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How am I Supposed to motivate myself?

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  • November 29, 2018 at 9:02 am #29169
    cycle.london

    Over the past three months, I’ve cycled maybe once per week, maybe two weeks out of each month.  My job allows me to work from home pretty much whenever I wish, and I’ve been abusing that privilege.   

    The issue is exacerbated by my wife’s hours.  If I cycle in, I’m out of bed at five and on the road by 05:15, and so usually back home by 4 PM, whereas she doesn’t even finish work until about seven.   The time she gets to the station, home by train and I drive to pick her up, we’re usually both home by about 8:30 PM, and by nine, I’m usually in bed.    So if I want to spend any time with her, I’ll hang on until about 11 before going to bed, which effectually f**ks my chances of getting up at five the next morning.  I could cycle in later, but London drivers are insane enough at 5:30 in the morning.  At seven or eight, it’s downright impossible.  Plus, the later in the morning, the more cycle commuters there are, many of whom have as much an idea of ‘road sense’ as I do of quantum physics.

    Let me just throw in an edit here to say that I’m not blaming my wife.  I’m the lazy one, not her. 

    So I’m sitting in front of the Mac at home now, ‘working’ from home but of course am on Facebook.  My boss doesn’t really care, as despite everything, I do get the job done.   But this is having a detrimental effect on my mental health.  

    How do I force myself to get up and out in the mornings?

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  • November 29, 2018 at 10:48 am #932059
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    cycle.london
    davel wrote:
    I’ll echo others here but I’d say gor for a jog instead. Doesn’t have to be far, it isn’t hard to throw jogging kit on, ticks the fitness box and a 20 minute effort round the block will work wonders.

    If you’re struggling with the winter too, a SAD lamp can help – I occasionally stick it on first thing when I’m working from home. Seems to jolt me awake more.

    I can’t jog.  Buggered my knee twenty-five years ago.  I can only run for a hundred yards or so. 

    November 29, 2018 at 10:45 am #932057
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    cycle.london
    srchar wrote:
    There seems to be a few things going on here.

    1) You’re tired.  You’ve identified that you don’t really get enough sleep.  Annoyances, like seeing poor riding, are magnified, as are their impact on your mood.

    2) You’re not getting out of the house enough.  When I work from home, I always make a point of going to a local cafe for lunch, or at least a coffee.  It gets you out in the fresh air, in the daylight, speaking to other people, and gives you a proper break.  Spending all your time indoors is not good for your mood.

    3) It doesn’t sound like you really enjoy the type of cycling you’re doing.  If you don’t enjoy cycle commuting, don’t worry that you’re not doing enough of it.  If your boss doesn’t care about you being present at your computer, get out for a ride during the day.  Delete (or de-activate) your FB account and spend the time on your bike instead.  Think to yourself, “I’m getting paid to go for a ride!”.

    Maybe a little competition would help?  My partner has a FitBit and is always doing some sort of challenge with a bunch of her mates – who can walk 500km in the least time, who can get the most steps in a week etc.  Have you got any mates on Strava who would be up for something like that?

    Almost spot on.  Comments:

    1. I’ve suffered from depression most of my adult life, so perhaps it’s a chicken and egg scenario. Is being inside all day affecting my mood, or is my mood making me not want to go out?  Probably a bit of both.

    2. Going to a café for lunch is pretty tough as I’m vegan and there are no cafés like that near me. However, a coffee? I like this idea. After the confcall I’m on right now ends, I think I’m going to have a shower and walk down to the parade for a Costa.

    3. I actually do enjoy commuting by bike. I get into the office on an almighty high, which doesn’t wear off until well into the afternoon. And my colleagues are a decent bunch of people, many of whom are cyclists themselves. The office has free tea, coffee, soft drinks and snacks, and I can basically sod off to the pub with the colleagues if I feel so inclined, and come back three hours later with no one bitching to us (although if this happened regularly, I suspect that they might say something).   London drivers are indeed twats of the worst kind, but I’ve been doing it for long enough now that the “spidey sense” kicks in and I’m aware of what’s going on about me.

    4.  My wife has a fitbit but I’m a fanboi and bought myself an Apple Watch Series 4 recently. So no chance of having a bit of healthy competititon with her.  She used to cycle into London but stopped after a colleague of hers was killed by a lorry driver two years ago.  She is too petrified to get back on the bike.   Even when she did cycle, we occasionally cycled in together, but she’s too slow for me, and she doesn’t enjoy feeling ‘pressured’ into going faster. 

    I need to do something, though. 

    November 29, 2018 at 10:42 am #932055
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    davel

    I’ll echo others here but I’d

    I’ll echo others here but I’d say gor for a jog instead. Doesn’t have to be far, it isn’t hard to throw jogging kit on, ticks the fitness box and a 20 minute effort round the block will work wonders.

    If you’re struggling with the winter too, a SAD lamp can help – I occasionally stick it on first thing when I’m working from home. Seems to jolt me awake more.

    November 29, 2018 at 10:40 am #932053
    0
    Mungecrundle

    Do something else.

    Do something else.

    Cycling is not the only fruit. Do you have access to a local gym? Because I am a soft southerner I find it far easier to be motivated and fit in a gym schedule where it is dry and warm.

    Keeping up your fitness over the winter is a great motivator to be back out and on your bike when spring rolls around, the clocks go forward again and riding to work and back in daylight is far less stressful.

    November 29, 2018 at 10:29 am #932051
    0
    Jimmy Ray Will

    I think srchar nails it.

    I think srchar nails it.

    If you can’t motivate yourself to get up (for very good reasons it appears to me) then you have to go back to the drawing board. 

    With flexible hours and a track record of getting the job done, I’d definitely be looking to build rides in to your day. 

    Could you get up, and get to your home office for say 8.00am, then take a 2-3 hour lunch break before working on to say 5.30 – 6.00pm? 

    During that lunch break, you could go for a lovely ride, clear your head, etc. etc. It will lift your mood, improve your fitness, leave you time and freshness to be with you missus of an evening. 

     

    November 29, 2018 at 10:13 am #932049
    0
    srchar

    There seems to be a few

    There seems to be a few things going on here.

    1) You’re tired.  You’ve identified that you don’t really get enough sleep.  Annoyances, like seeing poor riding, are magnified, as are their impact on your mood.

    2) You’re not getting out of the house enough.  When I work from home, I always make a point of going to a local cafe for lunch, or at least a coffee.  It gets you out in the fresh air, in the daylight, speaking to other people, and gives you a proper break.  Spending all your time indoors is not good for your mood.

    3) It doesn’t sound like you really enjoy the type of cycling you’re doing.  If you don’t enjoy cycle commuting, don’t worry that you’re not doing enough of it.  If your boss doesn’t care about you being present at your computer, get out for a ride during the day.  Delete (or de-activate) your FB account and spend the time on your bike instead.  Think to yourself, “I’m getting paid to go for a ride!”.

    Maybe a little competition would help?  My partner has a FitBit and is always doing some sort of challenge with a bunch of her mates – who can walk 500km in the least time, who can get the most steps in a week etc.  Have you got any mates on Strava who would be up for something like that?

    November 29, 2018 at 9:28 am #932047
    0
    peted76

    Motivation in the winter can

    Motivation in the winter can be tough going, I try and look at riding my bike in this way…if I can get on my bike once a week, I’m just about ticking over.. twice a week I’ll not loose fitness, if I can get on my bike three times or more, I’m getting fitter.

    Personally I need a ‘regular schedule’ to stick to, or lack of motivation gets in the way and I’m buggered, so through winter I run a roller class on a Wednesday evening for my local club, the main reason being, that if I didn’t have that commitment I probably wouldn’t get on my bike. I ensure that I ride on a Sunday morning with the club, so there’s my twice a week tied up. If I can get out on a Thursday night or manage to cock a leg over the turbo on Friday night I will do that also. I found that last winter road.cc Zwift races the ran, which I think were on a set day for a number of weeks was also a motivation, to actually be somewhere at a certain time with an expectation. 

    You’ve got some pretty odd hours to work around so you might find it difficult to find local riders to ride with weekly, but why not commit yourself a spin class twice a week, that way any actual riding you can get in, on top of that is a bonus. You only need about an hour for each session.

    I do find turbo training generally to be really unmotivating, it’s more fun on rollers, you can’t switch off as you can on a turbo.

     

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