I rowed 727 km alongside the highways to my mother - here are the tricks I applied on myself to stay committed

My key learning from rowing to my mum 727 km alongside the highways is:

Make sure that a big target you are striving for matters to you personally.

Here are the tricks I applied on myself to stay committed to my target.

My target: significantly improving my fitness

My tricks:

• Add an emotional element: I decided to row to my mum who is living 727 km in the North of Germany. My mum matters to me and thinking about the happiness I can bring to her when meeting her after finishing my journey created an emotional link.
• Commit also to others: I told my mum and my friends right from the start. And when it became difficult to continue I made my goal public. You can read the story in more detail here
• Visualize progress: Although my rowing monitor documented every workout, I printed the route and attached it to the wall. It always felt good to mark the distance I rowed on the map after each workout.
• Dedicate time: I planned to row 3-4 times a week and reserved dedicated time in my calendar in the morning reminding me of what I decided to do.
• Measure progress: It was motivating to see that I could improve my 2000m score over time. I did regular 2k test for time and improved my 2k time from 9:30 to 7:45 minutes in many small steps. Such improvement are adding belief.
• Be consistent: Do not strive for one single instant big improvement - that will never happen. Instead, let many small improvements do the job over time and trust that they will add up.
• Do not get distracted by a bad day: Everybody has such days. Remind yourself about the progress you already made and continue your engagement without thinking too much about the reasons of small failures.

Last Sunday, I achieved my goal. I rowed my last 2k in my hometown Elmshorn, Germany after rowing 725 km. I received a friendly hug from my mum. I finished on a high note with a personal best of 7:45 minutes for 2000m on the rowing machine. It in particular felt great because I failed to achieve that time the last two month several times already. The recording of the youtube livestream is still available for some time - you might want to click here

My personal rowing challenge paid off in several dimensions:

• My mum is happy.
• My fitness improved significantly.
• I am more confident than ever that I also can achieve other big targets that matter to me personally.

One of my other targets is improving the transparency in the hydrogen economy with hyfindr.com and my co-founder Steven Oji. We are building the B2B marketplace for hydrogen systems and components because we believe that we hereby can help growing the hydrogen economy. See our little video here - it explains which problem we want to solve. You also can follow Hyfindr here.

I have received so much support in the recent months. Many thanks for your kind support received from people in my network.

In case you like my little story, you might find value in reflecting on following question:

What is the change you would like to achieve?

If it really matters to you, consider acting upon it – just like I did.

Change is possible. Make the first step. You will achieve it if you are consistent in your efforts.

Bj?rn Lüssow, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Hyfindr GmbH