Maturity; your own type of Motivation

So lately I have been thinking a lot about motivation, and how much of it I lack. It’s been even hard for me to get myself just to sit down and write this, because I knew what it was going to make me think about, and I didn’t really like that. What is motivation? I have found that it can be quite simple, but also at the same time, very complicated. When I was younger, I was an avid softball player. I played on the best team in the city for three years in a row, and it was my favorite 4 months of the year. Softball meant the world to me. But along with softball, I was a major dancer. I did ballet, tap, jazz, and lyrical, but a couple of those I did twice over, taking more than one class. Needless to say, in the spring I was a very busy girl because along with the softball season, I would be getting ready for the spring recital, the thing that I had been working towards all school year. SO right now you’re probably wondering where the heck I am going with this, but don’t worry, it has a point.

School was and still isn’t my favorite thing. To say that I detest it probably would be an understatement. The sad thing is; I have an IQ of like 146. That’s a really high IQ. But because I have hated school so much my whole life, I never ever try. I refuse to do my homework, usually don’t pay attention, and just goof off the whole time. I never have had the motivation to do the work. Sure, I knew what was going to happen if I didn’t do well in school, I probably would end up going to community college, but to a high school freshman, that doesn’t mean much, that’s still four years away.

But now (here comes the tie-in) thinking back three years ago I wonder. I wonder what motivated me to stay in dance all year, and spend a total of about 25 hours a week in the studio, when every year it ended the same. The same with softball. What motivated me so much that all year I would practice, hoping to get better for next season, which only lasted about 3 and a half months. And when the season was going on, what motivated me to get up on Saturday mornings for seven o’clock practice in 30 degree March weather? What was it? And these two things ran at the same time. What motivated me to keep doing my best at both of them, at the same time? How come I could never even get myself to do my homework, but I could do that?

I see this problem with everyone that I meet. They have no problem being motivated to do something that they want to do, but if it is something that they just don’t like, they have no motivation whatsoever, even if they know they have to do it, or there will be consequences. Why is this? Where does this mentality come from? Why can’t we just force ourselves to do things that we don’t want to do? I guess that this post doesn’t really have an ending, because I am still pondering these questions, and probably will never find the answer. But I do want to say that sometimes these things do change. I don’t have as much of a problem with getting myself to do my school work now. So, maybe that is a change in character. I have changed a lot since I was 15. Maybe motivation is a characteristic of people, either they have it, or they have to mature until they find it. That’s what I believe. That it is a sense of maturity. Once you are mature enough to know that you have to do something, and you are mature enough to surrender yourself to doing it, you don’t need motivation anymore. You are your own type of motivation.