Motivation

I am going to start this blog with a video from one of the best motivational speakers the world has to offer. He goes by Kid President and he is a baller.

Kid President starts off this pep talk by saying, “The world needs to stop being boring.” As a student in the Greenville University Digital Media department, I immediately thought of the department slogan, “We don’t do boring.” This mantra has been repeated constantly since the first day I walked onto campus and will continue to be repeated for years to come. This simple statement reminds us to think outside of the box and motivates us to push ourselves. Kid President reminds us that we are ‘gooder than that.’ He is also quick to remind us that we need to keep going and not give up. We will not get anything accomplished if we give up when something gets hard. We have to push ourselves. To end the pep talk, Kid President motivates us to “create something that makes the world awesome.” For a nine year old, Kid President has some pretty good advice. Even though this was definitely scripted but I am choosing to ignore that.

Motivating other people, and yourself, can be very tricky. Not everyone is motivated by the same things and figuring out what motivates everyone can take a long time. When I was in high school, I coached sixth-grade volleyball with my dad. Let me tell you, it was not always easy to motivate the girls or myself. They were often rambunctious after a long day of classes and it was hard to center their attention. My dad and I quickly learned that we could not stay on one drill for too long because the girls would lose focus. We also learned that the team is motivated by food. Every now and then we would bring in cookies for them to eat after practice. Knowing that there would be cookies after practice, the team was more excited and ready to work harder. It also motivated me to be more patient with them when they started to goof off because I also got to eat cookies after practice. My dad and I tried to motivate the girls in a positive way. When I played volleyball, our motivation was either do better or start running. My team was motivated by fear and we wanted to make sure that the girls we coached were not. I started playing volleyball in fifth grade and we lost a ton of players over the years and I think a large part of it was because of negativity and motivating with fear. I think that a lot of the girls had a negative attitude towards volleyball because they were motivated by fear and my dad and I made sure that was not the case for the girls we coached. Everyone is motivated by different things but food is definitely a motivator that works for a lot of people. Some positivity and encouragement goes a long way, too.

Motivating yourself and those around you is definitely not always easy, but it is possible. Like most things, it takes a lot of work. Motivating someone can be as simple as sending them a nice text or email. Sometimes, all it takes to motivate someone is a word of encouragement or a phrase that reminds them they are awesome. Other times, a large pizza and some soda does the trick. If you or someone you know is motivated by funny and cute videos, you can find the link to the rest of Kid President’s videos on SoulPancake‘s YouTube channel.