PART 1. MOTIVATION
Knowing Yourself
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
— Aristotle
Before you can effectively set your goals, you need to first understand what motivates you. After all, these are your goals — not someone else’s goals. Your goals need to be meaningful to you. They need to reflect who you are and what you’re after. They need to resonate with your big “why” for pursuing them in the first place.
So before discussing goals, let’s start by talking about motivation.
What Motivates You?
When we talk about motivation, it’s helpful to distinguish between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. This distinction is based on the source of the motivation: internal versus external.
Intrinsic motivation comes from your internal drive or desire to engage in an activity or behavior for its own sake. There’s an intrinsic joy, fulfillment, or personal satisfaction you derive from simply engaging in the activity. External rewards or reinforcement are besides the point. For example, you may be intrinsically motivated to run because you gain self-fulfillment from doing so or gain personal satisfaction from mastering challenges associated with it.
Extrinsic motivation involves engaging in an activity or behavior to earn external rewards or reinforcement. The external rewards can take the form of praise, recognition, money, or other external incentives. For example, grades can be a form of extrinsic motivation in school or salary in one’s career. Medals, race shirts, recognition on social media can all be extrinsic motivators in sports.
More emphasis is often placed on intrinsic motivation because it tends to be more sustainable over time. When motivation comes from a place of genuine interest or a sense of purpose, we tend to stick with an activity or behavior longer. Intrinsic motivation fosters stronger commitment and greater persistence. But extrinsic factors can also be important motivators. The key point is that, as athletes, we draw on both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to varying degrees.
To know yourself as an athlete, it’s important to identify the factors — both intrinsic and extrinsic — that motivate you. What’s important to you individually?
How Motivation Relates to Basic Psychological Needs
Another layer to understanding your motivation comes from Self-Determination Theory (SDT) developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. Central to the theory are three basic psychological needs that we all have: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Autonomy, or independence refers to the control we have over our own actions and decisions. We are more motivated to engage in activities when we have the autonomy to do so — that is, when we have decided for ourselves that we want to pursue those activities.
Competence, or mastery refers to feeling capable and effective in what we do. A key motivator, especially in athletic pursuits, is the desire to master a set of skills related to a sport.
Relatedness, or belonging refers to the need we have to connect with others and develop meaningful relationships. We are motivated to engage in activities when we’re part of a community that provides a larger sense of belonging surrounding those activities.
With these ideas in mind, it’s time to turn to a practical application to get to know your own motivations for your athletic pursuits.
✍Practical Application: Identify Your Motivations
What Motivates You?
On a piece of paper or in the workbook, create a list of your reasons for racing or engaging in endurance sports under two columns: one column for your intrinsic motivations and one column for your extrinsic motivations. Next, categorize those motivations into the buckets of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Finally, reflect on the themes that emerge to gain a better understanding of what drives you.
Detailed Instructions
- Identify your intrinsic and extrinsic motivations:
- Intrinsic. Write down your intrinsic motivations by identifying the ways you gain personal joy, fulfillment, or satisfaction from your athletic pursuits.
- Extrinsic. Write down your extrinsic motivations by identifying the external rewards associated with your athletic pursuits that are important to you (e.g., medals, finisher mugs, recognition of peers).
- Categorize your motivations according to these three basic psychological needs:
- Autonomy/Independence. Which motivations are related to feeling in control of your own actions and decisions in your athletic pursuits?
- Competence/Mastery. Which motivations are related to growing and gaining mastery through your athletic pursuits?
- Relatedness/Belonging. Which motivations are related to being part of a community surrounding your athletic pursuits?
- Reflect on your motivations:
- What are the key themes that emerged?
- What are the common sources of your motivation?
- How do those sources of motivation relate to basic psychological needs?
Workbook
The workbook provides templates for all of the practical applications in the guide. Download here if you haven’t already:
- Practical Application Workbook (Google Doc)
Example
Below is an example of what I came up with when I did this exercise.

✍(Optional) Practical Application: Identify Your Core Values
“We don’t have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with actions.”
— Brené Brown
Another aspect of knowing yourself is recognizing your core values — what you believe and hold important in life. Recognizing your core values is foundational to practicing those values. After all, you may not always practice your values if you’re not clear on what they are.
Why Knowing Your Values Is Important to Goal Setting
Knowing your values allows you to ensure your goals are aligned with those values. This is important because the road to achieving your goals is filled with challenges and setbacks. When your goals align with your values, your commitment to them is stronger and you are more likely to persist in the face of obstacles.
As sports psychologist Jim Afremow discusses, “Goals are all about what’s coming tomorrow, next month, or next race season. Sometimes, we can waver from them because they seem too distant. That’s where our behaviors and habits can be informed by core values that help us identify the most important things in our lives and then double down on our commitment to them.”
How to Identify Your Core Values
In her book, Dare to Lead, Brené Brown walks through an exercise to help us identify our core values so we can then live into them.
The exercise starts by looking at a list of over 100 values to which you can add any that you feel are missing. Your task is to winnow that list down to the two values that are most important to you. Not 10 or 15, but two.
If you’re up for the challenge, here’s how to do the exercise. You can do this on a piece of paper or in the workbook.
Detailed Instructions
- Start with the list of values on Brown’s website.
- Highlight all the values that resonate with you. You may have identified up to a few dozen at this point.
- Organize those values into a handful of categories by placing similar values together. Within each cluster of like values, place one at the top as the organizing value that represents the cluster. This may leave you with up to a half dozen values at this point.
- From those handful of values, narrow your choices down to two values. Remember, these two values may headline lists of sub-values related to them. But these two are your core values.
- With your two core values identified, write a sentence that communicates each of these two values. Use the list of related values you categorized under those two core values to help you articulate what those two core values mean to you.
Equipped with self-awareness of your core values, now go live those values in your everyday life.
As Brown writes, “Living into our values means that we do more than profess our values, we practice them. We walk our talk—we are clear about what we believe and hold important, and we take care that our intentions, words, thoughts, and behaviors align with those beliefs.”
Workbook
The workbook provides templates for all of the practical applications in the guide. Download here if you haven’t already:
- Practical Application Workbook (Google Doc)
Example
For an example of this exercise in action, see this blog post by Colin Breck.
Knowing Your Purpose
“He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
“Your ‘why’ has a huge influence on your will. The more compelling your ‘why,’ the more adversity you will weather for the cause.”
— Paul Stoltz & Erik Weihenmayer
You know what activities you do. You also know how you do those activities. But why do you pursue them in the first place? Previously, you identified several factors that motivate you to engage in your athletic pursuits. In this section, you will explore further to uncover your underlying purpose in life — your big “why.” Before going after big goals you need to discover and articulate your big “why.”
What’s the Point of it All?
What’s the point of running all those miles? What’s the point of getting up in the dark to get in those workouts? What’s the point of doing that 10K, marathon, ultramarathon, triathlon, Ironman, ski mountaineering objective, fastpacking adventure, or whatever you do? What’s the point of doing those athletic pursuits you’ve dedicated your life to doing day in and day out?
Not everyone is out there doing what you do. Many find it pointless. But you find it meaningful in some way. How so? Why do you do it? What’s your purpose?
Answering this question for yourself is foundational to achieving your most ambitious goals. You may be in the best physical shape of your life when you toe the starting line of that big race you’ve been targeting. But if you don’t know why you’re doing it, you may not get to the finish line. That’s because, as the quotes above recognize, without a strong grounding in your “why,” the easier it will be to surrender to the challenges and setbacks you encounter along the way. After all, if you don’t have a clear understanding of “why” it’s important to you, its importance will inevitably wane as the difficulty increases.
Athletes who know their big “why” are better equipped to make the sacrifices and work through the difficulties that lie between them and their goals. The good news is that we all have a purpose for doing what we do, even if it remains below our level of conscious awareness. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be out there at all. The challenge comes in putting that “why” into words and bringing it above the level of conscious awareness. But doing so is an invaluable foundational exercise in self-awareness that is key to achieving our goals.
Discovering Your Big Why
Your big “why” is unique to you. It’s not someone else’s purpose. It’s your own. It’s personal. It’s your need to do what you do. It’s your mission in life. Your big “why” fuels you with focus and energy. It powers your actions. It keeps you going when the going gets tough because you are driven to fulfill your mission. Your “why” instills your effort with meaning and purpose.
Your big “why” is your guiding purpose in life. Your goals may change each year, but your “why” remains as the force underlying those goals. It is central to who you are as a person and endures over time. You may refine your articulation of it, but your big “why” is you. If your “why” changes from year to year, then it’s probably not your “why.” Keep looking.
Finding your big “why” is a process of discovery. It requires self-reflection to uncover who you are and put that into words that rise above the level of conscious awareness.
In the video below, author Simon Sinek discusses how to find your “why.”
For more background on Sinek’s framework, watch his Ted Talk below that goes into more detail on the ideas in his book, Start with Why.
As Sinek describes, your what is usually given, but starting there or simply residing there lacks inspiration and motivation. Instead, start with your “why” and work from the inside out of what Sinek calls the golden circle (see image below). Once you know your “why,” then you can determine the “how.”

With these ideas in mind, it’s time to turn to a practical application to discover and articulate your “why.” Your “why” is bigger than your athletic goals, but knowing your “why” will help you shape and give meaning to those goals.
✍Practical Application: Identify Your Why
“If purpose is bigger than pain, then purpose wins.”
— Michael Gervais
What’s Your Big Why?
On a piece of paper or in the workbook, reflect on the things you do consistently in life and why you do them, identify the common themes that emerge, and use these insights to craft your personal why statement.
Detailed Instructions
- Write down all the things you consistently do in life. Consider the things you voluntarily do and look forward to doing, the things that fulfill you and that you derive personal satisfaction from doing. Consider your career activities (or aspirations) that give meaning to your life. Consider what activities you are passionate about doing and the outcomes you want to achieve. You may have up to a dozen activities you’ve listed at this point.
- Below each item in your list, write down why you do them. These can be bullet points that complete the statement, I do them to… Move beyond general statements such as “to have fun.” You obviously do the activities because you love doing them and they bring you satisfaction, but why? What is it about those activities that you find fulfilling? How do those activities serve as vehicles for something meaningful to you? You may have up to a half dozen bullet points beneath each activity at this point.
- Identify the common themes in your list. Look over your list and highlight the common themes that keep appearing beneath each activity. What do your most consistent activities have in common? Pull these themes out into a new list so you can focus on them. Try to winnow this list down to focus on the one or two themes that are the most important to you.
- Write your personal why statement. Based on these themes you identified as most important to you and what you’ve learned from your reflections up to this point, draft several iterations of a why statement that encompasses who you are and why you do what you do in life. Writing down these iterations will help you think through how to concisely articulate your driving purpose in life.
Additional Steps. Once you’ve reflected and come up with an initial draft of your why statement, talk with a friend to get an outside perspective as described by Simon Sinek in the video below. Although your why is a constant in your adult life, it may take some time to fully articulate for yourself in words. The practical application described here is one way to help you with that process, but approach finding your why as an ongoing process rather than a one-time exercise. As you gain greater self-awareness, your “why” will come into clearer focus. The more self-awareness you have about what drives you in life, the easier it will be to connect your goals to that purpose.
Workbook
The workbook provides templates for all of the practical applications in the guide. Download here if you haven’t already:
- Practical Application Workbook (Google Doc)
Example
Below is an example of what I came up with when I did this exercise.

Your Self-Concept as an Athlete
Who are you? This may seem like a simple question, but it’s foundational to understanding what drives you and your goals. If you took time to work through the practical applications in the previous sections, you should have a stronger sense of who you are as a person, what you feel is important, and what motivates you — key aspects of your self-concept.
We all have varying ways we identify ourselves as athletes. Take your given sport and consider what identifying statements you typically use to position yourself as someone involved with that sport.
Here are some examples that someone involved in running might use. What do you notice about these statements? For your given sport, which equivalent formulation would you typically use?
- I’m an endurance athlete.
- I’m a runner.
- I’m an ultramarathoner.
- I’m an Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) ultramarathoner.
Notice how the statements formulate slightly different self-concepts, moving from broad to narrow images the person has of themselves as an athlete. There’s nothing wrong with any of these images or identity statements — as long as they serve the athlete well.
Self-concept drives our decision-making and a healthy self-concept will help us make good decisions. But it’s important to recognize when an image we have of ourselves stops serving us in that capacity. In extreme cases, an overly rigid or narrow self-concept can lead to bad decisions that end up being detrimental to our health or long term development in the sport.
For example, if the athlete above identifies not just as an ultramarathoner but as someone who only sees themselves as an ultramarathoner if they race in the UTMB every year, then what happens the year they don’t qualify?
If a competitive athlete only sees themselves as an athlete when they finish in the top-10 at races, then what happens when age slows them down and they can no longer compete at that level?
If an athlete spends a year or more training for a big event and defines themselves as an athlete through that specific event, then what happens after they finish the event?
The point is that rigid self-concepts that lock you into a narrow way of defining who you are as an athlete can be a hindrance to growth and development. Your self-concept as an athlete should serve you as a positive motivator in your athletic pursuits. If it no longer serves that function, then you may need to reexamine your identity statements and realign them with your big “why.”
Remember, your “why” never goes away. As you evolve, age, and change as an athlete — as we all do — your “why” will remain with you. Go back to your “why” to examine your motivation for defining yourself the way you do and adjust your self-concept as needed to instill your (changing and shifting) athletic pursuits and goals with meaning and purpose.
Now that you have a good understanding of who you are and what motivates you, the next section of the guide will help you set your goals.