Whether it's a junior hockey player trying to get the attention of National Hockey League scouts or a parolee trying to turn his life around, motivation lies at the heart of their efforts.
Without it, they have no chance of success. Motivation is the safety net, the backstop to hold them up when they are tired, when it gets hard, when the goal looks so far away and stepping off the path looks so easy.
As today's story about Carl Lickers illustrates, motivation is as essential to a recovering addict with an extensive criminal record as it is to a high-performance athlete. Both desire to be better than they ever have been before so they are willing to push themselves, to sacrifice, to suffer, to address their weaknesses.
Modern research has shown that motivation lives in a specific part of the brain and that the trait can be learned and enhanced, as opposed to something that humans are just born with and can't change. As Charles Duhigg explains in his book Smarter Faster Better, the U.S. Marines adjusted their legendary brutal basic training to focus on motivation with spectacular results. The recruits are now constantly urged to remind themselves why they are there, why they are enduring such abuse. That tactic weeds out those lacking drive and charges up those with deeply personal reasons to be there, taking them out of their moment of suffering and pointing them towards the people whose respect and admiration they are trying to earn and to the future.
Where do you want to be?
Who do you want to be?
That's why you are here. That's why you are doing this. That's why you will keep doing this, even though you so badly want to stop.
As Don Cherry might put it, they're looking for the fiercest hearts, not the fiercest dogs.
In her new book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, psychologist Angela Duckworth puts the truth to the old phrase about genius being one per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration. Raw talent is a poor measure of achievement. Motivation is a far more reliable indicator of future success.
The motivated brain, research shows, is restless, rebellious, creative and controlling. The best coaches and Marine drill sergeants tap into this spirit, setting new challenges and giving their players and soldiers the tools to succeed but making them responsible to use those tools as they see fit to overcome the obstacle.
This ethic manifests itself in everyday ways, Duhigg points out, from parents who let their toddlers make a mess at meal time to learn how to feed themselves to managers who set direction in the workplace but then step aside to allow employees to figure out how the best way to get there.
Harnessing that energy can be challenging. Parents, managers and coaches too often find it much easier to give orders and demand their instructions be followed. To kickstart motivation, leaders need to offer the freedom for children, employees and players to make mistakes, to stumble, but then to let them find their own solutions so it doesn't happen again. Instead of stating the obvious ("you did it wrong"), they ask questions ("why did that happen? Where did you go wrong? What will you do next time to get it right?")
The interesting thing that happens next is once motivation has been activated in the brain, individuals take personal responsibility for the situation while simultaneously removing their own gratification from the equation.
Listen to Lickers.
"My ego went away, my mom died and I stopped caring about being a gangster and cared more about living life and being truly happy and doing what she wanted me to do," he says.
In other words, when he stopped focusing on himself and started being the man his mother would have wanted him to be, Lickers found the reward was the life and the happiness he had been looking for all along.
Call it self-interested selflessness.
Regardless of whether it's elite hockey players or a young man on the road to redemption, their drive and their ability to overcome is inspiring, motivating others to be better athletes and better people.
