If You Aren’t Motivated, You Need a Bigger Dream
When College Football coach Lou Holtz was unemployed and looking for a coaching job, his wife inspired him to write a list of 107 things he wanted to do before he passed away.
He had big dreams on that list, including meeting the Pope, a sitting American President, and winning a College Football National Championship.
He accomplished all of those things and more on route to crossing 102 of those 107 goals.
Holtz is 85 now, but there’s no reason he can’t get those last 5.
Let me ask you, do you have a list?
Better yet, do you have a big dream?
Big dreams give us the energy we need to accomplish big things in life.
Maybe you are unmotivated; you’re stuck (or feel stuck because no one is ever truly stuck) at a job that you hate) Perhaps you’re in a passionless relationship. Or you are experiencing health problems.
Energy is the key to changing all of that.
It takes energy to change the direction of your life. Desires give you the power and inspire you more than your needs.
A perfect example is someone getting divorced and deciding to hit the gym or change their life in some meaningful way. They needed to go to the gym before the other person walked out, but the desire to attract someone new was more robust than the need to address their health, so that’s why you’ll see them at the gym.
You might need to start a few side hustles because you don’t have enough money to pay your bills or debts. But if those debts aren’t hindering your life, that isn’t enough to motivate you to start a money-making activity.
But if you want the new AirPods or take a trip somewhere exotic, that’s enough to motivate you to break out of your comfort zone.
We need dreams that excite us and motivate us to wake up early and work on them.
Paying the rent is not motivational. You do it because you have to, not because you want to. Sorry.
Buying a rental property is a bigger dream that energies you enough to break through and keep going past the obstacles.
Here are three signs that your dream is not big enough.
- You’ve done it already — You don’t need a lot of inspiration for things you’ve already done. You can lean on your experience.
- You don’t feel an emotional attachment to it — emotions are our engine; they can propel us forward if we use them correctly. If your dream is not emotion-stirring, it’s not a big dream and probably something you should get out of the way.
- You can do it alone — if you don’t need help, the dream is not big enough. The bigger the vision, the more people you will need. Don’t be afraid to set big goals that will require the assistance of others.
The bigger the dream, the more it will require of you. You don’t have to write down 107 things, but I challenge you to have something that motivates you to do more than you’ve ever done.
