Motivation

I found myself thinking a lot about the topic of motivation this week. Perhaps it was because, personally, mine seemed to be lacking at times. I had wanted to wake up a half-hour earlier than usual in order to add a couple new things to my morning routine. However, my desire to stay up late and watch the end of the World Series games out-weighted my motivation to drag myself out of bed at 5:00AM.

So, the question I have looked to answer is, what will motivate me to get done what I really want to get done?

What drives motivation? How can we increase motivation? Who or what provides motivation? These are all great questions, especially for those of us who want to increase it... either in ourselves or in teams of people that we lead and/or participate with.

Something else that got me thinking about motivation this week is that I spent some time creating a video (below) for people to enjoy in anticipation of the Athens vs. Nelsonville-York week 10 high school football game.

One of the names for videos like this is "motivational" video. Sure, it might stir up some emotion or momentarily provide a rush of adrenaline, but can a video actually motivate?

I don't think it can. In fact, I don't think anything or anyone "external" can truly motivate a person to do something that they intrinsically do not want to do... or, more specifically, something they do not have a strong connection with or passion for.

Motivation comes from within. It's internal. That's right. It's my belief (and experience) that you and I cannot motivate anyone. Here's why. Because motivation is directly connected with personal responsibility. Every individual person either believes that they CAN or CANNOT control their own behaviors and actions. The person who believes they CAN... will be more in control and they will be a motivated person. The person who believes they CANNOT... will feel less in control, they will make more excuses, and they will be less motivated.

Motivation comes from within. It cannot be produced externally. That's why there really is no such thing as a "motivational" speaker. There can be "inspirational" speakers. We can inspire others. We can teach people how to find the motivation within themselves to get done what needs to get done... and we can inspire them with reasons and videos like the one above. But none of that will ever be enough to actually get the job done.

Motivation is not something that we can do to someone else, it is not something we can give to someone else. Motivation is the feeling that is already inside a person, and that feeling compels them to either do or don't do something... to either take responsibility and action or avoid responsibility and action.

This means that all people are motivated all the time. The million-dollar question for coaches, then, is: what are they motivated to do? And then our challenge is to create the conditions in which the team members are inspired and determined to achieve the common goals of the team. What we can do is provide them with the energy, the knowledge, the passion, the inspiration, the goals... that will hopefully challenge them to be motivated in positive ways. And if, for some reason, they weren't motivated before, they will see the need for improvement and then take the necessary action to make that positive self-change.

You can set the table, but they ultimately are responsible for eating. That's the best way I can think of to illustrate it. Trying to "motivate" someone to do something you know they will enjoy and you know they will benefit from is like knowing you have an awesome meal prepared for others that you know is tasty, nutritious and extremely filling. In order for others to be able to enjoy and partake, they first have to know about the meal. But even if they know about it, they may still not have the desire to eat it. So, you go to great lengths to make sure the aroma hits their noses, and you set the table with all the utensils and awesome courses of the meal so they can see how good it looks. Suddenly, they feel like they are getting hungry. They may not have been hungry before, but now, because you've made this meal look so delicious, they can't wait to dive in and devour it!

That's what it means to motivate someone. You didn't make them do something they didn't want to do. You didn't create a hunger inside of them. You didn't conceive a desire inside of their minds. It was there all along. You just made them keenly aware of it. You stirred it up, and you showed them the possibilities. You made them realize that they CAN indeed participate, and you invited them to come along where the eating is good!

People have so much more inside of them than they even realize. They can control aspects of their life and success more than they even realize. Sometimes they just need someone else to SHAKE them, and WAKE them up to see that. It's why we create videos like the one I made for people to get fired up about the football game this week. Perhaps, in those high school football players' case, they just need to see the kinds of things they are capable of doing... so we put the clips all together with a little music and a Ray Lewis locker room speech, and we show them. THIS is who you are! This is what you are capable of being... not just for a 3-minute highlight reel. But for every down, every play, every moment.

It's within you.