What motivates runners? What gets you out the door when the last thing you want to do is head out the door? What drives you? Running goals are all about delayed gratification – a lot of work in the background for a long time, with a sometimes-faraway goal as the prize. It takes a lot of discipline. Running – training at a high level for D1 athletics – is inherently a difficult thing. It’s hard. It’s work. It’s a grind. All of that, and more.
When it comes to different types of motivation, they are often split up into two buckets: Intrinsic (motivated from within, that inner fire that drives you) and extrinsic (chasing rewards, prizes, incentives). Dive deeper into this thinking and you have two styles of goal-setting and goal-chasing: Process-oriented (intrinsic) and outcome-oriented (extrinsic). As with most things in life, this is not a binary equation. It’s not either/or; it’s often “and” instead. It’s a continuum. More on that in a bit …
Collegiate athletes have built-in extrinsic motivations. Most sports have wins and losses, which lead to playoffs and championships. In track and cross country, we have first place, second place, etc., qualifying times, school records, team standings at championship meets, on and on. Our athletes are driven by things like getting on the school-record board in the McCann Center hallway (graciously donated many years ago by the Valentino Family = NEAT). They are driven by seemingly random goals – sub-15:00 for 5km for men is one of them. They are driven to qualify for championship meets, hitting standards that gain an athlete entry into a regional or national competition. They are driven to score points at MAAC Championships, IC4A/ECAC Championships, etc. At the MAAC track championships, the top three finishers in all events get medals – gold, silver, bronze. The bronze medals (for third place) were back-ordered and just arrived in my mailbox today, much to the pleasant surprise of our men’s 4x800 relay (see photo) and record-setting distance runner Ramsey Little – all of whom got third place at indoor MAACs.
It was an extrinsic goal that they achieved. But a key for them to get it was to be driven intrinsically as well. The idea of those MAAC medals alone, or getting on the school record board, or qualifying for a championship meet … they are not the only things that get them out the door on those nasty Sunday mornings that call for 11- or 15-mile runs. They have to be driven from inside; the daily grind in large parts has to be intrinsic. And make no mistake: The grind can be a GRIND sometimes. That elusive “runner’s high” doesn’t magically occur every time you go out for a run, or finish a lung-busting workout at the track, or squeeze out that extra rep in the weight room, or go through another 10-minute core routine. Training is hard. The reward is distant. Sometimes, the reward is elusive. Sometimes, even if the intrinsic motivation is primed and fired up, the extrinsic reward escapes our grasp. It’s life.
Intrinsic vs. extrinsic. As stated earlier, it is not a binary equation. Every athlete finds the balance between the two forces. Both are in play, each and every day. When that balance is skewed, when just the intrinsic or just the extrinsic drives the athlete, that’s when problems occur. That leads to burnout, or uneven training, or errors in training (under-training or over-training), or erratic behavior, or some combination of all of that. How do we balance this balancing act? It’s what keeps us coming back every day, trying to tinker with that formula. There is no right way or wrong way, just a constant tuning of the dial to get it just right.
My analysis: If there is a baseline of intrinsic motivation (a constant hum of process-oriented goals), then it makes the extrinsic motivation (that ever-dangling carrot of outcome-oriented goals) more plausible and more possible. We have more autonomy over our intrinsic motivation; we control it, we can fine-tune it, we can perfect it. The extrinsic motivation, and the outcome-based goals that come with it, involve things out of our control – myriad factors such as the weather, the support and training and ultimately the performances of the competition. By controlling the controllable factors, it gives the athlete ample opportunity to succeed. Is there randomness and luck involved? Of course, there is! That’s life. But, as one of my favorite quotes (by legendary baseball executive Branch Rickey) goes: “Luck is the residue of design.” It’s all about finding the balance between intrinsic and extrinsic, and it can undulate depending on the day, the week and the month. Having an awareness of the need to strike that balance is an important step to more satisfaction with the process, and ultimately more positive outcomes.
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