Motivation

Last week I was talking with a student and her parents and the student was sharing that she has been struggling with motivation.  I think this is a familiar feeling for many of you... I know that I too have trouble staying motivated all the time.

I talked about the fact that she might not have the motivation to do things, but that she could still have the discipline to do them.

Then this weekend I was reading about how ACTION comes BEFORE Motivation.  And the more I have thought about it the more true it seems.  Think about it for a moment.  We tend to believe that we will have motivation, it will lead us to take action, and the action will deliver results.  But when you think about your own life, how often is that really true?

What is much more likely the case is you take action, it leads to results which then gives you motivation.  Let's think about some real world examples where you might see this playing out in your own lives...

You want to improve at your sport so you practice, you begin making more shots/ running faster/ hitting better (whatever it is for your sport), and then that motivates you to work harder in practice.

In the classroom you spend some time studying which leads to doing decent on the test which then motivates you to study even more for the next test because you have realized that the pay off will be there.

I know that with trying to train Lexi and Mia (my 2 dogs), we had to work on skills that then lead to some success which then gave me the motivation to work even harder with them.

So if you are struggling with motivation, know that you are NOT alone!  Rather than waiting or hoping that motivation is just going to strike, take some small steps of action today towards your goal and see if the results will help you to feel more motivated over time.