Myths and Mistakes About Motivation and Commitment

Achieving optimal health and fitness, or becoming elite in your sport/industry requires a ton of hard work. But the good new is, you can develop the motivation and commitment that it takes to put in the work and achieve your goals.

Motivation and commitment work together to prepare you for the ups and downs that you will face in pursuit of your goals.

Motivation is the push that gets you going. For many, taking the first step is the most difficult part of the process.

Commitment is what keeps you going. Commitment means you have the grit to do the things necessary to reach your goals, even though you may not want to do it.

Here are a few common myths and mistakes about motivation and commitment:

1- Motivation comes before you get started.
Motivation often comes after starting a new behavior, not before. Motivation is the result of action, not the cause of it. Once a task has begun, it is easier to continue moving it forward.

Similar to Newton’s First Law: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, once you start a behavior, most of the time you don’t need much motivation to complete it because nearly all the friction in the task is at the beginning.

2- Just write down your goals, and success is guaranteed!
The concept of having goals written down that you should look at and use as advertisement to yourself about what you want is valuable and should be used, but again, it’s just one tool, not the entire process.

Writing goals down is important, but without the addition of a carefully constructed plan of action and accountability, it’s far from complete.

3- Just try to do your best!
Telling someone, or yourself, to do your best is essentially giving them permission to be average.

Specific and challenging goals are beneficial because they push you, often unconsciously, to increase your focus and commitment to your goals.

4- Just visualize success and it will happen.
Visualization is needed as part of the process of becoming great, but it’s not the only thing that’s needed. There’s a big difference between believing you will succeed and believing you will succeed easily.

Realistic optimists believe they will succeed, but they also believe they have to put in the effort, preparation, persistence and patience.

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When you face adversity, the level of motivation and commitment that you have will largely determine whether you push through and stick it out, or give up.

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References:
Brian Cain. Mental Performance Mastery Certification. Second Edition. September, 2019.