Alternating habits (such as a training run with a podcast instead of music) is good for your soul and frankly learning on the go is sometimes the only time of day to fit it in. Today’s learning centered around motivation.

You often see people who want to emulate someone else. They ‘wish’ they could be motivated to run in that distance race, lose those unwanted inches, streamline their physique to show their triceps or ab muscles again (or ever). But wishing happens, the thought passes and nothing materializes. They have ‘lost all motivation.’ Let’s think about that for a moment. How can you lose something you never had? You can’t lose motivation (like you lose your car keys). You can’t create motivation by spending hours on Pinterest lining up perfect little pictures of things and heroes alternating with inspiring quotes. Those are all simply tools to help you become motivated.

Rather than just jump into action which most people do, some homework needs to happen for any big shift to occur. Let’s take a big goal of mine for 2015 – completing a half Ironman. I’m a marathoner (have successfully completed 10 full 26.2 mile races, numerous shorter distances like 13.1 mile half marathons), was a swimmer when I was younger, and owned a bike and used it recently for exercise. With that background, I am certainly not qualified to go out and tackle a half Ironman using all those athletic mentions right now. This goal is on my vision board for 2015, I think I’d like to do it, but before I jump into action and begin to construct a training plan, there are a few things that I learned today I should consider. They are referred to as the 7 A’s.

ATTRACTION: Do you really want it? Or is that something you see others doing so you think you should do it too?

ATTACHMENT: Why do you want it? What does it mean to you?

AWARENESS: How are you spending your time? You can’t change something unless you are brutally honest where you’re starting from. Be realistic in a judgment-free way.

ADJUSTMENTS: Nothing changes if nothing changes. You’ve got to make adjustments to the old for the new to fit in.

ATTITUDE: Associating your activity with a positive mindset will make it repeatable over time.

ACTION: Most people start here and when they fail, they wonder why. You don’t need the perfect plan. But you do need to take continuous action and start. You need to change your story to change your habits.

ACCOUNTABILITY: This can be either external or internal if you are self-driven. Declare it to others and yourself when you’re ready. It makes it real.

So the next time you hear someone say “I wish I was as motivated as you,” think about taking a personal inventory of those 7 A’s and evaluate your own story. Something to think about as we close out another year and begin to plan for 2015.