Motivation vs. Capability
There I was, hobbling along on crutches, as well as carrying a heavy backpack, both my legs wrapped in specially designed “leg braces” to hold the bones together and keeping me from bending my knees. I was walking along the platform of the station wondering where the hell do I get my next train!
After alighting one train I needed to get to my connecting train within ten minutes. Just then I saw a guy who looked like a train guard, and in my best efforts quickly shuffled over to him to enquire where to get my next train.
He was really helpful and even walked with me over to the notice board to get the timings of my next shuttle as there had been many cancellations and delays that day. He enquired over my condition and what I did for a living. I gave him a brief of the reason for my injuries and told him I coach people to find solutions to resolve personal issues and behaviours amongst other attributes and help to motivate people.
“Ah yes,” he said, “but you can only be motivated if you have the capacity.” What an interesting concept and way of thinking I thought. Does this man think and believe that you have to have everything at hand to be motivated? I couldn’t get any more from him as he was on his way and typically, I needed to get right across to the other side of the station to the right platform where my train would stop at.
Throughout my journey I couldn’t stop thinking of what this man had said to me. What did he actually mean by “having the capacity”?
Was it needing the room or space? Was it the role or function? Could he mean the faculty, power, aptitude or even the competence to achieve what you desire? Does one think you have to have a certain “capacity” to do what you want to do? Surely he had got this wrong.
We all have the capacity to do things. We have all the resources within us to be motivated, we just need to bring them to the fore. I guess we all have this mans’ blinkered thinking at times and that is the reason we believe in the barriers we place in front of ourselves. Though this is far from the case.
Who would consider walking to the local shop in my condition, let alone travelling around the country on a train, and certainly not when the weather was as bad as it was. The whole country was covered in a thick blanket of snow, travelling had come to a practical standstill, people struggled getting out of “A” let alone “A to B”. Yet here I am, after incurring serious injuries to both my legs, hopping from platform to platform, train to train.
Now I’m not saying I should be on some form of plateau, I’m more likely to be labelled a complete nutter! My doctor, hospital consultant and physiotherapist probably think so already. However, I have been so determined that this unfortunate occurrence was not going to hold me back in any shape or form and I would find all the resources within me to continue with my everyday life as much as I could.
My point is, that if we have to find the capability to do things then we’re likely to be doing a lot of soul searching and no doubt a lot of procrastinating. And I can guess that is exactly what most of you are doing right now?
Do you really need the funds straight away, just to get started on that project you’ve been dying to get off the ground? Do you really need a car just to get to the corner shop, or could you put a little effort in and walk there which would in turn help you stay fitter? Do you really need to get matching clothing so you can start getting fit or lose the weight you want to shed, or do you consider the treadmill a catwalk? Do you really need provocation to move you forward?
“We are all prisoners of our own minds” as the saying goes, that includes thinkingwe need something when all we need is ourselves to change the way we perceive what is stopping us. Motivation is not some form of extinct source. It comes more natural than we think. It’s innate in all of us, we just have to unlock it and let it flow. I recently read a phrase;
“Just as an athlete trains his body to perform, one can train the mind toward healthy thinking”
We look for inspiration from others, yet how about inspiring yourself or even better, you being the inspiring one to others? Someone once said to me “I need a purpose in life!” My reply to that was, “How about your life being the purpose?”
You have the motive in whatever you want the motivation for. Whether it’s to get fit, start a project, achieve a goal, the impulse is within you as long as you have the enthusiasm to do it. Your main focus should be starting it. Find a solution to success, the desire be determined, the stimulus to stimulate the mind and body, to get on that conveyor belt to completion.
I’ve been meaning to write this blog for a couple of months now, and I’m doing just that at 22:30hrs, sat in bed and determined to finish it. What was the capacity I needed to do it? None. I started it, I just needed to finish it.
I saw a great quote the other day; “Approach the start of each day with one thing in mind and end the day with one word…DONE.” If there was one thing you needed to do tomorrow, what would it be? Could you actually get it done? If you like doing lists, why not create a “DONE!” list?
A guy I worked with a few years ago once told me a quote that I’ll never forget. I was undecided on doing something and said I would do it another time. “Why put off until tomorrow what you could do today?” was the remark I got. Whatever it was I had to do, certainly could have been done there and then and I had no real reason to put it off other than procrastinating over it.
Just like a good book there’s a start or the intro, a middle which could be the plot and an end which I guess is the finale or conclusion. What on earth am I talking about you may ask.
Well let us say for example it’s a fitness thing you have in mind. To start with you don’t need to buy the top branded clothing you just need to find a t-shirt and shorts or jogging pants, a good pair of trainers may be useful depending on what exercises you are going to do. If its at home, you may not even need trainers. You just need to introduce yourself to a fitness program or an instructor.
The middle, or the plot is you start a workout. Nice and gently. You can’t skip a few pages or you will lose the trail of the story, or in this case you try to go beyond your capabilities get injured and end up not doing any more training.
The end is the target or outcome you set yourself at the beginning that you will eventually get to. That could be your target weight or the number of miles you set yourself to achieve. It could even be the six-pack abs you always wanted to show off on your next summer holiday. The conclusion to the story is the result you aimed for. The you move on to your next “book”.
Of all that, where was the capacity you needed to find the motivation? There isn’t any. Finding the capacity is just another excuse of getting out of it and the pathetic reason to blame the universe for not achieving anything.
It’s like looking for your spectacles when you have them on your head. Or looking for your phone, when it’s in your hand and you are already talking to someone on it. Looking for your car keys, when they are still on the side where you left them last (or in my case, in the car itself or in the fridge!).
Another appropriate phrase I just read was, “You attract what you are, not what you want. If you want to be great, be great”. If you want to be motivated, you just have to stop looking for something that’s already within you.
