We have a good friend with whom we train, watch great submarine movies and just have a rewarding exchanges with on a semi-regular basis.
Let's call him L (which is short for his name "Lennart" in case you wondered).
Life went on like it does.
A pandemic came. We had to change how we interacted, but we were in general still very blessed to be able to have good conversations and regular exercise sessions via different technical solutions.
Then something happened. Gradually at first. L started to appear less and less frequently to our exercise sessions.The kilometers in the online erg logbook started to show a downwards trend.
We were worried.
Then, one day, we noticed that the kilometers in the online logbook stopped appearing!
We became very, very concerned and reached out.
The situation was even worse than we had feared: No, Lennart was not injured and therefore having to abstain from the joy of the erg. He had lost his motivation! He even uttered blasphemic thoughts of selling his erg!!
Our reaction? Well, as so often we found the answer in one of those submarine movies:
We all suffer from different levels of motivation over time, but this was indeed new territory even for people like us.
Using all motivational tricks we know (and - as many of you know - those are quite numerous, even via remote interaction), we kept at it and slowly, slowly, slowly we started to become less and less concerned.
And, then, like a submarine blowing it's ballast tanks, L started to raise back to the surface at a tremendous speed:
1) He invited for a social session via technical medium.
2) A kilometer here, a kilometer there, started to appear in the online erg loggbook.
3) Positive messages in our erg chatgroup signed "/L".
And finally, like not only breaking the surface, but shooting up through it: He signed up for the Mud Season Madness challenge! Not for the 2500 meter/day option, not for the 5000 meter/day option - he went straight for the Königsklasse - 10 000 meters per day!!
We are sooooo happy!
L, you are living evidence of how to turn things around - a true inspiration!
Thank you for showing us how it can be done! One day we might need it.
May the erg be with you.
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