Coach Bedinger thanks for sharing great knowledge on the truth of motivation. We can all reflect on this!
I canvased friends, coaches, and colleagues on what I should write about because I wasn’t sure. There are so many subjects that affect Strength and Conditioning Coaches. How can you condense the scope of what a Strength and Conditioning Coach handles into a single post?
Most responded I should talk about motivation, or cultivating leadership amongst high school athletes. Well hell, to be honest, there are smarter people in the world than I who can talk to you about leadership. So I decided to take on motivation or whatever.
Given this opportunity, I first want to be honest: Screw your motivation. Motivation has no promise on future actions - it is a starting point. What motivates you is of little consequence, because both horrible and great things have a motive behind them. Motivation, or your motive behind your actions, can change at any moment. Motive, defined as a reason for doing something, is what can lead anyone to start just about anything.
Another coach described motivation as lighting a match to start a fire. We are presented with a pile of logs as an opportunity and then seized with motivation to light the match. A lit match will get you started, and a pile of logs will keep you motivated for a bit, but then what? That initial pile of logs will burn out if nothing is continuously added to it. Yes, the opportunity is important, and yes, that initial rush of motivation is important, but what keeps the fire burning? Who’s supplying the logs?
That’s the key.
I saw the logs she described as extrinsic motivation. These are things that the athletes can touch and chase like trophies, awards, PRs. The logs I want athletes putting on the fire are from wood they went out to get for themselves. When I talked about bringing your own wood. I’m asking, “Are you heading out into the dense forest chopping down a tree and harvesting the wood yourself? Can you consistently do that to keep that fire going?” Intrinsic motivation!
Screw your motive.
I don’t care what brought you here. I care whether you continue to show up, even on the days you don’t want to be here. Consistency and discipline are forged out of habits. Actionable steps must be taken to move forward. If you choose not to be consistent in your actions, you don’t have motivation, you have excitement. If the only way you keep going is because someone or something outside of yourself is pushing you forward, what happens when that’s gone? I tell my athletes that what you do when no one is looking and there is no crowd cheering for you says more about you than anything else. Day in, day out. Consistency is what I look for. Consistency is the bread and the butter. It’s the lock and the key. It’s the peanut butter and the jelly. It’s the rubber and the road. You get the picture. Motivation fades. Motives change. It is not enough to just start something. Habitual dedication to your goals separates those that continue to improve and those that quit.
“Screw motivation. it’s a fickle and an unreliable little thing and isn’t worth your time.
Better to cultivate discipline than to rely on motivation. force yourself to do things. force yourself to get up out of bed and practice. Force yourself to work. Motivation is fleeting and it’s easy to rely on because it requires no concentrated effort to get. Motivation comes to you, and you don’t have to chase after it.
Discipline is reliable, motivation is fleeting. The question isn’t how to keep yourself motivated. It’s how to train yourself to work without it.” — Anonymous
Reflection.
While writing, I started to reflect on my own experiences during the past year. I recently made a career change, not to step away from strength and conditioning, but to challenge myself and give to my community in another way. I felt as if I was getting dull, getting comfortable. I needed to sharpen my edge. I entered the fire service, effectively launching myself out of my comfort zone. I remember hearing once , “that the worst thing that can happen to someone is that they become civilized.”, and that stuck with me. I was getting comfortable, which means I wasn’t growing. You should never confuse movement with progress. Thinking back on my experience, that didn’t last long enough. There were some hard days in the fire academy that I missed my family. I was also tasked with leading the other recruits. There were plenty of days I spent the entire time at the academy pissed off because I felt like some of the other recruits did care as much as I did. All I kept thinking was, “I just wanted to challenge myself”. That wasn’t going to get me through. What did I decide? I decided that I will continue to show up, stay consistent in my actions and effort, study when I didn’t want to, quizzed myself when I could find millions of reasons not to. Personally, I don’t know if I could have slept at night if I quit. Maybe that's the whatever part? That part in a person that says, “I am going to keep going whatever the cost.”
Brandon Bedinger
Ann Arbor Skyline - Head Strength and Conditioning Coach