The 3 Pillars of Building Motivation
One of the three foundations of my program at Champion for Life Training is teaching people how to be highly motivated long-term. The process involves developing the 3 pillars of building motivation: mental toughness, self-regulation, and positive emotion.
The 1st Pillar: Mental Toughness
The 1st pillar of mental toughness is the most basic element and is about persevering past adversity, being stubborn in the face of challenge, and having the ability to “stick it out” when things get uncomfortable. Mental toughness and the mental “resistance” required to build mental toughness use up a sort of mental energy, a limited energy supply consumed during times of self-control.
The 2nd Pillar: Self-Regulation
This brings in the 2nd pillar of self-regulation, which is about developing the ability to resist and change your own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in a more energy-efficient way. This “fuel efficiency” is increased through practiced use of self-control in as little as 15 minutes a day. But just as a fuel-efficient car still needs continued fuel to run, so too does motivation. This fuel is created by the 3rd pillar of positive emotion.
The 3rd Pillar: Positive Emotion
Positive emotion is what creates and replenishes the mental energy which then supplies self-regulation to help power mental toughness (read that again). Think of this like a car heading towards a destination. The destination is your goal, the route to the destination is motivation, mental toughness is the car to get you there, self-regulation is the fuel efficiency and performance of the car, and positive emotion is the fuel for the car. From this analogy, you can see that mental toughness is an important part to reach your destination, but it requires the other two pillars of self-regulation and positive emotion to get there without breaking down or running out of fuel. Things like burnout, mental fatigue, and lack of motivation are all a direct result of not experiencing enough positive emotion.
Think about your own journey and destination and ask yourself if you have all three components of motivation. If you want a more structured plan to help you build these components, shoot me a message and we’ll talk about getting you started on the program.
