Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
“One of the common misconceptions that people have is that they think when things get hard, they need to start to motivate themselves by thinking about ‘why’: ‘Why am I doing this? What’s my big motivation here?’ ” says Emily Balcetis, an associate professor of psychology at NYU.
But in speaking with Olympic athletes, she found some surprising approaches to both completing races and to enhancing performance.
“One strategy that people think is intuitive is that when things get hard—when it starts to hurt—runners might want to distract themselves to take their mind off the pain,” she explains. “But actually, what we found in a study of elite runners and those that were training for the next marathon was that actually they don’t do that at all. Instead, it’s thinking about the how. It’s returning to thinking about ‘What are the concrete steps I need to take to move from here to there?’ That helps them push through those challenges.”
We spoke to her in Central Park ahead of the 2025 NYC Marathon for more tips.
“One of the common misconceptions that people have is that they think when things get hard, they need to start to motivate themselves by thinking about ‘why’: ‘Why am I doing this? What’s my big motivation here?’ ” says Emily Balcetis, an associate professor of psychology at NYU.
But in speaking with Olympic athletes, she found some surprising approaches to both completing races and to enhancing performance.
“One strategy that people think is intuitive is that when things get hard—when it starts to hurt—runners might want to distract themselves to take their mind off the pain,” she explains. “But actually, what we found in a study of elite runners and those that were training for the next marathon was that actually they don’t do that at all. Instead, it’s thinking about the how. It’s returning to thinking about ‘What are the concrete steps I need to take to move from here to there?’ That helps them push through those challenges.”
We spoke to her in Central Park ahead of the 2025 NYC Marathon for more tips.
