I'll Give You A Million Dollars...

Almost any person can be persuaded to do something for a cash reward. Another person might be persuaded to do something based on emotions or feelings. Others, however, accomplish things simply because whatever they wanted to do is something that needs to be done. There are so many legitimate goals (personal, scholastic, work-oriented, etc…) that are often cast to the side because we have no independent motivation and/or no dependent, external motivation driving them. Let’s put this into perspective. A well-dressed, legitimate, man walks into your living room, unlatches his briefcase that he has placed on the table, and, upon opening the lid, allows you to look longingly upon $1,000,000 in cash. He looks at you and says “All of this money is yours if you finish your goal by the date that you said you would.” The deal would be over—case closed—whatever goal you had so little (if any) motivation for, all of a sudden is the sole purpose of life, motivated externally by money.


There are hundreds of things that lie dormant on our to-do lists like little reminders to ourselves that we will “one day get around to it”, “become more mature one day and drop this habit”, or just so that we can say that we do have goals, even if they never get worked on, let alone accomplished. These may be resolutionesque or they may be work related, but their existence is the one universal constant with the vast majority of people in our society and is therefore not today’s order of debate; on the other hand, it would do well for us to all, individually, look objectively at our lives and find what we are putting on the permanent backburners—find those goals that, since they never get done, define our procrastination (what irony that our procrastination is defined by our goals…just the goals we never do). Before one can move into working on a problem, the problem must be first understood to exist.

“I had decided to stop smoking,” my friend Tim was telling me the other afternoon, “and I was for sure going to stop this weekend, but there was a party that I had to go to, and I knew that I was going to want to smoke, so I decided to wait till next weekend, but I think there is another party…” And the story went on like this for a few more minutes of haggard head nodding and the complete depreciation of all the, to me, obvious advice I could give. I realized while my friend began describing the logistics of one of the parties that Tim was not unmotivated but was, actually, devoid of any positive motivation. The motivating factors were present (in this case: healthy mouth, lungs, teeth; save money; feel better/accomplished), but the motivation itself had completely vacated his life leaving accepted stagnation to fill the place it had once graced with eloquence and vivacity.

Tim’s problem may not be my problem, but then again, my problems may not be his; however, one thing is for certain: motivation, as a general norm in our society, is rarely found in an independent nature. Many times one will find motivation dependant on the ends that the initial means of motivation will procure (ie. Tim may not have had independent motivation to stop smoking, but when, for example, his girlfriend says she will leave him if he does not stop, Tim will immediately find dependent motivation to stop smoking: motivation found perhaps in love or in sex).

This is not to say that all dependent motivation is unhealthy. On the contrary, some of the most important motivators (means to an end) are dependent upon ends that are entirely different than the initial. But we must separate rules, theory, and quantification from principles, realism, and qualification. There may not be a specific philosophy to control motivation, although one could be complexly defined, but we all know that there are many, many things that we say we will do or that we know we should do that never end up getting done.

Everybody stalls. "Whats in it for me?", "I'm working on it!", or "These things take time, you know..." are common things we have all probably said at some point in our lives. Procrastination happens to the best of us. Why? Because we don't feel like doing it or because we haven't overcome our fear of doing whatever it is that needs to be done. Professor Piers Steel used mathematics to quantify and better understand the desire to complete any given task (Utility) that one may have; using expectations, levels of importance, sensitivity of time, and the such, he gives us a more scientific explanation for our procrastination.

U = EV/ID

The 'U' stands for Utility, or the desire to complete a given task. It is equal to the product of 'E', the expectation of success, and 'V', the value of completion, divided by the product of I, the immediacy of the task, and D, the personal sensitivity to delay.

If I said, "Ill give you a million dollars if you do said activity", I can guarantee you that for more than 90 percent of us, there would be a desire to complete the given task, you would make sure that it is successful, there would be value for completion, and it would be done immediately with little to no delays.

Without beating a dead horse, the point is this: there is always motivation of some sort; it may be legitimate motivation or it may be a “million-dollar” motivator, but it is there. The only factor that keeps anyone from doing their duties or accomplishing their goals is self (apart the obvious, innumerable, external circumstances that often arise). It is sad that with the offer of one million dollars to everyone one in the country, our society would see so many accomplished people arise from nothing but the grease from their elbows and the straps of their boots. Motivation is what stops you from doing what you’ve always wanted to do; from being what you’ve always wanted to be. Don’t wait for the million-dollar motivator that is unlikely to ever come; instead, tap into the same pool of motivation using just the goal in and of itself to push you with confidence and security. You will be surprised at the results. In order to change your world you must first change yourself.

Adam T. Wamack - A Young Influence
Ruben Harris (twitter.com/redstarvip)