Opinion: Impossible dreams create real motivation

Sometimes the most demotivating experience is to have to sit through a “motivational” talk. I tried to keep this in mind as I spoke to a group of students recently. Because the dean asked me to speak on “motivation,” I reviewed a previous speech on the subject and clearly recognized that, in my old talk, I didn’t motivate anyone to do anything. I can’t believe I espoused such hokey crap.

Generally, we think of a motivational talk as the speech from the coach in the locker room before or during the big game. Or it could be a sales manager whipping her team into frenzy to hit a short-term sales objective. Those kinds of talks rarely provide more than a temporary jolt of energy and, if they do work, they don’t work for long.

It’s taken me a few decades to understand that motivation isn’t about talk. It’s about action.

What motivates you is very different from what motivates me, which is why this is such a difficult subject. Motivation is as personal as your sexual self – meaning that you decide what, or who, turns you on. If you can’t get turned on, you won’t be very motivated.

The company you work for will try to make you think that it is doing things to motivate you. The boss will invest in some audio or video courses or, from time to time, bring in a hot-shot speaker who’s generally worth seeing for the jokes, but that’s about it. Chances are, after they run you through their motivational programs, you’ll be no more motivated than when you started. This is because they omit the single most important component of motivation: the indefinable things that rev you up and make you give more of yourself.

Note also, there are many companies who’ve stopped trying to motivate employees. Instead, they play a numbers game where they hire a lot of people and simply wait for the good ones to float to the top. Ultimately, the people who get to stay are the self-motivated ones. We all know that loyalty between employers and employees isn’t what it used to be, so, if you’re not making an effort to protect your job, someone else will come along and take it. Welcome to the new world economy.

So, if your employer doesn’t bother to motivate you, who will? Find the nearest mirror. Your basic business survival requires you to practice self-motivation.

Here is the crazy part. Most of us don’t know what really motivates us. We assume it’s money when in reality it’s the sense of security that an accumulation of money brings. Or we imagine we’re motivated by recognition when, in reality, we are seeking a message of acceptance that, for whatever reason, Mom or Dad failed to offer us.

Deep down, we’re still little kids yearning for someone wiser to step forward and tell us what to do. Inevitably, the wisest among us turns out to be a disappointment. Permit me to quote scripture, please: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom.” While I’m lumbering down the risky path of biblical interpretation, let me remind you that the first motivational speech was the temptation talk to Eve, the one offering her The Forbidden Fruit. You’ll recall it was the Devil who made her do it.

The story illustrates that there’s a lot more self-motivation involved when we’re told we can’t have something, which brings me to what I told those students: “You need to figure out exactly what you want that, under normal circumstances, you can’t have or get. You must establish your Dream Things – specific items, goals and aspirations that are so out-of-reach you don’t think you could ever accomplish them.”

Then, I played the hit song from “Man of La Mancha” that urges them “to dream the impossible dream.” They gawked at me like I wandered in from a lengthy stay on Planet Mongo.

I wrapped up with, “If you’re going to go to the trouble to self-motivate, why not aim for the moon, reach for the stars and go for the whole enchilada?”

You could have heard a roach spit.

Then, I mentioned a few people who, because they aimed high, made a difference. I named Muhammad, Isaac Newton, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Confucius, St. Paul, Marie Curie, Johann Gutenberg, Christopher Columbus, Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, Moses, Martin Luther and Martin Luther King.

What would the world be like today if any of these people had been under-motivated? How different would our lives be had they lowered their expectations? Do you suppose they knew, while they lived, that in the year 2005 we would recognize them as some of the most influential people in human history?

In truth, the only common denominators you can ascribe to them are these: they passionately managed their circumstances, operated on blind faith and, doubtless, achieved the impossible. I’m glad I dropped the names. It got the students’ attention.

Things really started humming when they took turns at the chalkboard, where each student wrote out, precisely, what they really wanted. Then we used our collective imagination to list the circumstances required in order for the student to accomplish their Dream Things. Most of them were plagued with self-doubt at first but quickly warmed to the idea that, by changing their circumstances, they removed barriers. They agreed to focus on creating new circumstances – educationally, physically, mentally and spiritually.

Self-motivation is easier when you sense you’re closing in on something you never dreamed you could do or have.

The premise of using self-motivation to change one’s circumstance is a rather one-dimensional idea that, like most ideas, works best when acted upon. There are a lot of holes in the theory, but, for a short time I watched a bunch of bright students scribbling madly, as if their future hinged on it.

Wouldn’t it be wild if one of them turned out to be a new millennium Einstein, Gandhi or Isabella I? Weirder things have happened.

If nothing else, I got myself back on the hunt for my Dream Thing. I hope you find yours.

Bob May is former managing partner of five local radio properties and is now engaged in the publishing of large-print phone directories in about 50 small towns in southwest Missouri.