The article in The Athletic about Carl Hendrick and motivation is interesting precisely because it pushes against a very familiar idea: that motivation comes first and achievement follows naturally afterwards. Hendrick argues almost the opposite. Small experiences of success, he says, are often what create motivation in the first place.

There is something valuable in that argument. Teachers, coaches, and trainers often overestimate the power of inspirational speeches, slogans, or “mindset messaging.” Simply telling people to persevere rarely guarantees that they will. In practice, motivation is often built through carefully structured experiences of progress. The couch-to-5K example in the article captures that quite well. Small achievable steps create visible improvement, and visible improvement makes people want to continue.

But the article also risks oversimplifying the relationship between motivation and achievement by presenting it almost as a reversal of the traditional view. At one point, Hendrick is quoted as saying:

“It’s not that you need to be motivated in order to get the achievement.”

That formulation is rhetorically powerful, but probably too strong.

The problem is not that motivation leads to achievement or that achievement leads to motivation. The research literature increasingly suggests that both processes influence each other continuously.

Motivation affects whether people start, how much effort they invest, how long they persist, how they cope with setbacks, and which strategies they use. Those behaviours can improve performance and learning outcomes. At the same time, experiences of success strengthen self-efficacy, competence beliefs, and future motivation. In other words, achievement can feed motivation back into the system.

It is better understood as a reciprocal cycle:

• motivation can increase engagement and persistence,
• engagement and persistence can increase achievement,
• achievement can then strengthen motivation further.

Ironically, even Hendrick’s running example illustrates this reciprocity. He already had enough motivation to buy the shoes, install the app, and begin running. The early successes then reinforced that initial motivation.

None of this means Hendrick’s broader point is wrong. In fact, educational research has long suggested that competence and perceived progress are among the strongest drivers of sustained motivation. The danger lies more in replacing one oversimplification with another.

For years, education has sometimes leaned too heavily on the “motivate first” model: posters on walls, slogans about grit, assemblies about perseverance, and the assumption that students who fail simply lack enough drive. Hendrick is right to challenge that.

But it would be equally misleading to conclude that motivation merely emerges from success.

The relationship between learning, achievement, and motivation is messier and more dynamic than either extreme suggests. Small successes matter enormously. So do prior interest, goals, expectations, identity, support, and context. Motivation is not simply the engine nor simply the result. Often, it is both at the same time.

That may sound less catchy than a Michael Jordan commercial. But it is probably closer to how learning actually works.