in cycling. As I ticked each box and continued to aim higher there came a point, probably around 2015, where I began to wonder why. What was I aiming for? What was the point of all this? What was driving me to improve? What was the motivation behind my desire to win, or to meet the goals that I set?

As I pondered this during the off season in 2015, heading into the 2016 season, something began to shift internally, something that in hindsight I wish I had fully recognized and taken advantage of. My mindset began to change from needing a given result as validation of all the work I had done in order to sustain motivation to truly just loving the process. I didn’t fully see it at the time as it was a subtle shift, but one I can clearly pick out looking back. I had always loved the work, loved the training, loved the long days in the freezing rain in the middle of winter, but my reasons for loving it had evolved. I recall one specific New Year’s day early in my career: I woke up at 7am and rode for six hours alone, in the rain, laughing to myself at one point about the fact that this was what I got to do everyday. The grin on my face on that ride wasn’t brought about by a thought of any specific result but it was motivated by the fact that I felt like I was doing something more than my competitors. It was still an external motivation.

Every time I went out in nasty conditions during training each winter I viewed it as hardening myself, bettering myself, imagining my competition sitting on trainers, riding less, altering their workouts, not willing to take the risk of getting sick or simply unwilling to deal with the mental challenges that accompany training consistently in bad weather. As far as I can remember, up until 2016, I would always dig into the mental reserves during the months of off season training, especially on hard days where I would imagine winning the race I was training for, imagine dropping my competitors on a climb, or flying through a time trial. I was always digging into the well, but at that time the well could only be filled with external motivation, and it was always destined to run dry.

And run dry it did, on and off during 2015 and the early stages of 2016. Then, in the first few months of the 2016 season, the best year of my career, there was a clear shift that took place. I had a truly abysmal start but as I refocused I found a sort of faith in what I was doing. The work began to provide purpose. The suffering, and ensuing lessons I would learn about myself, provided the meaning. Without consciously realizing it motivation, in the external sense, ceased to be a factor. I had found such a rhythm in life and in cycling that I didn’t need to “motivate” myself to get out the door, or gear up for a hard workout, I simply got it done, and I did so happily. When I arrived in Madrid at the end of that season sitting in fifth place in the Vuelta Espana, my best career result in a Grand Tour, it wasn’t the result that put a smile on my face. It was all the memories of the moments in the race where I was completely present. The final time trial, the final uphill finish, the feeling of emptying myself completely. The result could have been third, it could have been sixth, it didn’t really matter to me anymore, because I knew I had done everything I could in the moments that did matter, both in the race and in the months leading up to it. I had been present and fully engaged in the process rather than focusing on the outcome. 

As you can probably guess if you followed my time in cycling at all, unfortunately, and without realizing it, I lost that feeling of ease, that flow that I had found in 2016. It was something so valuable but so subtle that while I was in it I wasn’t able to harness it and channel it moving forward. I knew something was missing in 2017 and, in hindsight, it’s easy to pick out. I had shifted back to trying to externally motivate myself, digging into a well that had run dry a couple of years prior, not realizing a well brimming over was available to me if only I would let myself see it and tap into it.

Why am I telling you all this, how can my experience in pro cycling apply to someone else’s life? Well, I’ve always believed that sport is basically an accelerated version of life and if you pay close attention to it, there are many lessons it has to offer. 

The challenges that I faced as an athlete, the source of my motivation, the sustainability of it, are all things that apply to anyone pursuing something in life. Athletics, business, a spiritual practice, education, all of it is dependent on our commitment to what we are doing, and our commitment comes down to motivation. Cultivating a deep well of intrinsic motivation is something I believe is a necessity to succeed in any aspect of life but it is often one of the things we most neglect. Take it from my own story above, you need to fill that well and tap into it if you are to succeed! 

Fast forward a few years down the road and here I am, retired from cycling and professional Ironman, and still trying to gain a deeper understanding and clarity of my own motivation. Now that I am just like everyone else, now that it is no longer my job, what place does going for a bike ride hold in my life? What is the point of strengthening my body? Why do I push myself into the ocean to ride waves that make my stomach drop, my heart beat faster, that genuinely scare me? Why do I do things that I dread in the moments before I do them? There is no one paying me, no sponsorships to consider, there is no result on the line. There is, externally at least, no tangible reward for doing any of the things I do these days. It has been a challenging process but I finally think I am rounding a corner, beginning to understand myself a little bit better, and so finally able to perhaps help others examine and gain a better understanding of their own motivation in sport and in life. 

After much reflection, and some trial and error in a “living life” sense, I have found that the underlying motivation, the root of why I do what I do is simple: I need to feel alive and connected. “Connected to what?” is probably your first question. It’s a little abstract, but for me it means a connection to nature, to the real world around us (not the digital one so many are living in), to the energy that we can draw from nature if we allow ourselves to. A connection to the fact that at a base level, we are no different than any other creature on this planet, although we like to pretend we are. We are just visitors here and nature has a way of making you feel very small if you allow it to, to humble and inspire at the same time.

Then there is the need to feel alive. That is a little easier to understand. In cycling, that came through suffering, much as it did in Ironman. It came from pushing my body to a place where it was supposed to break, supposed to give out, and still finding a way to continue on. That’s how I knew I was alive, the pain made me acutely aware of that, and learning to accept that pain allowed a state of bliss (and taught me lessons about myself) that few things in my life have rivaled. In sport, there were clear moments where I knew I would come face to face with this feeling and have the opportunity to chase after it. Sometimes I was up to the task and others I was not. Everything I did in training (or in life as a whole at the time) was to prepare for these moments, to be able to meet them head on. I knew that not every day in training would be amazing, that there would be days I would not be up to meeting the challenge. But I also knew that if I just kept at it, it would pay off. I knew I would be rewarded with the day where it all came together, where mind and body allowed me to push up against that pain, then to accept it, and finally to feel really and truly alive. 

I think the part I have struggled with the most since leaving sport is not knowing when (or if) those moments will come and realizing that now I’ll have to create them for myself, otherwise I run the risk of losing them entirely. Some people step away from sport and feel a relief at not having to meet those moments anymore, but I have learned that I need them, that they are as important to my being as the air that I breathe or the food that I eat. In order to the best person, father, husband, and friend I can be, I rely heavily on those moments. 

I remember the precise day when I finally understood that I could have these experiences, the connection to nature, the jolting reminder that I am indeed alive, outside of professional sport. It was in Maui this past winter. My daily surf spot Ho’okipa was big, big enough that only a handful of people were out. But it was clean which was a rarity, the wind was light and offshore, the channel to paddle out was still relatively open with the exception of the occasional closeout set. I stood on shore and watched rideable wave after wave rolling in. Usually Ho’okipa at that size began to close out making it both unrideable and unappealing. There had been a couple of days like that since we had moved to Maui and I had been content to watch from the shore. For whatever reason on this day, I grabbed the biggest board I had and paddled out. 

Once out there, much further offshore than I usually sat, the true power of the ocean revealed itself. The sound was immense as the waves broke just past where I was sitting. It felt like the entire ocean was welling up and rolling beneath me. I had the thought that if there was a way to get in, a bail out option, it probably would have been wise to take it. But of course there was no way out, other than through. As I sat and watched the better, braver, more experienced surfers pick off waves from each set, from the perfect spot, I wasn’t envious, but frightened. The majority of surfers out there would let the larger waves of each set roll through, unridden. No one was really talking. A jet ski had come out to keep us company manned by one of the lifeguards after they had rescued a surfer getting sucked out to sea when his leash broke. This wasn’t one of the famous North Shore spots but there was a reef beneath us and the thought of being pummeled into it by a wave that was three times my height didn’t sound appealing. I sat for over an hour before finally paddling for a wave. I caught it, then fell, and braced for the beating that was to come. It came, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. As with most in things in life, we can build something up in our heads, paralyze ourselves with fear, but often times the scenarios we can create in our minds are far worse than anything real life can throw at us. 

A little while later I saw the right wave coming to me. I paddled, made the drop, heard the crashing boom of the wave breaking right behind me, and I felt alive. Riding this mass of water I felt like I was a part of it. I rode that wave all the way in, it peeled perfectly to the left giving me easily the best ride I’ve had in the past year. As I rode the inside white water to shore I couldn’t get over the feeling I had. I had found what I was looking for, I felt alive and deeply connected at the same time. Sure, it was a little bit different, but overall it was the same thing I had experienced in sport. I walked onto the sand, looking back at the ocean, feeling grateful, humbled, and at peace, much like I did after a time trial during my cycling days. Standing on the beach, I felt empty in the best possible way. I had given myself fully to the ocean, accepted the potential consequences, and been rewarded with something exquisite. 

It took me a while to understand what this meant, finding this feeling outside of sport. It has taken me even longer to figure out how to make use of it, how to incorporate it into my life rather than chase it like an addict. I had missed that feeling for so long, I thought it was something that was left in my past and, when I realized that it was possible to feel that way outside of professional sport, something inside me shifted. Over the months that followed I have done a handful of things that have given me that feeling. Some have been planned, others have been an adventure gone wrong (or very right depending on how you look at it), but the end result was the same: I found the feeling I was searching for.

So what does it all mean? It means that for me, much of my life life outside of these moments is designed to make sure that I am prepared for them when they do come along. Unlike racing, I’m never certain when they will be. A great swell can roll in at any time, the perfect day in the ocean is certainly not something that comes on anyone’s schedule except for Mother Nature. A day of pushing myself beyond my physical limits is something I can plan for a bit more, but even that most often comes as a surprise. It comes from being on a planned cycling route and deciding I’ll take the “long way home”, even if that way ends in hopping barbed wire fences and praying that I don’t have to hike twenty miles out of the woods when I get a flat tire. The point is, there is only so much planning I can do, the rest is just accepting the moments when they come. 

To summarize, you could say that my motivation in a nutshell is to be prepared and to be present. To be able to look out at Ocean Beach in San Francisco on a big day (well, the biggest day that I don’t genuinely think I’m going to drown) and say “yes”, and paddle out in search of the ride of my life, accepting the consequences that are sure to come but also accepting the possibility that something wonderful might come my way. When I go ride my bike now, it is so I can say “yes” and take the long way home when I feel like it. If someone asks me if I want to go run 100 miles, ninety nine times out of one hundred I’ll probably say no, but I want to be able to say “yes” if I so desire in the moment. My goal, my motivation now, is to be able to say “yes” to the moments that allow me to feel alive, that help me feel most at peace and connected to nature. 

In order to do that, I have to be in a place, mentally and physically, where I can. Knowing that I have opportunities to prepare my mind and body for gives me the motivation I need to live in a healthy way physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sure, it sounds a little abstract but it works. Through it all, I continue to grow as a person, continue to learn about myself and why I do what I do, why I need what I need in life. It is the most interesting journey I have embarked on so far.

I decided to sit down and write all this out because I think that the lessons I have learned can apply to anyone’s life. In my life those lessons often take on a physical form, I need the physical side in order to have those moments of clarity, to have that connection with nature. For others, that might not be the case. The exact same principles, preparing yourself to say “yes” when opportunities arise apply to every walk of life. If you’re starting a business, maybe it means embracing the challenges, embracing all of the time and energy, early mornings and late nights, so that when the opportunity comes for you to grow, sell, or expand your business you are ready for it. If you make “be present, be prepared” your life motto in whatever way it best applies to you I’m certain that some great experiences and opportunities will come your way.

There are bound to be some detours along the path if you do choose to dive a little deeper into yourself, to examine the source of your motivation and what role it plays in your life. As I left sport over a year ago I felt I was prepared to deal with the challenges that accompany such a transition. But, as I quickly discovered, I was woefully unprepared to go on the journey that I have been on since then. A journey of examining my inner workings, of figuring out what makes me tick, what brings me fulfillment and peace

The fun is in the finding, in figuring out what does it for you. What fills your personal cup? What do you need to be your best self in your life? It could be ten minutes of meditation a day that opens the pathway for you to go on a spiritual journey or it could be chasing waves the size of buildings as handful of wild men, and women, do. It could be writing a book, it could be starting the business you’ve always dreamed of. All of those things involve confronting fears and examining motivation, none are easy, and all are surely rewarding.

I do hope that after reading this you’ll dive a little bit deeper into your own motivation for why you do what you do. Asking myself this simple question is one of the most rewarding things I have done so far in my life. It is a process that, as far as I can tell, has no finish line. It has allowed me to to get to know myself a little bit better, and I hope that it can do the same for you.