Motivation

    I mentioned this briefly in talking about Responsibility. It’s really what defines

"I AM MAGIC", in that I truly feel we can do "almost anything we put our minds to". In the process of building a strong foundation of character, if we don’t believe in ourselves, it just won’t happen! I like the example here of what would happen if a football team never practices, thinks they have no chance of winning a game, and then goes out there to play. What are the chances they’ll even score at all? Why even go to the game? I’ve found that Motivation has a lot to do with expectation. So many people fail because they don’t believe whatever they are attempting is possible in the first place. We of course go back to the subject of Perception here, because whether we are motivated or not, depends a lot on if we think we can or can’t achieve something. 

     

    This is another good place to talk about "try". There are two ways to look at this word; [excited] "Oohh, I’d like to try that!" and [doesn’t believe] "Well, I’ll try..." These two examples help kids understand how being really motivated is different from "I’ll try, but I doubt I can do it."

Motivation is hard to teach, but can be illustrated by example.

It really goes hand in hand with persistence, perseverance, practice and patience.

It’s amazing how much self-confidence can be gained by "keeping on", even in the face of failure. The story of Thomas Edison, and what he said when asked about his thousands of failures while working on the light bulb, "Well, I know a thousand ways that don’t work!" His enthusiasm and motivation were not daunted, because he knew that his ideas were sound. I also talk here about intuition, what we call "feeling/knowing" and even discuss how it feels when you know you’re doing something right, as well as when you know you’re doing something wrong!    

    This is also useful in talking about getting a job, or learning a skill, because you have to believe what you are striving for is possible, or otherwise you will be working against yourself. Ultimately, the more we believe in ourselves, and apply ourselves, and stay motivated, the more likely we are to succeed.