Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation

Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it’s business, or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don’t love what you’re doing and you can’t give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You’ll be an old man before you know it.
– Al Lopez

When it comes to being motivated, you can be intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. Someone who is extrinsically motivated focuses on the external things. Extrinsic motivatorsinclude things like money, fame, or making other people happy.

On the other hand, someone who is intrinsically motivated focuses on internal things. Essentially, being intrinsically motivated means doing something that you love to do, and being intrinsically motivated is a much stronger means of motivation.

There are very few things in life that you will encounter that are perfect one hundred percent of the time. You are going to have days that are harder than others.

Similarly, there’s going to be aspects of wrestling that you don’t like. Things like cutting weight, giving up your weekends to a tournament, and having to go to practice when you know you have a paper due the next day can be hard to deal with.
When you encounter those aspects, it can be easy to become so wrapped up in being mad about the aspects of the sport that you don’t like that you end up losing sight of the aspects of the sport that you love.

When you start to face these obstacles, the extrinsic motivators seem to lose their ability to get you inspired. Wrestling is too hard of a sport to do it for some sort of external reason. The people who are passionate about the sport are the ones who are able to push through the difficult times because they know they are doing what they love to do. They are intrinsically motivated.

To reach your full potential as a wrestler you have to be passionate about wrestling. Being passionate does not mean that everything is always perfect, nor does it mean that you love every single aspect of the sport. However, it is vital that you focus on the aspects of the sport that you love, whatever those aspects are.

Focusing on what you love about wrestling will motivate you to work harder even when you face adversity. So, shift your attention to what you love about wrestling, and do not dwell on the aspects that you don’t.