I think I’m just going to move it to a new topic about motivation.

1 - Even a motivated, dedicated person will have different levels of motivation over his lifetime. I can cite myself in this category. With kids, wife, stress, money problems, injuries… all sorts of things conspire together to stand in the way of a good training schedule. I can’t practice as much now as I would like to or did when I was younger. I go through cycles where I train more and when I train less.

2 - I’m not even sure you can “teach” or “inspire” motivation. I’ve seen hundreds of people that would talk the talk, but never got around to walking the walk. And walking the walk long term is what is needed in gongfu - skill acquired through hard work over time. As much as I’ve personally tried to push and lead people to try more and to drive themselves harder, it doesn’t seem to do much. I think I can set an example, I think I can occasionally get like minded people, but I’m just increasingly pessimistic about creating a motivated individual from one who is not.

3 - And honestly, our culture is progressively not promoting self-motivation. Many believe its preferable to go to a group aerobics, yoga or crossfit type class than it is to learn the lessons of forging oneself, the lessons of dedication and self-discovery one can obtain are left by the wayside though, in that case. Being led by the collar is not the same as boldly going forward under one’s own power. But then again, gaining spiritual, meaningful internal insight is not something that society is promoting or putting value on these days.

4 - I personally predominantly teach adults, not young kids in a wrestling program, or zit-faced teenagers at army boot camp. I can’t really force them to do anything. I remember trying to get my students to work towards certain goals over a 3 month period. Although they were all self-dictated goals, they had 3 months, they were concrete and obtainable… only one person out of about half a dozen got anywhere close to completing their goals. Disappointing, but instructive to me as well about the level of people’s motivation. Heck, I can’t even make people come to class on a consistent, regular basis and that is something that I think should be the bare minimum necessary.

5 - My innate nature is to just tell people to suck it up and get to it. When I was a kid if you had to do your chores, you had to. It wouldn’t matter to my Grandpa if I didn’t feel like chopping wood today, either I did it or I didn’t do anything else until I did. Whining is generally the name of the game these days. Whether it’s “I was tired,” to “I had something else to do,” to “I hurt my little thumb and can’t practice,” to the slightly more honest “I just didn’t feel like it” - It’s apparently easier to whine about it than to dig in and do it.

6 - Another cultural reason, many people, in an effort to preserve their own sense of responsibility and prevent damage to their ego, would always prefer to place the blame and responsibility on someone else, rather than themselves. You hurt yourself, you sue someone else. You didn’t learn that in school, you blame the teacher and the school. You’re fat, you blame society and “the man.” It’s always easier for people to feel good about themselves by shifting all this onto something or someone else.

There’s probably a lot more to this. I’ve got to get back to the kids now though.

How do you affect that? Not you specifically, but, what are your thoughts on that?