Cultivating motivation with an everesting bike: the therapeutic power of goals

How do you stay motivated and committed in a climate of uncertainty? How can you continue to offer your best when you don’t even know where the finish line is? The answers lie in the therapeutic power of goals.

With all the sporting events cancelled in 2020, Gabriel Renaud and I set ourselves the challenge of completing an Everesting by bike.

The event is relatively simple, but remains one of the toughest cycling challenges: climbing a hill repeatedly to accumulate a vertical drop equivalent to the height of Mount Everest, i.e. 8848 meters.

After a summer of training, the first pedal stroke was given at 4am, and 15 hours and 37 minutes of effort later, we succeeded. Arduous and rewarding, the preparation was as rich as the realization of the challenge. Here are our biggest learnings, which we hope will inspire you.

EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS START WITH EXTRAORDINARY GOALS. If the goal is possible today, it’s not a dream, it’s simply a to-do. And it’s rare to break out the champagne for to-dos. Complex challenges ignite passions and have a rallying effect. There’s no better way to create commitment within a team.

DISCIPLINE + CONSISTENCY + INTENSITY = SUCCESS. Discipline means getting up at 5am. Consistency means doing it every day. Intensity means doing things well and giving your best effort. Without the other two elements, each is useless. When the three elements are combined, mountains are moved.

HAPPINESS LIES IN FREELY GIVEN EFFORT. No crowds. We did it for ourselves, to challenge ourselves and develop new skills. The love for the process was sincere. On the day of the challenge, the alarm went off at 2:40 am. We were happy, full of energy and excited about the effort ahead.

GOALS HAVE THERAPEUTIC POWER. During summer training, on several occasions, we were able to say “wow, I’ve never done that before! This feeling of accomplishment more than made up for all the cancelled races. Setting goals means creating anchor points in the future that help cultivate a sense of achievement, fulfillment and maintain commitment and motivation.

DARKNESS ALWAYS PASSES. We don’t always say “wow”. In training, sometimes you even feel like you’re going backwards. Then, on the day of the challenge, more than 15 hours in the saddle is unbearable. Added to this are the unforeseen events of the day. You have to stay calm, deal with problems, keep your eye on the goal and, above all, love the process. Eventually, the obstacles all seem very far away. The physical darkness, too, passes, and everything takes on its own meaning at the finish line.

NO PLAN SURVIVES AT FIRST CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY (military citation). The more time you spend developing a strategy, the more likely you are to stick with it. Two weeks before the challenge, when everything seemed to be in place, we had to face the facts: there was a major problem with our plan. Without hesitation, we drastically changed the route. Today, we know that this is what made us successful.

AMBITIOUS GOALS OFFER THE RICHEST PATH. Our words are not an ode to performance. The secret is that the path to an ambitious goal is much richer. The ultimate goal is always to learn and grow, whether you reach the top or not.

PREPARATION, PREPARATION, PREPARATION. For months, we had been developing the list of equipment needed. Thank God, because a mechanical problem arose and we needed a special tool. The effort required to provide the tool was minuscule. The cost of not having it would have been immense.

PEDAL HOURS BEFORE 9 a.m. ARE FREE OF CHARGE. At training, we often joked that before 9 a.m., meters were free. Fresh brains and legs, no distractions, a calm that enables strategic focus. In the end, it allowed us to do more and do it better. A double advantage! The parallel with our working days is obvious.

A PARTNER IN RESPONSIBILITY CAN DOUBLE RESULTS. Neither Gabriel nor I could have done it alone. This is true not only in terms of motivation to do the work beforehand, but also in terms of overcoming our limits on the day of the challenge.

SO TWO IS BETTER, BUT DIVERSITY IS MUCH BETTER. Gabriel is an athlete of speed and power. I’m an endurance athlete. These different backgrounds have created a team with a vast repertoire of knowledge. We were able to advise each other and put our strengths at the service of the mission.

AND WHILE WE’RE AT IT, INDIVIDUAL FEATS ARE TEAM FEATS. Family and friends came to support us throughout the day. In the end, it will always be the highlight: the love of others. Their encouragement gave us the strength to carry on and persevere. In fact, six- or eight-hour training sessions with a team always went by faster than two-hour sessions alone.

EVEN WHEN ALL THE ELEMENTS ARE AGAINST YOU, IT’S POSSIBLE TO SUCCEED. Gabriel is not an endurance athlete. He even suffered a serious knee injury in the winter. On the morning of the challenge, he had no certainty that he would succeed. But he went into it accepting the possibility of failure, rather than demanding a guarantee of success. All summer long, Gabriel gave his best effort every day despite the uncertainty. With resilience and tenacity, he achieved an extraordinary result.

Voilà!
Good luck to you,
Sébastien Sasseville and Gabriel Renaud