Allow me to explain,
As a hockey goaltender I play in arguably one of the most difficult positions in all of sports. One in which my exact positioning is so crucial that being off by as much as 1 or 2 inches can lead to the other team scoring, and sometimes all it takes is one goal to lose the entire game, or sometimes the season. Sometimes in games I get shelled, and it's all I can do to just keep getting up after each shot, or continuing to put effort in after 1 or 2 bad goals. It's becomes very easy to attribute how well you do with your entire self worth (I played like shit, I am shit).
Sometimes you can give each and every play every ounce of effort you have, and make no mistakes and still lose, and that is okay. This is probably one of the most important things to learn, and can be applied to almost any situation or sport: Your worth as a human being is not determined with your success, but rather your ability to persist, even when success eludes you.
Which brings me to motivation, i.e. your reason to persist. As I said earlier motivation comes from within, and what I mean by that is; regardless of external factors only you can decide whether or not to persist. Speeches can be written and pep talks given, but when it comes down to it, when every breath you take burns, when every muscle in your body aches, and hope seems lost, only you can decide to keep going. What reason can you call upon to get back up, to push yourself just a bit further? Look deep down and find that reason. Maybe it's your anger, maybe it's someone who told you that you can't, or maybe you just hate losing. Whatever it is, find your reason, call upon that reason. Bury your pain, and dig for that extra inch, take the best you can do and do better. Understand that all it takes is the decision, your decision to keep going. Nothing more and nothing less. So what's your reason?
Which brings me to a story:
I was playing some hockey earlier this year, and had a really bad game, I let in a bunch of bad goals and just played horribly. I came back to the dressing room all down on myself, when I heard two other players chatting. One was saying to the other that they hadn't seen him in a while. The other replied that his fiancee had been diagnosed with cancer 6 months prior and that she had passed away only the day before. I gave up after 2 or 3 bad goals and resigned myself to self pity after for the rest of the game, and here this man is, the day after his fiancee's death out playing hockey. We can choose to feel bad for ourselves or we can choose to move on.
