Motivation v Inspiration

“It is easy to confuse motivation and inspiration, motivation comes from within and no amount of inspiration can help unless you have this.”

  
     Firstly let me differentiate between what is meant by motivation and inspiration in this article. Motivation is the internal mechanism an individual uses to prepare and work at their objective. Inspiration is outside sources that aim to provide reference and provide an individual with the motivation to achieve their objective.
   
     The aforementioned quote was a tweet I made last season during my time coaching the University of the Cumberlands Womens Soccer team. The story behind the quote is simple, I was in the office when one of the players stopped by to discuss a previous game. We began talking about all aspects of the game, and also the games we had up and coming. It was then that the player mentioned that more inspiration was needed in order to help the team. Whilst I agreed that inspiration is necessary, motivation must be a more implicit factor, and without motivation inspiration is often rendered useless.
    Motivation and inspiration are two massive words in the world of sport. There is book after book and article after article offering them in abundance. But do we really understand the affect they can have on performance. We often use both these words to describe how we can perform better with the use out outside sources, watching videos and reading articles that aim to motivate and inspire us. While these articles can offer some help, can they truly make us perform at a higher level? It is clear that both motivation and inspiration have an impact on performance, otherwise there would not be a multimillion dollar industry devoted to it, but do we rely on them more than we should? Or, do we rely on one more than the other?
    We all have the ability to motivate ourselves, but it is a belief in ourselves and what we are doing that many people lack. We often lack conviction because we feel intimidated by other peoples reactions to our passion and desire to achieve something. We shy away from standing out in a crowd because we don’t want to be the only one that is different. Many times we want something but we are just not motivated enough to go ahead and do it for fear of failing. To be truly motivated means that we must be willing to work through failure, and see failure as an opportunity to improve. Motivation is to not care what others think of our hopes and dreams and to be relentless in the pursuit of them. Instead of looking for outside inspiration when we are at our weakest, we must be able to look inside ourselves and find the motivation to keep going and achieve what we want to achieve. Believe in what you are doing, but most of all to believe in yourself.
    Inspiration can come from many angles and seeking inspiration is not sacrilegious. To see what others have done and are willing to do to can help our goals become clearer. We can watch videos and read articles that can help us see things in a different light and maybe push us to work a little bit more. But, seeking this inspiration will not do the job for you. Many times watching these inspirational videos or reading inspirational articles can provide us with short term inspiration, but how many times do we think about these things when we are out on the practice field or in the gym. When it matters the most the last thing on our mind is thinking about these pieces of inspiration, our thoughts are focusing on rationalizing how we feel.
    A perfect example of this is when I took part in the Knoxville Marathon. Though I am competent at running I am not a distance runner nor have I put in the time to become a great runner. After a good start I completed the first half of the marathon in one hour forty-seven minutes, not a bad time for someone like myself. The problem was by the time I had got to the halfway point there was only one thing on my mind, and that was to give up. My legs and my body ached like never before, I felt sick and hungry all at the same time, I was stumbling along rather than running. At this point the last thing on my mind was thinking about a inspirational video I had watched, or an inspirational article I had read. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that all I wanted to do was complete the marathon. My legs were shot, as was any chance at a decent time. But throughout the second half of the marathon I learned so much about myself. I learned that no matter how much my body wanted to give up, I was in control. I was not going to let my physical ability (or lack of) override my mental capability to keep going. I motivated myself to keep going, even after the 15:00 minute pacer passed me. A man who was easily into his sixties, who looked as if he hadn’t even broken into a sweat even though we were at mile 19. It was down to me and me only to keep pushing through, to motivate myself to not give up, even if I had to crawl over the finish line. I finished the marathon in four hours and thirty-eight minutes, and the feeling upon completing it was one of the best feelings I have ever had. I had not trained as I should have and I was far from prepared for it, but I did it. I had motivated myself to complete it and I did. No matter what came my way and no matter how tired or how much I wanted to give up, I did it. Inspiration can make us want to do things like this, but only motivation can allow us to do them.
     Looking at professional athletes, motivation is a key reason why we see them in such a different light. These individuals are not like the general population. They are different because their professional desires dictate their entire existence. Many people across the world dream of becoming professional athletes, but the reality is very few actually make it to that stage. This comes down to motivation. To become a professional athlete means these people have pushed themselves to the very limit of their capabilities in order to achieve what they want. They set out a goal and have not stopped working towards achieving that goal. As we all know there are many different levels of professional sport, and the higher you go the more motivation you will see. Some athletes achieve the goal of becoming a professional and stop working to keep moving up. It is only the very top athletes who carry on working in order to reach the pinnacle of their chosen sport. Some people may say that only a few people can achieve this, believing much of how the got there comes down to God given talent, or even luck. But I challenge you to look at and study these athletes. Look at their careers to date and see how much work they have put in to get them to where they are. If we believe that some people are destined for greatness or possess more talent from the outset then how can we motivate ourselves to succeed. The simple fact is the people who make it to the top do so because they are motivated to get there. Motivation determines the amount of work put in, the amount of time spent mastering a task, and the amount we are willing to sacrifice to achieve our goal. We can rationalize all we want, but in the end we are just making excuses. Motivation is key.
    As stated in Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’, it takes 10,000 hours to truly master any skill. 10,000 hours is a long time, and the motivation to continue to master a skill when already proficient is what makes the difference between good and great. With this 10,000 hour rule it is clear that something other than God given talent or luck has to play a part. That something else is motivation. To have that desire to work on the skills you want to master and realize that these skills won’t come overnight. 10,000 hours requires dedication, and you can only dedicate yourself to something if you are truly motivated to do it. If we are passionate about something the motivation should be there from the outset, it is not something we develop over time. If you cannot motivate yourself to do what you are achieve what you want then you obviously don’t want it badly enough. It doesn’t matter how much inspiration you seek if you do not have the internal motivation to achieve what is set out before you.
    Another problem with sport is that we only generally see the final performance. We never really see what goes into making the performance happen. We see soccer players earning huge amounts of money to go out and play a couple of games a week. We will sit in front of the television and watch 90 minutes of what is actually a very small portion of what these athletes actually do, and genuinely believe that they are ‘lucky’ or fortunate to be where they are. Yes, the lifestyles in which the top athletes live is a very fortunate place to be, but the sacrifices they have made to get there have been huge. The part we do not see whilst watching the 90 minutes of soccer is the hours that these athletes spend working on every aspect of their performance, spending countless extra hours in the gym, or on the practice field working on their weaknesses. We forget the time they have spent from a young age honing their talents pushing themselves when nobody else wanted to. This is motivation. Very few of these elite athletes have ever been forced to go that extra mile, and yet they are at the top of their game because they motivated themselves to get there, people who call it luck are just kidding themselves. This motivation doesn’t come from outside sources, it comes from deep inside, when you have that desire to want to do something to the best of your ability, and better than anybody has previously done it. If we have this motivation to work when nobody else wants to, and to push ourselves to achieve our goals, then we can use inspiration to push us to another level.
        A great case in point on inspiration came in an article written March 3rd 2012 via skysports.com with their story regarding Manchester United’s young goalkeeper David De Gea. The story entitled ‘De Gea Taking Tips From Friedel’, with the first paragraph of the story been;
“Manchester United's David de Gea says he has been taking inspiration from Tottenham's Brad Friedel to help him get to grips with life as a Premier League keeper.”
    The story goes on to state that De Gea has been watching and analyzing video of the American goalkeeper Brad Friedel to help him develop as a goalkeeper in the Premier League. This is where inspiration can help to push athletes to the next level. De Gea has obviously been highly motivated throughout his career to get to where he is, playing at the pinnacle of club soccer, and now he is looking for inspiration from those who have been there before. De Gea has the internal drive that comes through motivation and looks to Friedel to provide some inspiration to direct his talents in the direction they need to go.
    In summary there is too much emphasis put on inspiration or been motivated from outside sources these days, rather than looking at ourselves and taking responsibility for what we have achieved. It is easy to blame someone else for our shortcomings rather than say I just didn’t put the work in. We can all sit in our armchairs on a Saturday afternoon shouting at the TV about a bunch of overpaid pre-madonas running around the field. But, the problem is, the people who do this are taking the frustrations they have with themselves out on other people. Nobody gets to the top without been highly motivated to get there. We can say they had lucky breaks or any other variation of excuse, but the fact is they wanted it more than we did. They put the hours in when we didn’t. They sacrificed what was necessary to get them there. I am not saying that everybody’s dream is to be a soccer player or a celebrity, I am saying that most people settle for second best simply because they aren’t willing to motivate themselves to do what is necessary to achieve their dream. We must aim to control what we can control. Feel free to seek inspiration from all facets of life, but understand inspiration will never make up for not having the motivation to go out and achieve what you want to achieve.