Without motivation, dreams fade,
but with it, all things are possible

By David McElroy · August 23, 2018

We like to pretend that personal change is more difficult than it is.

There are some goals that are long shots and pipe dreams for most of us. Becoming an NBA basketball player. Being elected president. Winning a Nobel prize. Becoming a best-selling novelist. Even if you have the talent or physical ability to do those sorts of things, they might not happen. There’s a lot of luck involved — and very few get lucky enough to make it.

But for most of us, the changes we want are simpler. The goals are more achievable. Most of us look at our lives and wish for change. We wish we had more money. We wish we had partners who understand us and love us. We wish we lived somewhere we liked better. And some of us — such as me — just want to make some movies or find a platform to speak to the world in other ways.

But we don’t do those things. Why? We tell ourselves it’s just difficult to achieve what we want. We struggle to make the millions of dollars we’d like. We put up with relationships we’re unhappy with. We stay where we don’t want to be. And we keep dreaming about things instead of doing them.

I realized recently why this happens. At least for me. And maybe for you.

Change happens only when we have proper motivation.

Without motivation, you’re going to continue the same old patterns. You’re going to keep getting exactly what you’ve been getting. You’re going to keep cursing what you don’t like. You’re going to keep hating yourself for not making the change you want. You’re going to keep making excuses and pretending you have no choice. And you’re going to miss the opportunities for change that are offered to you.

Change isn’t really difficult. Seriously. Most of us claim we want change, but we rarely make those changes. Why? It’s because we don’t have motivation. We don’t want those things enough. We haven’t decided we deserve those things. We haven’t decided they’re important enough.

We don’t have a fire lit under us that burns us if we stay where we are.

I’m one of the most talented and capable people I know. Seriously. I don’t say that with pride. I say it with shame. Because I haven’t used the abilities I have to do any of the things I had hoped to do. I’ve coasted and taken the paths of least resistance in most cases.

But on those rare occasions when I have motivation, I can turn on a dime and use my abilities. Making my first short film was a perfect example.

I decided many years ago that I wanted to make films. I read books about it. I thought about how I might do it. I talked about it a lot. I did everything except actually pursue making something. I wanted the result, but I didn’t want it badly enough to take the leap and do something which scared me.

I played around with a couple of scripts. I talked to people about being involved in my project. But I allowed problems to stop me. Over and over again, I delayed doing anything about it.

Then I met a woman who I wanted to like me. She really liked the idea of me making films and she clearly was impressed that I wanted to make something. Within about three months of meeting her, I ignored all the “logical” problems and pragmatic issues that I had allowed to block my way — and I made a short film.

I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but because I wanted to do something for her, I had the motivation to set aside my fears and my problems. I found a way to shoot my short film. I got it edited and finished. I entered film festivals and got it into about 20 festivals. The film even won some awards.

The woman didn’t give me anything that I didn’t already have. She didn’t give me talent or money or confidence. She simply gave me someone to do the work for. I had motivation, so I did it.

She’s long gone from my life, but the principle remains. When we’re motivated, change comes easy. Achievements come pretty easily. We leap tall buildings and we do more than we thought we could do.

Without motivation, we stay on a safe, comfortable course — always avoiding the very things we know we need and want.

I know some of the things I want to do and be, but I don’t have the motivation to do them. Not yet. I’m sure some would lecture me that I shouldn’t need external motivation. They might even be right. It doesn’t matter, though. This is the simple reality for me. It’s how I’m wired.

I achieve goals when I want to give things to someone else. I do things when I know it would make someone proud of me. I do things when I know someone would appreciate those things. I’m motivated by the love and admiration of others.

I’ve said this before, but it still applies. I have a burning need to be able to make good things for somebody and to be able to take them to her and say, “I made this because of you.”

It doesn’t matter how much talent or ability or knowledge or education we have. Without the right motivation, none of that is worthwhile. Without the right motivation, there will always be an excuse why it wasn’t possible to reach my goals.

I need a family to do things for. I need somebody who loves me and counts on me. I need children who think I could do anything and eagerly watch in innocent wonder as I do what they expect.

Life would be easier if I simply wanted to do things for myself, but I don’t seem to be made that way. My motivation comes from somewhere else, if it’s going to come at all. I just accept that — and I’m eager for love and understanding and needs of my loved ones to give me the motivation to make dreams come true for all of us.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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