The motivational trick that makes you exercise stronger

YEars ago, stress kept Hannah Eden awake the night before CrossFit events. Beating her competitors “meant everything,” she says. But having a child changed her mindset. She trained as a half-ironman in Hawaii, focusing less on competition, and more on her performance. “I was so grateful that my body was able to do this, eight months after giving birth,” she says. She feels less pressure He excelledand finished the June race at a surprisingly fast pace. “It was a solo journey,” she says.

Like Eden, I’ve been chasing my own (less impressive) personal records lately: running a 5K on an empty high school track every weekend, stubbornly trying to beat my all-time fastest time, which I set years ago. I check my speed, and if it’s close to my personal record, I push through the pain to try to break it.

My “PR,” as it’s called, is more exciting than doing the moves at the gym, and the extra effort strengthens my heart muscle. Despite the empty path, I’m not alone: ​​TikTok and Instagram are full of PR-related posts Run, weight lifting, Punching balls reflex, Deep sea divingAnd everything in between. “PR is trending in a big way right now,” says Eden. Meanwhile, fitness trackers, smart machines, and trainers help people choose and achieve the right PR goals. “As self-quantification becomes more precise and precise, people enjoy feedback,” says Hengchen Dai, an associate professor who studies decision-making at UCLA.

The findings of Day and others point to a new science of public relations and how to achieve it.

Why PR enhances motivation

People become more motivated and superiority More so when they set specific goals. PR goals can work well because they are tailored precisely to your ability.

“Personal bests are set at an almost ideal level of personal difficulty,” says Ashton Anderson, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Toronto who has studied public relations in chess. “Beating your PR is achievable, but it is by definition difficult, because you’ve never done it before. This calibrating difficulty gives the best of them their motivational power.

With public relations, “you’re not seeking the approval of a peer group,” says author Oliver Borkman, who emphasizes meaningful personal goals in his book. Four thousand weeks: time management for humans. “Like the Stoics, you focus on what you can control, without tormenting yourself over what you can’t control.”

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In contrast, competition with others may be so Distracts attention Instead of stimulating. “If you’re not up to par, you can improve but still feel like a failure,” says Andrew Martin, a motivation researcher at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Searching for PR involves fewer unlucky breaks and clearer results. (Helps public relations goals Students learnas Martin found.)

Of course, some people thrive because of rivalries with others, like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, or Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Public relations goals and external competition “can facilitate performance in the athletic arena, the classroom, and the workplace,” says Andrew Elliott, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. people with Competitive personalities Higher skill levels may uniquely benefit by testing themselves against opponents. Elliot, for example, gets “enormous pleasure” from the challenges faced by his peers. Such competition and public relations are not mutually exclusive. It is often useful to have elements of both, Studies show.

However, in the long run, people who focus more on public relations May you enjoy More intrinsic motivation“And well-being and constant dedication to achieving their goals,” says Elliott. “Social comparison can demotivate us and make us feel threatened, leading to burnout,” says Ilana Brody, a doctoral student and Day’s collaborator at UCLA.

How to go about PR

Choose the activity

Public relations helps with internal motivation in part because they allow people to be creative. What you do and how you do it is completely up to you.

B.J. Fogg, a sociologist at Stanford University and author of Small Habits: Small changes that change everythingrecommends choosing a field in which you are naturally proficient. Fogg is “bad” at endurance races, so he resorts to PRs that involve shorter bursts. “I’m weirdly good at one-minute fast rowing,” he says.

Or you can choose a more uphill battle. Running 5Ks tempted me because I’ve never shown much talent for it. Likewise, Eden wondered if ending his role as Half-Iron Man just months after giving birth was hopeless. She was barely able to run a mile at first, but what interested her most was that the goal seemed almost impossible.

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Such a pursuit in PR enables self-discovery – separating your self-imposed limits from what you are truly capable of – which is why so many are drawn to it, believes Eden, who helps people achieve PR as iFIT and NordicTrack trainer. “Doing hard things is cool again,” she says. Many get ideas about what can be achieved by watching others on social media. “You may not have the body type of a typical runner, but you see someone who looks like you posting their time,” Eden says. Maybe you are a runner after all.

Choose a standard

After choosing an activity, set a specific metric in mind. Beginners may choose a PR target that is slightly better than their previous best target. A win like this gets bragging rights on social media, which is very satisfying — if PR Celebration dances Is there any signal?

You can add a stretch goal for further improvement. Find statistics about how people your age and fitness level perform, and choose a metric that reflects those statistics. It should look like a step change that is beyond your current ability but feels like it only It can be achieved with 2-3 months of dedicated training. “It would make a difference if you found your own reference group, and then you could have multiple levels to try,” says Alex Karowski, one of the researchers. Peloton trainer And former Olympic rower.

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“The goal should be challenging but realistic,” Day says. Brody says people often appreciate round numbers, such as marking the hour in a marathon, because they’re easy to remember, plus they seem more significant.

last strategy Is setting new PR goals at the beginning of a week, month or year – perhaps 2025? – Especially after periods of below-average performance, Dey has done so Found. “These moments make people feel different than they did in the past, which increases their confidence in doing better moving forward,” Day says.

Game day

On the day of your PR attempt, feel excited. Right before I run a 5K, I listen to Eric Thomas’ motivational talks. His exaggerated manner (“You have to want to succeed as much as you want to breathe!”) shocks me, but his voice echoes in my mind as I run. And I press harder.

Visualize success and dress the part. research He appears Visualizing peak performance can help enable the real thing. Dress like a champion anticipating greatness, and maybe a pair of golden shoes like Usain Bolt to achieve your PR for the fastest walk ever. Type a letter Congratulations to your future self, which is another research-backed approach.

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The beauty of public relations is that it happens in unexpected ways. You may not have hit your PR for consecutive push-ups, but your fitness tracker is revealing another kind of PR: push-ups on a record number of days that month. Vogue is looking for those surprising PRs. “I’m kidding myself in a way because I only look at successes, but seeing successes motivates me to keep going.”

It is also helpful to focus on public relations for smaller activities that support the overall goal. Fogg wanted a new PR for pull-ups, so he created a “little habit” of hanging on a pull-up bar to build his grip strength. Some days he would only hang for 5 seconds, but most days he could do more, eventually managing a PR of 1 minute and 15 seconds. The additional power enabled standard pull-ups. “If you are very consistent with your habit, you will make progress and achieve things you couldn’t otherwise.”

celebrate

After achieving a PR, celebrate “to help yourself feel successful,” Fogg says. Once you start looking for PRs, you can find them everywhere, along with more opportunities to celebrate — like a PR for the slowest mile ever while smiling the whole time. Or PR for most PR attempts without achieving them. I He didn’t do that I beat my 5k PR time in 46 attempts. On my 47th attempt, I succeeded, but I’m also proud of my PR perseverance.

Don’t party so much that you start avoiding activity. After a PR, people tend to stop working while they’re ahead, fearing they’ll do worse next time, Anderson says. Found. This sacrifices the opportunity to build on momentum.

Family record?

Competing against yourself, rather than others, can seem like a recipe for loneliness. Fortunately, the “personal” part of public relations can be interpreted loosely; Families or communities can strive for PR together.

After dinner, the family can collaborate to determine the quickest time to clear the table, wash the dishes, and take out the trash — and get a light post-meal workout in the process. I’m working on a father-son 5K PR with my nine-year-old (he runs 1K, I cover the rest). The fitness-minded Karwoski family tries to overcome their past times when they train together on the track. Karowski also competes in team relay races, sharing “personal” records with his fellow runners.

Don’t press too hard

It could be a public relations target Backfire If it threatens your self-esteem. “It’s funny how some people turn free time into more work” by going public with exercise, Burkman says. Although he believes that many people may benefit from PR goals without any downside, Burkman points out that the PR chase is inherently endless. “It will always be true that, at any given time, you have not exceeded your best. If the goal always eludes you, that is a difficult way to live.”

Lots of PR tracking can be had as well BackfireResearch shows. “Although measuring your behavior and progress can increase the time you spend on those actions, it can also undermine your intrinsic motivation to succeed,” Brody says.

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Enjoy breaks for mental and physical recovery. Successful athletes “welcome distractions in their lives,” says Karowski, the Olympic rower. “They do better in the long run because of it.”

The coach can recommend training tips and milestones towards PR. some Exercise machines Connect with real coaches (like Karwoski and Eden) and Artificial intelligence trainers Focus on public relations goals. Eden advocates “progressive overload”: increasing training gradually rather than ramping it up too quickly, which causes injuries. Fitness trackers like Fitbit Builds Workouts based on people’s goals, fitness level, and stress.

To avoid injury and burnout, rotate your PR goals seasonally. I find fall weather to be suitable for running PR. In the winter and summer, I turn to my gym for my PR people who train for strength, balanceand Flexibility. Spring is ideal weather for tennis, suitable for most PR matches.

Seasons of life

As people get older, PR is often harder to achieve, but it can depend on how PR is formulated.

At 61 years old, Elliott’s muscle mass had decreased, affecting his ability to exercise the way he used to. He now bases his goals around trying not to lose his abilities, rather than setting PR. These maintenance goals – trying to preserve old PR as much as possible, rather than achieving new ones – are Less stimulatingResearch shows. “It’s not perfect,” he says.

Fogg, also 61, knows he can’t do as many pull-ups as his teenage self. But he remains motivated by reframing the situation, looking to hit his PR during this decade of life. “Twelve pull-ups is my best in my 60s,” he says. yet.

“Resetting your goal is so important as you get older and as a mom,” Eden adds.

Older amateurs may compensate for this by becoming more strategic in training. Anderson points out that chess players’ initial cognitive ability begins to decline at the age of 30 to 35 years. “But for almost all amateurs, there are a lot of strategies they have to follow, and they can still improve throughout their lives,” he says. As it applies to fitness, this means that PR remains possible if people continue to learn how to excel at their chosen activity.