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You Can't Force Someone to Chase Their Dreams

You can try to help along the way, but you can't force people to match your motivation.

By Leigh FisherPublished 5 years ago 5 min read
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Photo Courtesy of Kitti Phan

You're chasing a goal. You're pursuing your dreams, regardless of how uncertain the future is, laughing in the face of anything that will oppose you along the way.

You're chasing your goals with such fervor, and putting so much time and effort into them. It may not have paid off completely yet, you may still be in the early stages of your journey, but you start to realize that not everyone around you is as eager as you are.

You may not have reached your goal yet, but you're far enough that you start to see… you're doing a little bit better than your loved ones. It might be in terms of your education, your career, your creative work, or just your general disposition. We all have different dreams and goals.

You see that people you care for deeply, whether they're family, friends, or a significant other —and you see them struggling. They might have similar goals, or entirely different goals, but here's the funny thing about goals: for the most part, it takes dedication, discipline, and a little motivation to achieve them. These three ingredients forge the backbone and the marrow of every goal or dream.

However, motivation is a very tricky thing. While it sounds like a vague word, there's quite a lot of science behind motivation. The American Psychological Association and Dr. Kou Murayama have some interesting studies on how intrinsic motivation, the motivation that comes from within, rather than from the outside, is really vital to achieving your goals.

"We are currently working on several different projects on motivation, with the core aim of unraveling the nature and function of intrinsic rewards in human behavior.
Although extrinsic incentives undoubtedly play an important role in shaping our behavior, humans are endowed with the remarkable capacity to engage in a task without such incentives, by self-generating intrinsic rewards." -—Kou Murayama, PhD

You might see people losing sight of their core goals, straying from the path, or just pursuing them halfheartedly.

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It's hard to watch when you're chasing yours fervently. You have faith in this person, and you know that they have what it takes to succeed, but watching them not put the time or effort in drives you nuts. You want to see them do well. You want to see them succeed just like you're succeeding.

It doesn't matter how you measure success; it could be small or large. You just want to see this person doing well, feeling happy, and feeling accomplished.

This is arguably worse than being around people with no goals at all. We all have a few people in our friend or family circle who just don't have any big goals. And you know what? That's okay. People can be absolutely lovely individuals, and entirely happy even if they're not chasing a big goal. However, that's not the kind of person I'm writing about right now.

When I look at my closest friends who have similar goals to mine, it tears me apart when I see them floundering or letting roadblocks stop them. I'm the kind of person who clears roadblocks. When I see someone getting halted by one, I have an inexplicable desire to swoop in and try to fix things.

What about you? Are you a fixer?

Goals left unpursued turn into the "should have, could have, would have" speech.

Back when I was working on my undergraduate degree, I stumbled upon the most incredibly motivating professor. Retired colonel and author Alan Smith was my history professor, and he had the most remarkable ways of connecting history to the present.

I took two fairly standard Western Civilizations classes with him, like many other undergraduates who were checking their history requirement off of their curriculum guide. At face value, they seem like very standard core requirement courses.

However, Professor Smith made them two of the most valuable courses I ever took. He has an incredible way of connecting the past to the present, explaining history with an infectious excitement, and relating it to current events that put things into perspective. Yet on top of that, he would also relate grand happenings in history and politics to more personal experiences.

Specifically, he'd use many lessons and many historical figures and relate them to things we experience in our daily lives. The connection that always stuck with me the most was whenever he would talk about historical figures who lived their lives pursuing their goals without looking back. He would always encourage us to do the same, whatever our goals were -—and not to become one of those "should have, could have, would have" people.

Let's shift the focus back to you.

You can't sit around and watch the people you care for turn into people who are full of regrets at the things they didn't do. You want to intervene, you want to push them, you want to help them.

But here's the unpleasant truth.

You can try to help people. But you can't force them to chase their goals.

Photo Courtesy of Blacksalmon

You truly do want what is best for them. You have good intentions, but sometimes, hounding people about their goals and constantly trying to push them forward isn't going to help them.

You're trying to help, but sometimes, pushing people too hard just makes their situations things worse.

You want to be there for them and support them, but you can't make someone do something they aren't ready for.

It's just like anything else ; positive reinforcement goes a lot farther than negative.

It's a little tricky to find science on how to utilize positive reinforcement when it comes to your peers or friends; most of the research out there has been done in workplace or parenting contexts.

The Harvard Business Review published a piece asking what motivates people more: rewards or punishments? They analyzed a study conducted at a New York state hospital where they were trying to get medical students to wash their hands more regularly.

I know, gross —we always hope that our medical professionals are practicing proper hygiene. But here's the interesting part of this study. Even when students knew they were being recorded, they only sanitized properly 10 percent of the time. When an electronic screen was placed in the hall that flashed "Good job!" messages, compliance went up to nearly 90 percent.

This is a scenario where a little positive feedback went a very, very long way.

The same is true for when you're trying to motivate the people you care about.

Photo Courtesy of Elina Leonova

Sometimes, even well-meaning questions asking about how someone's job is, how their education is going, or how that project of theirs is going, turn into a reminder of the progress they aren't making.

I've made this mistake with friends and ended up driving them away. What is meant as a well-meaning question turns into a reminder of inadequacy.

That's why when you find yourself in this situation, you have to make yourself step back. Remember that the reason you want to push this person is because you want to see them feeling happy and succeeding at their goals.

If that means letting them find their own motivation for chasing their dreams, then you've got to step back, support them, and let them find that.

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About the Creator

Leigh Fisher

I'm a writer, bookworm, sci-fi space cadet, and coffee+tea fanatic living in Brooklyn. I have an MS in Integrated Design & Media (go figure) and I'm working on my MFA in Fiction at NYU. I share poetry on Instagram as @SleeplessAuthoress.

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