Motivational strategies going wrong, a kid’s story
I’m going to tell you a story about motivation, but for this I first need you to time travel with me to 1997, I was in primary school, attending to 4th grade. At that time I was an average student (a nine year old kid) who got as a present the alway ground breaking, history changer: The PlayStation.
This magnificent new toy, plus a small TV, all together in my room and lot of free hours had one logical, simple and effective outcome: I played a lot of video games. Honestly I became quite good at them. This wonderful time as a kid, who loves technology, computers and specifically video games had one single problem: I ran out of games pretty fast.
The Motivation: Wanting it all
I was in a crusade, I wanted more games so I could enlarge my skills, FIFA, then PES, Crash, Tomb Raider, Ace Combat, Metal Gear Solid. I wanted them all. The only problem with this was how to get my parents to get me as many games as I could possibly play, when they did not even understood my quest: I just wanted to play more video games.
The key to the kingdom were my parents, I had to convince them to buy me more games. I’ve no idea where did you grew up, but I was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At that time, with PlayStation 1, video games were only 10$ (definitely not the original ones), that magic number changed my childhood, for good or bad.
At my school, we had bi-monthly grades, for all of the classes with took (between 12 and 14), and we were supposed to take that home, get our parents signatures and take it back. The letters to identify how well we did were:
- M (Mal = Wrong)
- R (Regular)
- B (Bien = Good)
- MB (Muy Bien = Very Good)
- E (Excelente = Excellent).
Here was I, an average student, with some good grades, having 2 or 4 E and no R or M. My only responsibility as a kid was do well in School, and give or take I never had problems with that, apparently, neither did my parents. Nevertheless, that second bimester, two worlds collided and my mother had one single, yet effective idea.
“For every Excellent grade you get from now on, I’ll buy you a new video game”
That was simple math, every Excellent in my grades notebook worth 10$, a new video game. Next morning, my mom took me to the video game store and got me 4 brand new video games. The game was on!
I had to months go give maximum effort (or find the sweet spot) to get as many games as I could for the next term. The formula had to be balanced, I needed time to improve my grades and I wanted time to play my new video games.
The outcome: I became a mercenary
From that moment, until finished my primary school, my mother found a key to my excellence in the same way I found the key to having more video games, and tons of them. Since that specific moment when motivation meet the goals that worked for both parts.
I discovered, maybe at an early age, that challenge + motivation can lead you to places you won’t imagine for getting what you want. For the three remaining years of my primary school I had an average of 12 Excellent grades out of 14, every single bi-monthly report. You do the math of how many video games I got.Funny enough, that got me to the top three of the class. Nobody new what was happening, and the arrangement I got with my parents, but from average to great, had one single feature: motivation.
Now I know that what I did, was to play along with my variables to get what I wanted. I was getting payed for doing something that I actually had to do as a kid, do well in school. We could say I was kind of a mercenary at that time, but sometimes things have to simply work out, while being ethical.
Conclusion
Motivation can be the key to improve your performance, it will not matter if you’re a 9 year old kid or a grown up working your way out in the world. Finding the key to your motivation will help your willpower, your stamina, and your focus to achieve that milestone you want to get better at.
Is true that as a kid, the solutions can be easier. I didn’t needed to study more at home at that time, I just needed to pay more attention while I was at school and 90% of the job was done.
When I was a kid, what my mother did, lighted the spark to my peak performance, and showed me that if we’re challenged and motivated you can improve yourself to getting what you want.
The higher your goals are the more you’ll have to work for them. Motivation is a leverage that can help you lift even the heavier of the weights. It will not be always easy, and sometimes you won’t have someone to support you, but it’s the boost to your fuel that will keep you going even when you want to give up, just don’t stop.
