Does Money Motivate?

Know What You Want
Joe is a retail sales clerk at a busy city store. On his lunch break one day he went into a nearby bookstore. He bought a copy of a book about achieving success.
He read the book in three days. It outlined a success formula that starts with setting a goal to achieve a specific amount of money by a specific date. Joe decided on achieving seven million dollars in two years.
He recited and visualized the goal avidly every night as the book prescribed. He also took the other steps that the book suggested. In about two and a half months Joe gave up. He still wanted to make lots of money, but he couldn’t see how he could achieve it. The pile of money that he had visualized had about as much motive power as reading an Uncle Scrooge comic book.
The problem with this prescription for success is that visualizing a pile of cash will not motivate most people to achieve it. It is what money can buy that is the motivating force, and that is a personal thing. So, instead of setting a goal for earning seven million dollars, Joe should have first visualized what he wanted that money to buy. That is where the motive power comes from — knowing specifically what you want, be it specific material goods or a lifetime career.
The best way to drive your success is to know what you want. To want something is to believe that it is possible and that you are capable of achieving it. If you don’t think it’s possible you won’t put in the long term, consistent effort that’s required. You won’t take all the steps necessary.
If you don’t think you can achieve it, you won’t try. This is when having a healthy ego helps so much. You can focus on how you are going to achieve what you want, rather than the energy draining activity of wondering if you have the ability to achieve it.
The first thing you need to do, right this minute, is to know what you want — short, medium, and long term. For now, don’t worry if it is possible to you. Accept the fact that you want something that’s important to your life.
The first rule is to want something. Be specific. Then figure out how to get it.
“Desire is the essence of a man.” — Benedict Spinoza
“One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life.” — Alexander A. Bogomoletz
“The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.” — Ayn Rand
Ask yourself these questions:
• What do I want, and why do I want it?
• What stands in the way of achieving what I want?
• How am I going to achieve what I want?
Three Suggested Resources:
How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakien, a supremely practical series of steps.
5: Where Will You Be Five Years from Today by Dan Zadra, a book to widen your vision, based on your values.
Achieve Your Purpose, formerly titled Get What You Want, by Ken West, a self-analysis workbook to help you identify and stay focused on what you really want and develop an action plan to achieve it. Unlike so many self-improvement books which have a “primacy of consciousness” framework, this book is firmly based on the “primacy of existence.”
“The best day of your life is the day on which you decide your life is your own.” — Dan Zadra
