Motivation and inspiration are tough ones for us all. I am sure there is not a single person that doesn’t wish they could call forth the feeling of being super motivated or inspired on command. Yet when we think of great leaders, both present and historical, or even top performers it seems they are perpetually motivated to succeed. I’m sure you and I, we’ve both wondered just how these unique individuals always seem to be at the top of their game.
During a recent speaking engagement for a local group I was attempting to get to know my audience by asking a few questions about what would make this presentation valuable for them. How to get or stay motivated was the common theme. It would seem like this was a fitting topic for an experienced personal trainer who has had thousands of successful clients. Truthfully though, that night I really struggled to deliver an answer that I thought really hit the mark of motivating my audience and leaving them with a direct understanding of what motivation or inspiration is. That is without simply telling them, “you need a personal trainer.”
As personal trainers or coaches we are indeed motivators. Through coaching techniques, a healthy dose of sincerity and a pinch of compassion, we absolutely motivate hundreds of people every week to survive the next workout and perform in ways they didn’t know they were capable. Yet somehow, internally it’s difficult to motivate ourselves.
It wasn’t until the drive home after my presentation that I really had a good answer to what motivation is. Quite simply, it’s a choice. Often it may not be an easy one, but it is in fact still a choice. The physical and emotional feeling of being motivated and inspired is a physiological response to a hormonal cascade. Hormonal cascades can occur a variety of different ways, but a reliable way to produce a hormonal cascade of all the feel good hormones is activity. (Or sex but that is an entirely different column.)
So in short the answer to a lack of motivation is unfortunately not as exciting as one would hope. To stay motivated you are back to setting a defined and specific goal and reverse engineering that goal with backwards planning. What do you need to do each month, each week, to the little things that must be completed each day. When tiredness and lack of interest hit’s, the will of choice must kick in to get you moving, once your moving your hormones will do the rest.
