I’ve occasionally referred to myself, only partially in jest, as an anti-motivational speaker. I lead with the bad news because there’s so much bad-information-disguised-as-motivation out there. Following bad advice won’t lead to good results. It can keep you stuck or feeling even worse about yourself. So here’s the bad news—followed by some good (evidence-based) news—about aspiration, imagination, and transformation.
Aspiration
The bad news: You can’t be anything you want to be. While some limits may be self-imposed, not all of them are. Some things are simply outside your control. Fortune (good and bad), circumstances, genetics, and timing all play roles in the outcome of events. And you can’t count on vanquishing them with willpower.
The good news: You can be who you want to be. Aspiration is a long-term intention. It isn’t about being good at something; it’s about striving for and getting better at it. Although, it can be difficult to identify who you want to be, given that we’re seldom asked that question in life, it might be the most important question you will ever ask yourself. The answer creates the context for everything else.
Aspiration is itself a theory of change, and of how we become someone. — Agnes Callard
You can also develop a reliable sense of personal agency to help you determine where to focus your efforts and energy.
Imagination
The bad news: Just because you can imagine something doesn’t mean it’s possible. The fact that you can probably imagine (picture in your mind) a moon made of green cheese doesn’t mean such a thing exists or could exist. Imagination—creating mental images of things not currently present to the senses—is something our brains engage in automatically. However, it isn’t a magical superpower.
The good news: The intentional application of imagination can power your aspirations and ambitions. After all, it takes an act of imagination to step outside your “self” to visualize who you want to be and what you want to create or accomplish. Everyone has this capacity. If you’re unable to imagine something you want or want to pursue, it’s highly unlikely you will achieve it.
Imagination is what propels us forward as a species—it expands out worlds and brings us new ideas, inventions, and discoveries. —Valerie van Mulukom
Transformation
The bad news: There is no true self—good, perfect, untarnished—that you can discover or return to and actualize the potential of. (That isn’t transformation, anyway.) You are here, right where you are now, and you can’t be anywhere other than where you are. Sudden bursts of insight aren’t the same as transformation, either. Transformation is a process, one that requires time, effort, and energy and does not come with a guarantee. But it’s the uncertainty that allows for possibility. You can’t have one without the other.
The good news: Although you cannot be anywhere other than where you are right now, you can generate transformational change from wherever you are. You may be frustrated; you may want to change some things, or a lot of things, but you don’t have to fix yourself first. In fact, since you’re not broken, you can’t be fixed. Use your imagination to help you identify what you want: what you aspire to be or do or create. Then set out in that direction!
We lean into a future that is genuinely open. Human potentialities are not just assigned at the start but also created along life’s way. Instead of looking to the past, to that which is given though not-yet-fleshed out, one looks to the future, to that which may be, to that which is not-yet-fashioned and, in certain respects, not-yet-even-imaginable. —William Lowell Randall
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