Find The Inner Strength With In The Three Pillars Of Self - Motivation

Sports psychologist Dr Josephine Perry explains why mastery, autonomy and belonging are the holy trinity underpinning your cycling passion

- Dr Josephine Perry

Given you are reading Cycling Weekly, it’s fair to assume a few things about you: you’re rarely happier than when riding a bike, your favourite bike buying equation is n+1, and much of your daydreaming involves sunny days, smooth roads and coffee stops. When your motivation goes AWOL, however, you feel lost and unhappy and in desperate need of a kick up the bum to get you back on the saddle – and that’s what this feature is about: how to stay motivated or, if you do lose your mojo, how to get it back.

Motivational researchers have identified, in theoretical terms, that above-cited ‘kick up the bum’: they call it developing your self-determination. The theory suggests that to maintain self-determined motivation – the type that gets you out of the door on even the toughest days – you need three pillars in place: 1. mastery over what you are doing; 2. autonomy to do it your own way; and 3. a sense of belonging to your sporting community. Missing just one of these pillars may see you struggle to get on the bike or keep riding to your full enjoyment or potential.

Belonging

To take the last pillar first, let’s home in on belonging. To feel properly motivated, we need to feel connected to our social surroundings and cared for by the people in them. Social connection is a core human need, the absence of which harms our physical and mental health and limits opportunities to succeed. This is one reason why the last year has been so tough; our usual external motivators – group rides, races and championships – disappeared and we were left alone with our bikes.

We were physically distanced from our club-mates, banned from riding in groups, races and sportives.