Motivation

Today I had a session with a student-athlete leadership program that I am a part of and I thought I'd share some of the knowledge I obtained about theories of motivation.

Motivating people is hard (if you haven't already learned that)...You can manipulate people and you can bribe them and you can blackmail them into doing pretty much anything but that's not really motivation (at least how I'm defining it). Motivation is about getting someone to really enjoy what they're doing and to want to do it. Intrinsic reasons, not extrinsic. But before you think about how to motivate someone, you need to understand what you're even motivating them to do. That's when you'll understand exactly how. If I want my child to attend physical therapy like she should, I could say I'll buy her ice cream for every time she goes or I could tell her we're going to Disneyland just so she'll get in the car but that's not motivation! I'm motivating her to get an ice cream or to go to freaking Disneyland which is obviously not the objective. Even if you're motivating yourself to go to physical therapy, you have to remind yourself what you're going to get out of it. That should motivate you. The comfort you will gain. The pain you will be saved from. The ability to accomplish something they said you might not be able to! I could get myself to physical therapy or to do a lot of things in a number of ways but I won't really care about it, really be motivated to work hard at it, unless I find it in myself to see the greater good that I'm achieving. I challenge you guys to find it :)