In sports, Motivation is the foundation all athletic effort and accomplishment. Without your desire and determination to improve your sports performances, all of the other mental factors, confidence, intensity, focus, and emotions, are meaningless. To become the best athlete you can be, you must be motivated to do what it takes to maximize your ability and achieve your goals. The same is true to reduce your accent. Motivation, simply defined, is the ability to initiate and persist at a task. Motivation will impact performance. It is also the only factor over which you have control. Motivation will directly impact the level of success that you ultimately achieve. If you are highly motivated to improve your performances, then you will put in the time and effort necessary to raise your game and your speech.
In training and competitions, athletes arrive at a point at which it is no longer fun. The work starts to get tiring, painful, and tedious. It is also the point at which it really counts. Many athletes when they reach this point either ease up or give up because it’s just too hard. But truly motivated athletes keep on going. If you’re truly motivated to be successful, you better make sure you’re doing the work necessary to achieve your goals. This is true in every skill you want to improve.
Focus on your long-term goals. To be your best, you have to put a lot of time and effort into your sport. To improve your speech, you need to put a lot of time and effort into practicing. But, there are going to be times when you don’t feel that motivated. When you feel this way, focus on your long-term goals. Remind yourself why you’re working so hard. Imagine exactly what you want to accomplish and tell yourself that the only way you’ll be able to reach your goals is to continue to work hard.
Try to generate the feelings of inspiration and pride that you will experience when you reach your goals. Focus you on what you want to achieve, and generate positive thoughts and emotions that will get you through. Imagine yourself speaking with clear speech. If you are working on saying the “th” sound correctly, imagine yourself saying “thank you” clearly with a “th” not a /t/ or /s/ sound.
Have a training partner. It’s difficult to be highly motivated all of the time on your own. There are going to be some days when you just don’t feel like putting in the effort. It’s easier to remember to use the skills you are learning if you a conversation partner who will encourage you to produce the American sounds that you are working on and will signal you if you didn’t say it correctly. Even if you’re not very psyched to practice on a particular day, you will still put in the time and effort because your partner is there.
Motivational cues. A big part of staying motivated involves generating positive emotions associated with your efforts and achieving your goals. A way to keep those feelings is with motivational cues such as inspirational phrases and photographs. If you come across a quote or a picture that moves you, place it where you can see it regularly such as in your bedroom, on your refrigerator door, or in your locker. Look at it periodically and allow yourself to experience the emotions it creates in you. These reminders and the emotions associated with them will inspire and motivate you to continue to work hard toward your goals. If your goal is to work for a large corporation, have a great office, have a certain profession use pictures depicting these things to motivate you.
Techniques to increase motivation:
1. Develop a reasonable goal and a reasonable plan.
2. Create a list of reasons why it’s important to you to reach your goal, and read this list (even when you don’t feel like it) every morning and whenever when you’re tempted to deviate from your plan. (I want a promotion; I want a job; a want a better job; I want people to stop asking me “where are you from?”; “I don’t want to feel embarrassed when I speak”, etc.)
3. Give yourself credit whenever you engage in behaviors designed to help you reach your goal or avoid behaviors that would steer you away from your goal.
4. Set up a plan to be accountable (to yourself or to another person or group).
5. Respond to sabotaging thinking. (I’m too tired today, I’ll practice tomorrow.” You’re going to be tired tomorrow, too, so perhaps you need to practice 15 minutes after lunch.)
6. Identify obstacles and problem solve in advance.
7. Prepare for feelings of discouragement and disappointment.
Decide on how you will reward yourself when you reach sub-goals. (see a movie; have a treat, etc.)
8. When you get off track, remember to get back on track.
It is important to learn these skills so you’ll be more easily able to boost your motivation and willpower when the initial steam and novelty inevitably wear off and the going gets tough.
Comparing people who tend to give up easily with people who tend to carry on, even through difficult challenges, researchers find that persistent people spend twice as much time thinking, not about what has to be done, but about what they have already accomplished, the fact that the task is doable, and that they are capable of it. – Sparrow 1998
The heart of motivation. A final point about motivation. The techniques I’ve just described are effective in increasing your short-term motivation. Motivation, though, is not something that can be given to you. Rather, motivation must ultimately come from within. You must simply want to participate in your sport. Or you must simply really want to improve your speech and do what you need to do to get there.
By Ela Britchkow, Speech and Language Pathologist
©2016 Ela Britchkow