You can't teach motivation

You can motivate people, but you can't teach motivation.  In other words, you can exploit people's existing motivations, but you can't give them entirely new motivations.

For example, my son is very motivated and excited when he sees a bus go by.  "Daddy, see the bus, the bus!"  If I want to get him motivated about a long car trip, I can mention the fact that we will see buses.  But I can never get him excited about being in crowds, no matter how hard I try.  He just becomes agitated.

My daughter, on the other hand, loves crowds.  She goes up to other children and asks if they want to play.  Most of them reject her (out of shyness and other reasons), but she persists and always finds the one or more children in the room who want to play with her.  My son is more affected by rejection, and he doesn't persist as long.

Why are my children the way they are?  Did I teach my son to be excited by buses?  How would I do that?  How can you teach an emotion?  Can I invent an entirely new emotion (say, teaching him to be motivated at the sound of nails being dragged across a blackboard)?

Why are my children different from each other?  Did I raise them both differently?  Did I teach my daughter to be more resilient in the face of rejection?  Did I teach my son to get agitated when in crowded settings?

No.  You can't teach motivation.  If someone is motivated to be a leader, you can certainly help them reach their potential.  But if someone else is not motivated to be a leader, you can't make them a leader.  They will get agitated and depressed.  But they will probably tell you that they could have been a leader, yet simply chose not to be one of their own free will!

Comments

[Gebremeskel]

Our nature predominates the environmental modifications we may face.All most every aspect of our life is inculcated within our mind but when nurture comes into action it requests for our nature for what we have get embbeded innately within ourselves to come to the surface.The existence of God is obvious to every person innately not because they have to be taught about His existence.That's why I said the impact of nature is dominant over that of nurture.

[Kowloon]

I believe that the author of this piece of info has failed to notice that there is a fine distinction between motivation (as in the motivation to sit in your seat to finish your college paper, or get good grades) and leadership. Obviously leadership is mostly innate, and few would deny that. But from my experience, motivation, especially the motivation to do well at school, can be exploited and measurably nurtured to MOST people.