Motivation is a tough concept to understand. You may think you understand it however there is a lot to the whole story of motivation. It can help to understand the two types of motivation, which one is the most important, and the best way to build it.

What is motivation?

Motivation is having the drive and intensity to do something. I find that usually when a client has the drive, the intensity is there. Makes sense right? “I really want to do this and I’ll put in the work to make it happen.” Very rarely will intensity lead before drive. However, on rare occasion, you may not be driven to do something being taught and then as the intensity increases you but get into it and end up feeling driven.
We all have a perception of what motivation is but we often judge it externally. I hear coaches or teachers talk about clients who are unmotivated. The unfortunate part of this is that a client may look and sound unmotivated but that’s not the bottom line. There’s usually more going on under the surface.

While there are many reasons for a client not to be motivated, the two biggest reasons are because something is not challenging enough or is too challenging. This is not a ‘fault’ of the client but a lack of awareness from the coach or teacher for not seeing what the real reason might be.
What are the two types of motivation?

The first basic problem with motivation is that most people feel like they are either motivated or they aren’t. For some, once they lose their initial motivation, they aren’t sure how to get it back. Most often, clients are losing motivation because they aren’t doing what they want for themselves. They are doing it for someone else. There are two types of motivation – internal and external. Internal motivation comes from within yourself. External motivation comes from sources outside of you.

Examples of internal motivation include, doing it for the love of it, and because it’s fun. When I talk about internal motivation I focus on “what is your WHY.” Why do you do what you do? Examples of external motivation include, doing it for parents and coaches and to achieve a certain rank, time or place. Many times, we don’t realize that we are externally motivated.

When clients lose motivation or are labeled unmotivated, that can continue to spiral them into a further decrease of motivation. They don’t know how to verbalize what they are feeling and they don’t know how to fix it. Let’s think about it this way – if you go to practice everyday telling yourself that you are unmotivated to be there, then you won’t be motivated.

Which is the best type of motivation?

Internal motivation is the best type of motivation to keep you inspired and interested. Why? Because you are relying on your why and your own realistic goals and expectations. When you think about building internal motivation, you learn to be present and set small process goals that help you reach your big goal. Internal motivation allows you more control over your environment.
External motivation is not helpful because what you need to do for those around you is not always 100 percent clear. You never really know what you need to do to satisfy your parents or the coach. They may say or they may not, and even when they do, your goals and desires probably aren’t in alignment with their goals.

You don’t have control over parents and coaches changing their expectations. It can be very confusing. You have very little control over meeting other’s expectations. In addition, you wind up wasting a lot of time trying to figure out how to meet versus spending time meeting your own. When you don’t meet them, you don’t feel successful.
There are some situations where someone can start off using external motivation that then leads into being engaged and developing internal motivation. This transition rarely happens. When you are younger it feels so much easier to do something for someone but as you grow older, the luster wears off and you are left spinning your wheels trying to meet external expectations.
How do you build motivation?

There are many ways to build motivation – your why, your goals, your positive thinking:

• YOUR WHY
  One of the best ways to build motivation is to develop awareness around your internal why. Why am I doing this? What do I love about it? When you figure that out and move forward from a place of confusion, it all makes better sense and gives you inspiration.
• YOUR GOALS
  You build motivation through goal setting. When you create your own system to set, attain, and change goals, it empowers you. ‘Oh yeah, if this happens, I’ll leave practice feeling accomplished.’ Your goals should be small and realistic; you want to be able to meet a goal in order to help keep you motivated. You also need to ask yourself if you need daily, weekly or monthly goals. Everyone is different. However you do it, your small and realistic goals lead to bigger goals. Your bigger goals should be 6 months-ish out.
• YOUR POSITIVE THINKING
  You can also build motivation simply by reframing thoughts like the ‘I am not motivated’ conversation in your head. Once you recognize it, change it to something a little more positive. For example, I am feeling tired but I know I can use my performance routine to get me energized and ready for competition.

Conclusion

Hopefully now you have a better sense about what motivation is, the two types of motivation, which type is the most important, and ways you can build it.

So, now you can start to work to understand your why, set your bigger goals and the small goals to get you there, as well as, reframe any negative conversation in your head. The more you can stay present and open, the better you realize when you are feeling unmotivated. This keeps you grounded in the moment-to-moment and focused on your internally driven, realistic goals.