Do it because you love it

There are only a few days left of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and by now we’ve probably all heard that Michaele Phelps has won 375 gold medals (kidding), Shawn Johnson and Nastia Luikin were trading back and forth for who would win gold and who would win silver in women’s gymnastics, and the US continues to win gold, silver, and bronze in the track and field events. Here’s a chart that shows the medal count so far:

I can comment on all of the competitions I’ve mentioned because they’ve been broadcast on TV - they have high visibility and a wide audience appeal; in other words, they make the ratings and sell the advertising.

But looking at the other competitions on the list, there are a lot of victories and medals that we don’t know anything about unless we do some digging:

• Equestrian - The US Equestrian team (Will Simpson, Mclain Ward, Laura Kraut, and Beezie Madden) tied with Switzerland for the gold medal in Team Jumping.
• Shooting - Walton Eller took the gold in the Men’s Double Trap Final, and Vincent Hancock won gold in the Men’s Skeet Shooting final.
• Rowing - The US Women’s eight-person rowing team won out over the Netherlands and Romania to take the gold medal.
• Sailing - Tim Wadlow and Chris Rast took gold in the 49er - Skiff category for sailing.

These are just a few of the ‘other’ gold that the US has won, and unless you’re really into these sports (or love digging to the Olympics website, like I do), you’ll probably never hear about any of these.

So if the athletes winning the gold in these competitions may never get any TV airtime, if their names are only mentioned while buried deeply in a website, what actually is motivating them to travel halfway around the world to compete?  My educated guess is that they love what they do, and they are self-challenged to do the best they can do no matter who sees them, or what accolades they receive. By saying this, I’m not discounting that the athletes who do get the press are motivated by the visibility - on the contrary, they wouldn’t have gotten where they are without lots of hours in the gym, on the court, when there were no cameras on them, and no reporters milling about snapping pictures. All I’m saying is that given that there are very few external motivators that drive most of these athletes, the motivation to succeed must come from inside them.

This idea of internal motivation doesn’t only apply to world-class athletes. You and I can (and should) also have this type of internal motivation to succeed in our health goals, our exercise goals, and our relationships with our wife and children. (By the way, I include my relationship with Christ and how He wants me to live as an internal motivation). In the short term, external motivation (like a health scare, a tense argument with a spouse) can drive us to take action; however, unless that motivation is ultimately driven from within, we’ll more than likely fail eventually. I can state the truth of this from my own life. Until I made the decision for myself that I needed to get in better shape in order to live better and honor God with my body, every diet plan or exercise regimen I attempted eventually petered out - the external motivation went away, and so did my desire to continue.

So for me, the bottom line is this - in order for any goal to be successful in the long term, you need to determine how you’ll be motivated to succeed if, when you complete your goal, no one notices or gives you any kudos for completing it. Like those athletes I’ve listed above, you need to be able to say ‘I love what I do, and would do it whether anyone notices or gives me a medal for it.’ If you can do that, then you’ll have a much better chance at being successful, and being fully satisfied in that success.