Motivation
(This article was originally published in ‘Combat Corner’ my column in Martial Arts Illustrated)
I thought I could do no better than include in this series an extract from my book
Fit To Fight and from the first chapter on Motivation. This is as follows:
It’s important that we know ourselves before we can make any changes, or better understand why we act in certain ways, particularly if we have a desire to change how we act. To achieve any improvements in the way we act, that is our Behaviour, we must first better understand the relationship between two separate, but connected matter – Motivation and Emotions. The two are inseparable in determining behaviour. Broadly, psychologists tell us that motivation is a general term for those feelings or forces that push and prod us to do something, whereas emotions refers to our subjective feelings or moods. Seldom will we ever be motivated to do anything, however, without some underlying emotion such as fear, or excitement, or the intense desire (not to fail at something for example) supplying the catalyst for the motivation to act in some way or other.
But, how do we separate and understand the two. I realised many years ago that unless I better understood my motivations and what drove me, that I would never have any control over myself. This necessitated a great deal of study of basic psychology, with particular regard to behaviour and drive.
‘Emotions give rise to motivations, give rise to behaviour’, but remember, there are few consistencies. Performance one day, whilst excellent, may be mediocre the next as performance is not determined by either learning, skills or abilities, but by our motivation and our self-belief at the time. If only skills were necessary for success no golfer would ever have a bad day. Motivation is what makes our behaviour and performance more than the sum parts of our physical abilities and learning sensations. We do not need to be professional psychologists, but we need an understanding of the subject must be part of our mental preparation.
We need to know what prompts us to action and, probably more importantly, what stops us achieving our goals, be it in a training session or, worse still, in the middle of a fight. Even when a person’s life is on the line they will simply run out of steam and give up. Yet, in every at such times there can be found more physical effort to dig out.
At this point in Fit To Fight I go over a number of the various theories of motivation from a psychology perspective, but they are probably not appropriate here with limited space and I would like to summarise my own basis for continual hard training. By far the earliest and strongest emotion that stimulates motivation is fear. In my case it was fear that I would lose fights, even from as early as I could remember and concern that other people were harder, more capable and more vicious than I was. As a motivating force it has driven me, good or bad, to work harder than most to reduce those feelings and control the situation. Remember a ‘controlled’ person controls situations!. As it has driven man himself to develop the ultimate in weaponry down the centuries, so with me, on an individual level, fear has driven me to train consistently at the highest level so as to be better than the next man.
I summarised for myself some years ago how I saw my own motivation and it simplified into three areas:
CONCERN
COMMITMENT
CONSCIENCE
Concern – that I cannot afford to let my training slip as I need to be better, faster, harder, stronger and more capable than the next man and for concern read fear.
Commitment - to myself, that to let up is letting my own self-image down and that commitment to oneself is the only one that ultimately sustains us. Over the years I’ve relied on my commitment to others to get me to training sessions as I know how difficult it is to train on one’s own, but I’ve also never lost sight of the fact that, ultimately, the time it will tell is when I’ve no-one to train with and the commitment lies just with myself.
Conscience – in that because of the habit forming nature of routine and the stress resulting from the importance I give to training, I am driven by conscience not to let up and miss sessions, or tone down the degree of difficulty. If I don’t get the number of hill sprints in one day because I don’t feel up to it, I know how motivational my conscience is so as to drive me to achieve the next time.
So where do aspects like goals and enjoyment come into it? Quite simply they don’t when it comes to core training. With this training and the stress element, there is little enjoyment . (In Fit To Fight I say that even on completion there is only a sense of relief, but If I’m honest there is a great high low satisfaction when the sessions been completed. There is also the enjoyment of executing good, fast and powerful techniques.)
Over the years I’ve been motivated, like many others in the martial arts world, to train for grades and to trudge up that ladder until I realised that having ten Dan grades wouldn’t save me from being knocked out by someone who practised deceit and had a good right hook. Chasing grades is at the bottom of the block of self-esteem and it is striven for, usually, so that a person can display it to others, more so than it is ever a sign of achievement for oneself. Particulars these days when there has crawled out of the woodwork tenth Dans and professors who couldn’t hold there own against anyone but their own students who they set up – the whole system is devalued and false.
On the open page of hard training there is no hiding place, unlike the closed book of incompetence and ‘supposed’ high grades who couldn’t ‘cut it’ for half an hour in a beginners ‘step’ class. For me my goals are now ‘tactical’ not ‘strategic’. By this I mean that I have no long term goals in training (e.g. a grading, team selection, major championship or contest), rather I am motivated by achievement of set times, sets, repetitions and achieved levels of performance. I am still driven rather than inspired.
Hope of Success versus Fear of Failure
What determines whether we avoid a difficult task such as a hard physical training session, or try our best to achieve it and what makes us set low goals which will never tax us – in this case easy training sessions.
A number of researchers have theorised that our motive to achieve is the result of a complex battle between ‘hope of success’ and ‘fear of failure’.
The theory is not too complicated it just takes too long to go into it in detail here, save to say that one problem for a lot of people is that there motivation for taking on a hard task is that it is so hard they feel no disgrace in failing. In fact people who fear failing will pursue goals which are both very easy, but also very hard for the reason we state above. Most people who have competed at martial arts will at some time have gone through similar feelings if they are honest and I know I’ve always wanted to go up against people who are exceptionally good as you are either a hero or martyr.
In the seventies I competed in the European Karate Championships in Hamburg and was beaten by Dominique Valera. Everyone I mention it to says the same thing – ‘there’s no disgrace in that’ – which may get me off the hook of losing, but doesn’t get away from the fact that I lost! The theory goes on to state that many people will avoid moderate tasks as there is no excuse for failing. Try and see yourself honestly and determine how you are motivated. In Fit To Fight I admit that in competitions I was more concerned with the avoidance of losing more than the inspiration of winning. This was amplified in team events where I seldom lost my fights, yet if I was in an individual competition the motivation was never as strong.
Self-analysis requires, unfortunately, honesty and there are very few people who, even if they are completely honest in every other area of their lives, can be honest about themselves. Martial arts can either be a hiding place from honesty about oneself, or an opportunity to examine ourselves clinically whilst under pressure and trying honestly to achieve hard training goals.