THE CRUX OF MOTIVATIONAL QUOTES

If you've been following my Facebook posts, you might have seen my regular #motivationalmonday posts: e.g. "You will never become who you want to be if you keep blaming everyone else for who you have become". "The struggle you're in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow". "Your mind is a powerful thing. If you fill it with positive thoughts, your life will start to change". 

I personally really like these quotes. In fact, I find them motivating and impelling. But quotes like this have one main crux: They might tell you positive, motivational, right things but they don't tell you the way of how you can reach them. 

If you are having troubles to motivate yourself, you might find such motivational quotes really annoying or frustrating. You already know that every training, every "struggle you're in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow". But it still doesn't change the fact that you are simply not psyched at the moment and find it hard to push yourself to go to the gym. It doesn't give you a solution for your current problem.

If you have self-doubts and no self-confidence you might find it really hard to deal with the quote: "You will never become who you want to be if you keep blaming everyone else for who you have become". Of course, it is easier to blame other things for what has happened in a competition. There are indeed certain "external" things - like weather conditions, route setting or changes in time schedules - that can't be foreseen or influenced. However, there are always some things can be improved and for which we can take over responsibility. To be able though, to recognise what we can improve, we also have to know the things we are good at and that are our strength. This has two reasons. First of all, if we only ever look at the negative things we cannot build up self-confidence which is essential to be learning from our own faults. Looking at the negatives only, can be really frustrating and counteractive our development. Blaming others is a natural, first reaction we tend to use to not harm ourselves or our confidence. However, real champions know their worth so that thinking about their potential and improvements doesn't put them down in their confidence, but they can actually learn from it. 

I can give you numerous more examples. Motivational quote can indeed be - as the name says - very motivating. However, we should always think of our individual solution of how to solve our problems. These quotes don't tell us the answer to this "how", we have to answer these questions ourselves (with or without a sport psychologist). 

Why will I still keep posting #motivationalmonday quotes? I believe it's a great stimulus for every athlete to reflect their own goals and find out "how" their way of pursuing their goals. If you have got things straightened out with yourself, it's no problem either as they have their impelling impact. 

Here are some questions that we can ask ourselves next time when we read a #motivationalmonday quote next time:

e.g. "Do something today that your future self will thank you for. Our actions and decisions today will shape the way we will be living in the future."

• What kind of big and small actions can that be?
• What do I want to have achieved/ experienced in 5 years from now/ in the future?
• What can I change in my current daily routine to be more likely to achieve these goals?
• What are my strengths, what brings me further?