Motivation

Hi Tony,

My question cuts to the heart of all of my training - motivation. My life has become very busy since the start of 2008, with work, seminars, courses, qualifications earned and travelling all taking more of my time. I have found that at some points I have had to cut back on training as there are only 168 hours in a week and I have to sleep for some of them! I know that you are a very hard-working and high-achieving person, so can you please share your opinions on how you motivate yourself to achieve the things that you want, both as an individual and a team member, be it of a martial arts association or a family? Your attitudes towards things like diet, training regimes, instructional/philosophical material, mentoring and inspiration, etc. These all contribute to our Selves - one Self loves to train and another would rather sleep. Balancing the two requires constant effort, so how do you achieve this?

Regards,

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

Tough question as we all have unique identities and different forces driving our lives which affect our ability to stay motivated.

To me life is a bit like a juggling act. We all are trying to keep many balls in the air such as: finance; career; relationships; learning; training; home maintenance; hobbies; personal time; family and so on. I start from the point that there is one ball we can never drop and that is our health and well being.

My first suggestion is that you never put anything ahead of your personal fitness and well being. The fundamental decision to put health first at all times will help put everything else into place for you as a fit body results in a fit mind – and a fit mind makes better decisions and is more able to put things into perspective during stressful times. Feeling fit and healthy motivates you to want to continue to feel good about your self and so you move like a radar does towards its target researching good balanced diets and books that feed your mind.

One way to anchor your motivation is to hold your feet to the fire and be honest with your self with respect to who you are - and who and what you want to be. For example; in my engineering consulting world I often work with executives of multi million corporations and owners of large corporate companies who are stressed, unfit and have no spare time to do anything but work. In my martial arts world I often meet and train with people who are not as wealthy as the corporate executives/owners but they are healthy, spiritual, well balanced with a clear sense of identity and purpose.

I look at both these environments and try to find a balance that fits me. I start with the first anchor that I want to be fit and healthy; the second anchor is that I want to take care of my family and provide then with some financial security (but not at the expense of my health). These two anchors then require that I develop a level of discipline to ensure synergy with my personal identity.

The key is to try and determine what your minimum personal fitness and training requirements in order to stay healthy. Then forego any other demand on your time until you satisfy that need on a daily basis. In other words you first take care of your self before you take care of others. I travel a lot and one of the most profound analogies for taking care of your self first is on an airplane – when the pilot says “in the event of an emergency oxygen masks will drop and you must first put the mask on your self before attending to any one else”.

In today’s modern world it is best to accept the fact that your inbox will still be full when you take your final dirt nap so don’t worry about it being full - and that it is sometimes better to avoid spending so much time with modern day trinkets such as TV’s; PC’s and all the other modern stuff and simply relax and sit in a quite place for a few moments to recharge your body with energy.

Regards,
Tony