How to Get Motivated to Achieve Your Goals: touch the dream first

How to get motivated to achieve your goals: get the goal out of your imagination, meet it in person, then do one thing you can't take back. Most of the time, a lack of motivation means the goal lives only in your head. You've never seen it up close, never sat in it, don't know what it costs, and there's no connection between you and the goal. A pleasant fantasy about the result hands you the pleasure in advance, and in psychology experiments people had less energy after it. Energy comes from two things: contact with the goal (a test drive, a viewing, a conversation with someone who already has your result) and a fact you can't reverse. Also check whether your goal is too small, and whether you're devaluing it so you don't have to feel envy.

I figured this out in 2014 in Odessa. I was test-driving someone else's black Mustang, passing a tour minibus on cobblestones, pressed the gas a bit harder than I should have, the rear-wheel drive pulled the car off line, and I scraped the rims on the curb. I had $400 in my pocket, every dollar I had, and four days later that Mustang was mine. In twenty years in business and more than 2,000 interviews with entrepreneurs, I've heard "I kind of want it, but I have no energy" so many times that I'll lay out where it comes from and what to do about it.

One caveat up front. If you've had no energy for anything for weeks, you sleep badly and nothing makes you happy, the problem is most likely not your goal. It could be burnout or depression, and a specialist is the place to start.

Why am I not motivated to achieve my goals? Because the goal lives only in fantasy

You can write "I want to drive a BMW M5" in a notebook as many times as you like, draw a vision board and recite your dream every morning. The picture will be pleasant, and it still won't get you off the couch. When I walk people through this, I put it like this: you can dream for years about a movie star as your husband or wife, and it won't make you act, because that person is too far away. Run into them by chance in a café and the energy would show up instantly. Goals work the same way. When a goal sits light years from your life, your brain has nothing to grab onto.

The research shows the same thing. Psychologists Heather Kappes and Gabriele Oettingen, in four experiments, asked people to fantasize positively about a desired future and then measured their energy, both physiologically and in behavior. The topics were everyday ones: a glass of water for people who were thirsty, high-heeled shoes, an essay contest, the coming week. They compared these people with others who imagined it might not work out, and with people given negative and neutral fantasies. The "positive" group had less energy, in one experiment their blood pressure even dropped, and a week later they'd completed fewer of their plans. The fantasy drained people most when the need was most pressing.

A pleasant picture gives you a small piece of the goal's pleasure when you haven't done anything for it yet, and your psyche relaxes. A person "wants" something for years without feeling that they want it, then concludes "maybe it's not my goal" or "maybe I'm just lazy." In reality they've simply never met the goal face to face.

Does visualization work? Yes, but only one kind

Imagination comes in two kinds. A pleasant picture of the finished result (me on a yacht, me in a new apartment, a million in my account) takes energy away. Playing through the steps gives it. A study by Pham and Taylor compared the two kinds on students before an exam: those who ran through the preparation process in their heads for a few minutes over several days studied more and did better on the exam. Those who pictured a good grade got no such effect.

Oettingen herself built a method out of her experiments and calls it WOOP: a wish, the best outcome, the main obstacle inside you, and an "if the obstacle shows up, I'll do this" plan. The dream stays in, and it runs straight into reality. I covered this method in detail in my article on how to stop making excuses.

On vision boards I have my own amendment from practice. For someone living paycheck to paycheck who doesn't allow themselves to want anything, a picture can help them permit a wish for the first time. But only for a day or two. After that you need contact, or the board turns into that same pleasure in advance. For someone who already earns money and is building a business, it usually gets in the way: they spend years admiring the future instead of living a piece of it today. And there's a third path that almost nobody writes about, and in my view it's the strongest: physical contact with the goal.

How I bought a Mustang in four days

The Mustang was my childhood dream, going back to a console racing game and American movies. Years later I'd visit a used-car site once a month and look at prices: $22,000, $25,000. Money was tight, everything went into the business, and I drove a new Honda Accord. In 2014 I saw a listing: in Odessa, a black Mustang convertible, 4.6 engine, red leather interior, $19,900. I wrote to the seller and asked for a test drive, just to sit in one once in my life. He was clearly a reseller, and he asked whether I knew how to drive. We opened the roof, the engine started, and I still remember that sound. After the Honda it was pure insanity. No business-class comfort, just a dog on a chain with a huge engine, and I'd never driven rear-wheel drive before.

Then came the cobblestones and the curb. The reseller looked at the rim with the eyes of "I let some kid take it for a spin." And I held out $400: take it as a deposit, give me until Monday to collect the money, I'll fix the rim myself. He agreed, I handed over everything I had, and I walked away wondering where I'd get twenty thousand dollars in four days.

I got on the phone and started selling. Until then, a deal cycle for me took two to three months. Now I was closing deals like that in a couple of days, and I was shocked myself that it was even possible. By Tuesday the Mustang was mine, and I drove it all over Odessa until I sold it in 2015 to put the money into the business.

Let's be honest and separate two things here. The test drive gave me the desire, that sound in my ears. What switched on the energy for sales was the $400 deposit and a deadline of Monday. I stopped fantasizing and had a fact: the deposit was paid, and now I had to deliver. Contact with the goal lights the spark, commitment turns it into action, and one without the other works poorly. Going for a ride, enjoying it and parting ways is also pleasure in advance.

How to make your goals feel real: the "4 test drives" exercise

In my club this exercise is part of the route maps, and you have to go and do it physically. The order matters.

1. A test drive of a car around $30,000. A new one, straight from the dealership, say a Hyundai or a Kia. Sit in it, drive it, look it over in detail.
2. A test drive of a car around $50,000. One class up. Notice how it differs and what you feel behind the wheel.
3. A test drive of a car from $100,000. Whatever looks like your own ceiling.
4. A test drive of a car under $10,000. Yes, at the very end, after everything else.

Do all four in one day, two at most. Then the insight won't be only about cars: you'll feel the difference in people, in service, in how they talk to you. After that, within 24 hours, take one step you can't undo: pay a deposit for a course, schedule a meeting, make a promise in front of witnesses. The amount should hurt to lose without ruining you. I had something to lose back then, and it worked.

If cars don't interest you or you don't have a license, you can build the ladder in any area. Apartments: first $100,000, then $300,000, then $1 million and up if you can find one, and then an old resale studio apartment, the kind you can afford right now. A restaurant: walk into the one you really like, read the menu, admit honestly that you can't afford it yet, and leave after a coffee. For a business goal, contact means a conference where the speakers are who you want to become, or an hour with someone who already has your income.

And a couple of rules of honesty. Tell the salesperson how it is: "I'm looking around, I won't buy for a year or two, I want to understand the class." Come at hours when the showroom is empty. And don't repeat my curb on somebody else's powerful car.

Why you need contrast, and why your feed doesn't give you any

The last, cheapest test drive sits in the ladder on purpose. It returns you to your own point with new knowledge. Many people don't feel where they are because they have nothing to compare it with, so they have no reason to move. To realize a room is stuffy, you have to step out and smell some flowers. I went years without seeing this myself. How I understood where I stood after switching from a Honda to an old Soviet Lada, I told in the article on how to stop comparing yourself to others.

It's easy to object that we see other people's luxury on social media every day. We do, and it more often presses you down than lights you up. Contrast through a screen stays someone else's life, while contrast through your own body becomes your experience: you sat down yourself, heard it yourself, did the math yourself. You can only really want something you've touched. That's why my wheel of life has a separate lifestyle sphere, your standard of living, and your standards for it have to grow too. I wrote about that in the article on how to raise your standards in life.

Why your goal doesn't motivate you: it's too far away or too close

There's an opposite problem. A goal may fail to excite you because it's too small. Someone writes "go rollerblading" on their list of dreams for the year, when it can be done next weekend: call your friends, go, and close the goal.

At work it's the same. A team member says, "I plan to write five reel scripts by Saturday." I ask how much pure time that is, and they say, "About three hours." And what's more important for you today than this task? Almost always there's no answer. A three-hour task has stretched into a week and now demands that you "approach it seriously." Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, who studied goal setting for thirty-five years, concluded that specific, difficult goals produce better results than easy or vague "do your best" ones. A goal should be close enough to touch and high enough to be worth getting up for.

A goal is a direction you choose tactics for. It doesn't have to be "right" the first time. If new data comes in, change it. A bad goal that doesn't excite you gives the same result as having no goal at all.

Is envy good for motivation? It can be, if you don't devalue other people's success

This is the most uncomfortable part. When a person gets stuck at their level, they often start devaluing the level above: "I don't need that," "that car is for show," "what do you need that car for, to take girls for rides?" I really like one view of life: you have the right to turn down great things you can afford. I could go buy a Ferrari tonight and I don't, because it doesn't interest me, and that's honest. But when I can't afford a goal and explain why I don't need it, that's my psyche defending itself, protecting a comfortable picture.

We go on hikes for two or three weeks with backpacks, sleep in a tent, swim in a cold river and brush our teeth there. That's a conscious choice, and it doesn't mean I can't afford a good hotel. But if you live in a tent because you have no money for anything else, and mock hotels while you're at it, you're slowing your own growth. What you say out loud becomes a position you then have to defend. You said "I don't need it, it's bad," and now every step toward the goal causes an inner conflict.

What you say	What it is	What to do
"I can, but I don't want to"	An honest refusal	Nothing, it's your choice
"I can't, and I don't need it"	Devaluing	Replace it with "I can't yet, and I want it"
"I want the same, and it can be done"	Benign envy	Turn it into a goal with a date and a test drive

Back in 2019 I wrote that the Russian word for envy, zavist, echoes the word for "to see": you saw something you'd like for yourself, you wanted it, you got it. The negative side appears when a person believes they deserved it themselves and the other person got it unfairly. The research fits this idea well. Niels van de Ven and colleagues showed in a series of experiments that benign envy made people study more and solve problems better than admiration did. And one important detail: benign envy showed up in people who had been shown beforehand that success comes through effort. Those who were shown that luck decided everything were more likely to admire from the sidelines.

In a 2015 post about my Mustang I wrote a line I'd sign again today: you're either speeding down the highway with the top down, or discussing the people who drive past.

Where I might be wrong

Contact with a goal can crush you instead of firing you up: a person sees the price and decides they'll never get there. That's why the exercise has a ladder and a cheap car at the end. If a test drive flattened you, that's information too. The gap is too big right now, and you need an intermediate goal.

The Kappes and Oettingen study was done in a lab, on short fantasies about water, shoes and the coming week. I can carry it over to a dream about a car or a business only as a hypothesis, one that my practice supports. The authors themselves don't say "dreaming is bad." They say one pleasant picture isn't enough, and the dream has to be confronted with obstacles.

How to get motivated to achieve your goals: 6 steps

1. Check whether you've seen the goal in person. If you haven't, write down where you can touch it in the next seven days: a showroom, a property viewing, a restaurant, a conference, a person who already has your result.
2. Go make contact using the ladder. Three steps up in price and a last one cheaper than all of them, within a day or two.
3. Create a fact within 24 hours. A deposit, a prepayment, a scheduled meeting, a promise in front of witnesses. The amount should hurt to lose without ruining you.
4. Replace the picture of the result with a rehearsal of the process. Spend five minutes in the evening playing through not "me on a yacht" but "tomorrow at 10:00 I make three calls and say this," plus the main obstacle and what you'll do if it happens.
5. Check the scale of the goal. If it can be done in a weekend, do it this weekend and set the next one. If a three-hour task is stretched over a week, give it three hours tomorrow.
6. Catch the devaluing. Wherever you say "I don't need that" about something you can't afford, replace it with an honest "I can't yet, and I want it" or "I can, but I don't want to."

For a long time I thought I had no energy for the Mustang because I had no money. The money turned up in four days, as soon as I had a deposit and the sound of that engine in my ears. While you check prices on a website once a month, you have a dream. When you're behind the wheel and have already paid the deposit, you have a goal.