MR MO-TIVATOR

IF WE LOOK AFTER OURSELVES, WE CAN ACHIEVE MORE, SIR MO FARAH TELLS LISA SALMON

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SIR MO FARAH is sharing the simple secret to his remarkable success: aiming for small goals puts you on track to achieve giant ones.

The double-double Olympic gold medallist explains that while in his racing days he always kept his eye on the ultimate prize of Olympic and World Championship titles, he focused first on the smaller goals that would eventually build up to his top-level achievements.

Sir Mo, who won the 5,000m and 10,000m Olympic gold medals in both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics, says: "I've motivated myself by being aware of what I want to achieve, setting myself a goal, and once I’ve achieved that goal, then the next goal, and keep on moving, but doing it as little and as often as I can.

"I've had little goals - for example, when I was younger it was being able to run for my club, then my county, and then you go can I run for England? And then Great Britain - that was always a target."

He continues: "Even after 2012 and everything else, I had to then set myself another new challenge - it wasn’t about going ‘Yeah, I did something incredible; it was more like ‘Can I retain my title?’

"It's important for all of us to have goals because if we don’t have something to aim for, it’s hard."

Sir Mo retired from track racing in 2017 (racing briefly again in 2021) to concentrate on marathon running - he won the Great North Run a record sixth consecutive times between 2014 and 2019 before retiring from competitive running in 2023.