Intrinsic motivations are what drives you to do an activity without any thought to an external reward. You are doing the activity solely because YOU want to do it. There can be many reasons for this. Some of the more common ones are: it’s fun, you like the way it makes you feel (emotionally and physically—think “confident” and “strong”), you are trying to master something.
The reward, in this case, is usually doing the activity for reasons that only matter to you. The reason this type of motivation receives so much attention and praise is because the focus is solely on you: your goals, your passions, your dreams, your enjoyment, your fulfillment of X, your happiness, etc. No one can take those things away from you and they aren’t dependent on anyone else either. Ex: you practice riding a techy feature on a trail over and over again until you can clear it solely because you want to clear it…not to impress or please anyone else.
There is no motivator more powerful than that. That is what drives us to be our best. Internal motivation is what drives us to want to master something. To be the best we can possibly be at something. It is what drives us to get out the door when we don’t feel like it. When other people stop working, it is what drives us to do a little more.
When we are internally motivated it becomes easier to block out the noise from others. It is easier to ignore the pressure from others. After all, we are doing this for ourselves, not for them! What gets you excited? What fires you up to get going, to get started (even outside of biking).
Think about the two types of motivations and figure out what are your internal and external motivators. It is normal to have both. Remember, not all external motivations are “bad”. External motivators really become problematic when they become the main or sole motivation for doing something. What we want to find are some internal motivators for you and biking.
