MM227 - Motivation or Maturity

We hear people extolling the virtues of motivation all time. Some people make a lot of money writing books and speaking about motivation. However, motivation is not always the answer. Perhaps what is lacking in our family, workplace, or community is not motivation, but maturity.

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello, welcome back to Morning Mindset podcast. Thank you once again for sharing this with other people for letting your friends and family members and co-workers know that there is such a thing as the morning mindset podcast, you know, there's at least one person in your life that could benefit from this. Recently, I was listening to a friend of mine who has his own podcast and he said something that struck a chord with me and I wrote it down and I wanted to make the comparison that he mentioned something about doing what's right for instance in the fitness world.

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We are constantly as coaches and trainers in the fitness world are constantly trying to motivate. Our clients or our teams or whatever. If you are the coach of a team whether it's basketball or football or whatever coaches are constantly trying to motivate their players trying to you know, get them pumped up psyched up. But motivation doesn't last forever motivation is actually temporary. There's external motivation where someone stands in front of you and they give you that cheerleader speech, you know, they're like "Rah, rah, we're going to do it"  and all that and go and so they're trying to motivate you from the outside and then there's motivation that you get from the inside motivation when you psych yourself up, you're like, okay self.

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We're going to do this. We're going to get it done hoo-ha, and one of the things that my friend talked about he said he said motivation isn't always the answer. To do what's right and what you need to do and his example was every day I get up in the morning and I brush my teeth and I brush my teeth before I go to bed and sometimes in the middle of the day depending he said I'm not motivated to brush my teeth. I don't look forward to it.

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I don't wake up in the morning saying alright, I get to brush my teeth. Now. Wow, that's awesome. I can't wait till I get home so I can brush my teeth. We're not motivated about that. But what are we doing? Well, because you said well we do it because we were taught to we were taught basic oral hygiene by our parents or dentist or a combination of the both or whatever and so we don't do the teeth brushing routine because we're motivated we do it actually because we're mature.

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Often we will hear trainers and mode and not moderate trainers and coaches and people you know, and we go to work. I bet you that several of you in my audience work somewhere where they have those motivational posters, right? They got the posters with the ocean setting or the mountain setting or the beach setting or whatever or maybe a fighter jet or something and they're up all over the place in your work. It's they're there to motivate you right, and we can motivate ourselves and others can motivate us, but it doesn't last that long. You say "Well when it comes to doing what's right, doing the correct thing-" Let's say super mundane tasks, right? Super mundane tasks.

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It's Saturday morning and imagine that there's not snow on the ground imagine the springtime or summer. It's Saturday morning and you really really really really want to go out and enjoy your favorite recreational activity. Whatever. Happens to be tennis or golf or Trapper skeet shooting or hiking or biking or whatever you want to do that and you can't wait to do that. You're really excited and motivated to get on your bike or fill in the blank, right? You wake up Saturday. It's the sun's out. It's a nice temperature. It's not raining you really you're motivated to do what it is you want to do? But you also look in your yard and you realize that it rained, you know, Monday Tuesday Wednesday the yards finally dry.

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The grass is tall and it really needs to be cut but you're motivated to do what it is you want to do what you like to do? You don't like mowing the lawn. It's not fun, but you do it. What makes you before you get on your bike or you go grab your motorcycle or your golf clubs or tennis? Whatever what makes you go out there in a garage fire up the freaking lawn mower and go. Mow. The lawn first. Is it motivation? Are you doing it? Because and you're an adult and that's the thing, you know, when you're an adult you do what you want to do. No one's going to come to your house and yell at you.

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You know, your spouse might yell at you your spouse might say hey, when are you going to get that done? But no one's going to stand over you and make it happen. It happens or it doesn't base upon what's in between your ears. What's going on in between your ears? They're in your own mind. So if you're not mowing the lawn if you're not and I use it just as an example, but because of motivation why are you doing it? You're not going to make any extra money. No was going to give you an attaboy it just something that needs to be done.

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Why do you do it you do it because it's the mature thing to do because a child wouldn't but an adult knows that they should? If we examine the world that we live in if we examine whether it's our workplace or our communities or our families, if we examine them and we find shortcomings, it may not know a lot of people make a lot of money writing books and doing videos and all that about motivation or now. How can I motivate you to make sales and all that stuff, right?

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Maybe that the problem that we're encountering, whether it's with our families or our workplace or Community or what have you? It's not a lack of motivation. Maybe the problem is a lack of maturity. Who are you to tell me? Well, answer the question for yourself. Why do we do the things that need to be done? Even though they are mundane or boring or tedious or whatever. We take out the trash and we mow the lawn and we brush her teeth. We don't brush your teeth because we love doing it and we're motivated.

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Maybe there are some people out there that like literally wake up in the morning and they're psyched to get in there and brush their teeth. I mean, that's what we do with our children, right? That's how you get you. How do you get little kids excited about brushing their teeth? They're not mature yet. So what do you have to do? Well, I know when I was young either you got superhero or cartoon hero or whatever toothbrushes, right? You got a Scooby-Doo toothbrush or a Batman toothbrush or Spider-Man toothbrush or whatever you take the toothbrush and you make it a, you know, exciting for the kid.

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You get them their own special little toothbrush and Cup Kit and with the Batman thing and the Spider-Man thing and all that and basically, you're applying external motivation. You're trying to get them excited about it because they're not yet mature enough to understand that it's just something that they need to do. How often do we see that in our own world? People don't do what's supposed to be done. They don't accomplish the mission that needs to be accomplished and they expect others to provide them with motivational tools or tricks or what-have-you to get it done.

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Maybe I'm just throwing this out there just saying it could be that the problem is not a lack of motivation at all. It could be that the problem is a lack of maturity. Lack of mental maturity on that person's part so examine that think about that as your day progresses, you want to live a positive and productive life. Sometimes you need to do it without a cheerleader. Sometimes you need to get it done without coaches without trainers without cheerleaders, and what makes you do what needs to be done even though it's not fun or exciting is maturity. Alright, help your children, help your teenagers to learn and develop that. I am your host Paul Markel, and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.