Motivation

Where does it really come from? Does it come from a fear, from a dream, from a song, from a parent, from a lost one, from a story, or from somewhere else? I think every day we find motivation from different sources in an attempt to improve and grow. 
 
There are five levels of a hierarchy of needs that must be met: Psychological, Security, Social, Esteem, and Self Actualization. There are four theories of motivation: Incentive, Drive, Arousal and Humanistic. There are three components of motivation: Activation, Persistence and Concentration. There are two types of motivation: Intrinsic and Extrinsic. And according to Eminem only one shot to get them all right. 
 
For training purposes, songs hold a particularly high spot in the motivation ranking (there are 6 ranked). If hearing any of the Rocky theme songs elicit an image of you being an underdog beating an unbeatable challenger, then I’d say that was motivating. Rocky won every big match by the way, why wasn’t he ever favored? The Rocky series is too easy to point to as an example of motivation. Movies are ranked 2. How about Rudy? It’s a great movie about going after what you want and not giving up no matter what. Hoosiers is one of my all time favorites. Of course the sports stories lend themselves better to what I’m attempting.    
 
My mii (who apparently looks just like me), can do all sorts of things in a cartoonishly athletic kind of way without a care. The real me needs to find motivation daily to want to continue on this path (and do things in an equally cartoonish way) to finish an ironman. 
 
My motivation for now is pretending I’m watching a movie of myself (with me playing me as the main character) and directing how I want that character to end up. I’m pretty certain at this point, he’s giving everything he’s got to succeed at his goal. All we can hope for is that our own character goes through adversity (life) only to overcome that giant foe in our life. My movie is See Tom Tri. I hope you watch (read the script of) this movie and find a motivation you wouldn’t have found otherwise.