Your journey to personal greatness will be a painful but rewarding one. There will be times where you will be contemplating just giving up altogether. And trust me I know how that feels. The skills harnessed to overcome hurdles before you are the most important skills you will learn throughout this early period of your life.

 

The horrifying truth is that there are just some things I can't do for you and can’t make you do. You have to want to learn and to expand your knowledge. You must be independent enough to want to do well and push yourself every single day. After reading this you are most likely going to completely forget about it. But then who is going to push you? I bet you are feeling incredibly motivated whilst reading this extract, but I promise you most days you will not feel like this. On those days you must instead be disciplined, with the idea of building yourself to be a better individual. This is where intrinsic motivation comes in.

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Intrinsic motivation is engaging in an activity for its own sake. You enjoy the activity because it’s challenging, you strive to complete it because you gain satisfaction that you have accomplished something you never thought possible, not because you’ll get a reward. Extrinsic motivation refers to doing something not because you enjoy it, but because you want to earn a reward, accolades, or other prizes. It is the opposite of intrinsic motivation. In order to achieve great results in your GCSEs or virtually any other thing you are doing, you must first ask yourself why do you want to achieve outstanding results, not why your teachers want you to or even your parents. It must be intrinsic. You must understand that achieving outstanding results will not only set yourself up well for life but more importantly prove to yourself that you are capable of much more than you ever imagined. You simply must be motivated by the fact that you will be the best version of yourself. And I know that sounds very cheesy but it's true. It's all up to you, you have the power to turn yourself around by the choices you make.

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So where am I going with this? I want you to ask yourself some questions and act in response to your answers. Where are you in this world of extrinsic motivators or intrinsic motivators? Are you motivated? Are you intrinsically motivated? Have you been brought up to give in? Offer yourself and your peers these ideas. This is not something you are going to learn right after reading this even or in a few days. It's going to take time for you to justify why you are going to need to work so hard.

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Arriving at the end, sitting on the podium with the trophy in your hand, a ribbon around your neck. All those awards, all those accolades. They're great. That's awesome. But that is not what greatness is about. It's about the path. It's about the process. It's about the road you took in order to overcome obstacles along the way. What kind of character you develop as you get there. At the end of the day, all coaching, all leadership skills are about teaching people how to be better individuals. And at the end of it, once the goal is accomplished, we can look back and see ourselves being better people.

 

The trophy is that little seed you plant inside yourself. It's a gift you give to yourself. Next time you come up against a wall, the next time something tough comes your way, you know how to deal with it. I know I’m sounding quite repetitive and over-dependent on this but I truly believe that this is the direct route to being motivated even when you are feeling lazy.

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Miley Cyrus, personally one of my favorite artists expresses in one of her biggest hits “all about the climb” the difficult but rewarding journey to the top. It was only after she became one of the most well-known singers did she recognize the significance of the journey itself rather than the fame and other benefits that come with being one of the most well-known people on the planet. 

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Just decide what it's gonna be, who you are going to be, and why you want to do it. Once this is done the work becomes easy, and you realize that improving yourself daily becomes a habit that you truly gain satisfaction from.

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Regards,

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TheGOALKeeper