Q: How many psychotherapists does it
take to change a lightbulb?
A: One. But first the lightbulb must
be motivated to change.
It's an old joke but one that rang true
for me as a substance misuse worker (Drug Counsellor). I lost count
of the number of times I heard colleagues talk about clients “....you
see he's just not motivated to change, there's nothing I can do to
help him.” Perhaps I even rolled the same hackneyed line out
myself when frustrated with the lack of progress a client was making.
I don't believe it any more if I ever did.
What's this got to do with reflections
on my recent(ish) experience of competing?
Motivation.
Once I'd competed I had a real sense of
there being no need for, and therefore no point to training, watching
my diet, working on conditioning. After all, I'd done what I set out
to do, I'd even won my fight and lost
a significant (20lbs+) amount of weight in the process. I was a bit
lost.
It was
amazing to realise that I'm a person who needs an end goal to aim
for, or if not needs then
benefits from having a
target. That's the first point I want to make. It would be easy and
clichéd to talk about this as having been a journey and having
discovered new things along the way, but it would also be true. I
found out:
- That I can benefit from setting goals if...
- ...they're real and
- ...meaningful and
- ...I actually CARE about achieving them.
So much has been
written about goal setting that I'm not going to rehash it all here
and contribute to the 95% of psychobabble that passes for goal
setting advice. My experience was that having a goal I cared about
and could conceivably achieve gave me the motivation to hurt, ache,
eat a lot of fish and greens and drag my sorry backside on to the mat
or in to the gym five nights a week for three months. But that
wasn't the only thing that kept me going.
People did.
Firstly, I told people what I was trying to do – at work, at home,
at the gym. When you tell a lot of people whose opinion you respect
about your goal you'd better deliver. When Nathan (Head Coach) at
the gym found out what I was aiming for he talked to me about it and
when asked said, yes, it was possible. That was important. Someone
else believed I could do it. Other more experienced fighters at the
gym also helped with training, especially sparring, and never
intimated that it wasn't worth training me, especially guys like Jake
Constantinou who had his own fight in Japan to prepare for but still
spent time with the beginner amateurs. Finally, John and Rob who
were competing in their first MMA competition were great training
partners and motivators. I hope I served them the same.
The final group of
people who provided motivation were the faceless forum members on
T-Nation and Ross Training. Not only did I get some really positive
and encouraging comments on my training log but whenever I felt like
sitting a session out or taking it a bit easy or not hitting a number
of reps I'd think of what I'd be putting in my log. What would it
look like if I didn't post any training or if what I did post was
weak. Shallow, maybe, but helpful all the same.
Outside of people,
I've always found motivation in the writing of others. I've written
about them before but whenever I need a literary shot in the arm I go
to:
- Dan John Strength, conditioning, athleticism, rambling, eccentricity.
- Jim Wendler Strength, conditioning, misanthropy, Drone/Grind/Dark metal.
- Marshall D. Carper Cauliflower Chronicles easily bears repeated reading and inspires.
- Sam Sheridan Fighter's Heart and Fighter's mind are required reading
It's
not just about the information contained in these authors' books,
it's that the stories they tell inspire.
Quality information does not necessarily an inspiring read make.
The story and the writing have to be good.
Finally, I'm a
sucker for documentaries. When they're good (cast + story +
direction + quality) I can draw a lot of motivation from them,
specifically:
- Strong (Joe DeFranco)
- Choke (Rickson Gracie)
- Rites of Passage (Bobby Razak)
- UFC all access series.
- Destiny (Kostya Tszyu)
- Legacy (Renzo Gracie)
I'm sure there's
more that I'm forgetting but you get the idea.
To summarize, for me to ensure my motivation it is important to:
- Have a goal - achievable, realistic, worthwhile, specific.
- Be surrounded by the right people.
- Know what inspires and use it - preventatively and reactively.
I know that I'm working on all three again, when I've got a goal I'll let you know.
I could write more
on this and maybe I will in future, but for now Good Luck and
Godspeed!
