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Determine your ending
To me, motivation is understanding why you want to do something remarkable or at least why that thing is meaningful to you. I had played basketball for forty minutes when I told my teammates I would play in the NBA, and I didn’t even know what that was, the NBA, at that time. Six months later, I wrote that into my high school yearbook saying that I was going to play in the NBA and make a lot of money. It’s a stupid, I’m a little ashamed of how kind of teenaged and childish it is, but success does require a clear, vivid, and bold picture of the future. It’s part of what makes all the dull, hard stuff worth it.
A lot of what we do to achieve amazing things is mundane and dull and difficult and challenging and utterly unexciting. But, also, part of the reason you do such a bold vision is because, as human beings, stories are better told when the destination is something difficult, challenging, and exciting. All the good stories we ever hear, whether it be Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, my favorite, they wouldn’t be compelling if the objective was simple. Having something difficult and challenging as an objective is important. Everybody told me that a fat kid from Stockport who liked eating pie and reading books was hardly a candidate for the world’s best basketball league. But to me, it was compelling because I could see in my head me playing alongside those epic heroes of basketball I was at the time watching. People need a compelling vision, something bold, something that perhaps others will laugh at, scoff at because the story of our achievement feels more meaningful when it is slightly frightening.
Chart the journey
In science fiction, they have this concept called the future history. It’s the reason why, when you read the best of science fiction, it’s not like it’s on paper or even a voice in your head, but you are transported into the future. And the way the author describes it is as if they’ve been there, seen it, and are telling you about it. So it’s as if it’s a real experience, and that’s why it’s so compelling. So, yeah, create that vivid picture of the future. Make it real. Make it so that you can turn around and live in this vivid moment for a second.
But then you say, what needs to be true to get to that? And not just what needs to be true in two years or three years’ time if it’s a long-term vision, but right now, today, what needs to be true? What one small step will take me towards this vision or goal that I have? What will take me towards this compelling future? And what will I need to do tomorrow? What muscles will I need to build? What skills will I need to develop in order that in six months or a year’s time, I can do something even more consequential that drives me towards what I want to achieve?