… The artist had been resisting the pope’s commission for a number of reasons. First, he considered himself primarily a sculptor rather than a painter, and didn’t want to spend years on a gigantic project that he didn’t feel he was best suited to complete. He also didn’t like the pope’s design for the ceiling (and that’s a hard thing to say to a pope). Finally, he knew that, should he take the job, it would involve years of uncomfortable, painstaking labor.
But once he realized there was no avoiding the pope’s “request,” Michelangelo began to figure out how to make the best of it. First he negotiated for and finally received permission to create a much more intricate and grand design than the one envisioned by the pope. Next, he became engrossed in solving the purely technical problems presented by the task: how to adapt the techniques of fresco (painting with a colored wash on damp plaster) to a gigantic space (133 by 46 feet), while suspended almost 70 feet from the ground.
By the time Michelangelo had permission to, in his words, “do as he liked” in terms of the design, and had created what he believed were viable solutions for the technical problems presented by the project, his attitude had changed dramatically—he told friends he could hardly wait to get started…
Wanting and Not Wanting
You may have read that snippet above, from my account of Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel, and thought, Well, sure, I could learn all kinds of things, if I really wanted to—but I don’t want to.
And part of that is true. As I noted earlier, we human beings only do what we want to do. However, we make some assumptions related to this fact that get in our way and make it more difficult for us to learn and grow.
First, we assume that if we don’t want to do something, it’s permanent—that we can’t change our level of “wanting.” We’ll spend most of this chapter talking about why that’s not true, and what you can do to change your level of aspiration, as Michelangelo did. But before we dig into that topic, I want to point out and set aside two other ways we muddy the aspiration waters with false assumptions.
Saying We Want What We Don’t (Really)
The first false assumption we often make about aspiration, which I mentioned briefly in the last chapter, is believing we want to do things that we don’t actually want to do. A friend and colleague of mine, Jim, has been telling himself (and others) for years that he really wants to learn to play the piano. But he hasn’t done it. I asked him why he hasn’t pursued it, given that he says he really wants to learn, and his very honest answer was, “I don’t know.” He went on to say, “I’ve bought books and music, I have a keyboard… I can’t figure out why I haven’t done anything about it.” I pointed out to him that if there’s nothing getting in the way of his learning to play, and yet he’s not doing it, then he doesn’t really want to do it. We often confuse being interested in the possibility of something with actually wanting to achieve it.
Apply this to yourself. Think about something that you’ve said to yourself or other people that you want to do, but that you haven’t actually made any effort to pursue. If you’re honest with yourself, I believe you’ll recognize that you probably have a kind of vague idea that this would be a cool or fun or useful thing to do or know, rather than having a clear drive to accomplish mastery in that area. That’s the difference between interest and aspiration. Here’s one example that applies to most people. I once read about a survey taken of adults of varying ages and demographics in the United States, in which they were asked if they someday wanted to write a book. More than four out of five of them (84 percent) said, “Yes, definitely.” Given that only some very small percentage of adults actually do write books, this “wanting” is clearly, for the most part, a mild interest in the possibility of writing a book rather than a true aspiration to do so, one that will carry the person forward into the actual effort required to become an author.
This distinction is far more than idle wordsmithery. Being accurate about whether or not you actually aspire to learn something is essential. If you keep telling yourself that you want to learn something that you actually don’t want to learn, your efforts to learn will assume your “wanting” is already in place—like my friend Jim, you’ll buy books, sign up for classes, make to-do lists, and set goals. But you’re likely to find those efforts ineffective, because they won’t address your underlying “not wanting to” problem. They won’t help you increase your fundamental level of aspiration.
Saying We Don’t Want to When We Do (Kind Of)
The second way we confuse ourselves about the true nature of aspiration is that we sometimes do things while believing and saying that we don’t want to do them. I can almost hear you thinking, for instance, Hold on now, how can you say we only do the things we want to do? I clean the downstairs bathroom every week, and I absolutely don’t want to do that. But I submit to you that you must want it more than you want the alternatives (a progressively more disgusting bathroom, or possibly a progressively more irritated spouse or roommate), or you wouldn’t do it. When we do something we don’t want to do very much, it’s because we see it (usually without consciously thinking this through) as the best option available; we believe we’ll gain something important (or avoid something bad) by doing it. In other words, you can bitch all you want to about how much you hate to exercise or clean the bathroom, but if you’re actually exercising or cleaning the bathroom, it means you want to get the benefits from doing it (or avoid the bad outcomes of not doing it) more than you hate doing it.
Think about anything that you don’t like but do anyway. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that you want the outcome from doing that thing more than you want the outcome from not doing it.
So: We Do What We Want Most
To summarize, with a nuance that takes into account both of these situations: we only do those things that we want to do more than any other option that’s available to us in a given situation.
Unfortunately for us, in most situations where we would really benefit from learning something new, there’s almost always another option available to us that seems less onerous and difficult. That option: staying with the tried and true. That’s what Michelangelo wanted to do. He wanted to keep being a sculptor and not have to learn to paint a giant fresco, suspended upside down seventy feet off the ground. In fact, the project he kept trying to convince Pope Julius to sign off on, instead of the Sistine ceiling, was the design and creation of a huge and complex marble tomb for the pope, something Michelangelo envisioned as a tour de force of his sculptor’s art.
And here in the twenty-first century, with everyone’s job changing on a daily basis, this wanting-to-stay-with-the-tried-and-true resistance to learning or doing new things happens continuously. For example, let’s say there’s a librarian named Ron, and his library is in the process of digitizing every piece of paper in its collection and then making those digitized files easily accessible to all its patrons. He thinks he could probably learn all the skills required to do that. However, it would take a good deal of time and energy, and also Ron isn’t a big fan of learning new software programs. Basically, he’d simply rather not do it. So, instead, he decides to keep doing the thing he wants to do more: focusing on the traditional part of his job, at which he feels very competent. He likes (and is good at) caring for the books and other materials in the library’s collection and helping library patrons find and use them. He wants to keep doing his job the way he’s always done it.
Now, an important point here: I bet Ron is not consciously aware of his resistance to this new possibility; he’s probably not saying (aloud or to himself) that he doesn’t want to learn the new skills he needs in order to be involved in the digitization effort. In fact, he may even tell himself—and others—that he does want to do it. But then, somehow, he just never has time, or he convinces himself that his boss needs him to focus on the more traditional parts of the job. (This is one of the more dangerous aspects of being confused about our “wanting and not wanting”—we rarely admit to ourselves that we don’t want to do something that we think we should do. We simply tell ourselves that other people’s agendas, a lack of time or money, or our “poor discipline” are making it impossible for us to do the thing.)
Unfortunately for Ron, though, some of his colleagues will either want to learn the new approach or will overcome their resistance to wanting to learn it. And eventually, (sorry, but it’s true) he’ll be out of a job. Long before that, though, he’ll be relegated to a kind of employment backwater, where his skills will become gradually less useful and less transferable to other jobs. Ron will also most likely be taking himself out of the running for advancement in his career: he will have effectively marginalized himself professionally.
Remember when I said, in earlier chapters, that the ability to learn well and continuously is the key skill of the twenty-first century? This is a great example of what I was talking about. If you go with the path of least resistance when it comes to learning—that is, if you avoid learning new and uncomfortable things—the world will pass you by.
How to Make Yourself Want Something
Remember, though, that you can make yourself want to do things—including wanting to learn things you don’t now want to learn. You can, in effect, ignite your own aspiration. Here’s how it works.
To make yourself want to learn something:
Imagine the personal benefits to you of learning it
Envision a “possible world” where you’re enjoying those benefits
These two things are core to human motivation. When we do anything that requires effort—from walking to the corner store to buy milk to getting an MBA—we do it because we see clearly how it will benefit us, and we imagine the future where we’re reaping those benefits. (I only like to eat cereal with milk, and that new cereal will be delicious with milk on it, or I want to move up in the organization, and I think an MBA will help. With an MBA, I can see myself as a senior executive.)
When we don’t want to do something, we tend to think and talk about the difficulties and obstacles of doing it. Shifting your focus toward the potential benefits of learning a new thing—and the positive future that could result—is a simple and powerful way of igniting your aspiration.
How Aspiration Looks
To give you a real-life sense of the importance of engaging your “aspiration muscles” in today’s work world, let me introduce you to a client of ours, Detavio Samuels. I first met Detavio when he had just been offered a big new job, one that hadn’t previously existed. Alfred Liggins, CEO of Radio One, a leading U.S.-based urban media company, had invited Detavio to become president of One Solution, a new division tasked with integrating the advertising sales of all the Radio One assets: dozens of radio stations in major markets across the country; the TV One television network; Interactive One, a portfolio of urban-focused online properties; and Reach Media, a creator and distributor of syndicated content for radio.
Detavio had previously been president of the Detroit office of GlobalHue, a multicultural advertising agency, so I realized this new job was going to present a steep learning curve for him. Though he knew the advertising industry extremely well, the businesses of Radio One—especially the radio stations—were going to be new to him in lots of ways. When offered the position, he could easily have focused on all the ways in which it would be different from (and therefore more risky and difficult than) his current job, and decided not to make the effort required. So in that first conversation, I asked him why he had wanted this new job.
“I know it’s going to take a lot—but it will give me a chance to build on what I know,” he said. “I’ve only seen these media businesses from the agency side—looking at them as places for our clients to advertise—and now I’ll get to understand them from the inside out. That’s exciting to me. And I love having the opportunity to build something new—we can create something that hasn’t been done before at Radio One… or maybe anywhere. And I get the feeling that Alfred will give me a lot of leeway and support—he’s hiring me to take this in a new direction. And if we can make this all work, it will benefit everyone: the whole company, our consumers and advertisers—and me!”
At that moment, I thought to myself, This guy is great at aspiration. In those few sentences, Detavio demonstrated that he was focusing on the personal benefits to him of the new learning that would be required of him: that he’d have the chance to build on his existing learning; create something new; and have a lot of responsibility in that endeavor—and on the future in which he and others would be enjoying those benefits.
He took the job, and I watched as he dove into that new learning, his strong aspiration overcoming the attendant obstacles and frustrations. He’s well on his way to making One Solution a growth catalyst for the entire company.
Imagining the Benefits
Let’s deconstruct what Detavio did, to help you get more adept at aspiration. When faced with an opportunity to either learn something new or stay in his comfort zone, Detavio first focused on how learning the new thing would benefit him. He noted that being able to build on his existing business knowledge, having the chance to create something new, and being offered freedom and support were all very attractive to him.
One thing I noticed in my conversations with Detavio: he was very clear about what was motivating to him, not only in this situation but in his life in general. I’ve noticed that this is true of good learners—they tend to be consciously aware of what they like and don’t like to do, which makes it easier for them to ramp up their aspiration when necessary. They can look for the potential benefits in the “don’t want to yet” situation that they know will be motivating to them.
One simple way to find out what motivates you, if you haven’t thought about this much before, is to look at something you do want to learn—as evidenced by the fact that you’re making effort to learn it—and think about what benefits you’re getting (or will get) from learning that thing. You might want to look at a few different things you’ve learned or are learning, so you can start to see the pattern of what motivates you.
Then, once you have a clearer understanding of the benefits that are most important to you in doing new things, you can look to see if these benefits might be available in a situation where you don’t yet want to learn—where your aspiration isn’t yet sufficient.
Here’s what my friend Jim found when he did this exercise. Though he hadn’t been able to “want” to learn the piano enough to actually do it, he had begun to learn to play golf. When I asked him what benefits he was deriving from that, he responded, “I like feeling physically challenged—like I’m teaching my body to do new things. I also like being out in the fresh air. And I really like doing it with my son—the social aspect of it is important to me.” After we talked a bit more, he realized that, while the second benefit (getting outside) wasn’t easily available in learning to play the piano, both teaching his body to do new things and learning with someone else were available to him in learning the piano. He began to figure out how he could incorporate those benefits into his learning approach.
And here’s a workplace example: one of our consultants at Proteus, Cindy, was hesitant about learning to facilitate our vision and strategy process. She had talked for a few years about possibly wanting to learn, but didn’t take any steps in that direction; she clearly didn’t want to do it enough to commit to making the necessary effort. Then, at one point, she told us she’d like to start the certification process. I asked her what had changed. “I realized I was focusing on what would be hard about it, and on the possibility that I wouldn’t be as good at it as I’d want to be,” she said. “But then I thought about what a great way it is to help clients be successful, which is so important to me. And I also thought about how much I’ve enjoyed, over the past few years, gaining skills and insights that I didn’t have before. I realized that learning this process would offer me both of those things in spades.” Cindy recently completed her certification process and conducted her first solo vision and strategy session, to rave reviews from the client.
Getting clearer about those benefits that are most important to you is valuable in two ways. It gives you a better sense of how you’re wired aspirationally—what’s likely to be motivating to you in any situation. You can also use this understanding of yourself—as Detavio, Jim, and Cindy did—to increase your aspiration in your “don’t want to” areas. Thinking through how you might gain some of these same benefits in those areas helps you break the unhelpful cycle of thinking only about the difficulties and obstacles (which is what we tend to focus on when thinking about things we don’t want to learn).
Imagining a Possible World
When I was first talking with Detavio, he focused on the future world where he’d be enjoying the benefits he envisioned. He was—and continues to be—very excited about a future where he’s deeply knowledgeable about the Radio One businesses and where that knowledge is allowing him to work with others to drive the company’s revenues and broaden its scope.
That’s the second part of this skill of aspiration—learning to envision possible futures where you’ve gained the benefits you recognize. The core of this capability relies upon the fact that all humans are able to envision a future that doesn’t now exist. Any kid who’s ever wanted a bike for her birthday has done it: that kid knows just what the bike will look like, how it will feel to ride it down the street, and how her friends will react the first time they see it.
Unfortunately, we’re all equally capable of quashing that capability by focusing on the difficulties in achieving our vision. (I’ll never get that bike, or I’m such a klutz I’ll probably fall off in front of all my friends.) The art of envisioning a possible positive future lies in being able to access your own visioning capability without getting in the way of it. That getting-in-the-way is what happens, generally, when we don’t want to learn something, especially if it’s something we know we need to learn but are resisting. Rather than envisioning a future where we’re reaping the benefits of having learned it, we focus on all the difficulties and obstacles that could get in the way of attaining that future success, and our aspiration takes a nosedive.
I talk about the power of envisioning a hoped-for future in much more detail in some of my other books, most specifically in Being Strategic. I invite you to read that more in-depth exploration of this area if you know this is a place where you especially need to develop. For now, though, here’s a condensed version of that model, focused on learning. In order to support yourself to completely envision a future where you’ve gained the benefits of new learning:
1. Pick a time frame for success.
2. Imagine yourself in that future.
3. Describe what success looks and feels like.
4. Select the key elements.
1. Pick a time frame for success. Begin by deciding on a reasonable time frame for success, a point by which you could reasonably expect to be reaping the benefits of your new learning. It’s important that you pick a time frame that’s realistic—otherwise, you won’t believe it’s possible and your envisioned future will have much less power to motivate you to take the actions needed to get there. For example, you might choose a one-month time frame for learning that new spreadsheet program, while a six- or twelve-month time frame might be more appropriate for substantially improving your leadership skills.
2. Imagine yourself in that future. This is where you access your own power to envision the future, and focus it on the benefits you’ve identified. To do so, you need to give your mind free rein to create a three-dimensional piece of a possible future where you’re experiencing those benefits. To do that, put yourself into a mental time machine. Imagine emerging from your time machine into the same room and the same chair you’re sitting in now, but on the date you’ve chosen above in step 1. You’ve returned to this room, this chair, to celebrate the fact that you’ve created your hoped-for future: you’ve learned the new skill or capability, and are reaping the benefits you hoped to gain. You can support your envisioning with a simple statement that lets your brain access its visionary mode. For example: “It’s now March of 20xx, and I’m reflecting on my success in having learned _______.” Once you feel comfortably settled into this possible world, go on to the next step.
3. Describe what success looks and feels like. As you mentally look around this new world at the end of your time travels, what do you see? Think about the benefits you identified, and imagine that they’ve come to pass: describe what that looks, feels, and sounds like. (For instance, if you’re envisioning a future where you’ve learned presentation skills, it might be something like: I’m making a business presentation to my boss and his peers, and I’m clear, focused, and relaxed. My body language and voice are strong and assured, and I handle their unexpected questions well. I feel proud of myself, and my boss congratulates me on a job well done.) Some people like to visualize these things, others like to talk them through aloud, but it’s generally helpful, in either case, to jot down your thoughts.
4. Select the key elements. When you feel you have a fairly robust picture of this future you want, review what you’ve written and select the key elements, those parts of the future that are the most enticing and motivating to you. I suggest you choose a few items that best indicate to you that you’ve gained the benefits you hoped for. (For example, in the example above, you might pick out “I’m a skilled and relaxed presenter,” “I know how to respond to the unexpected,” and “Both my boss and I are pleased and proud.”)
Now that you’ve had a chance to catalyze your own aspiration in this area, take a minute to stop and reflect: How are you now feeling about learning this new skill or capability?
I hope you’re feeling a bit more interested than at the beginning of the chapter—perhaps you’re thinking about ways to make time to learn or people you can talk to who could help. Maybe you’re even feeling a little excited.
That’s the power of aspiration. Wanting something is a tremendously potent force. It turns our attention almost automatically from looking at all the reasons we can’t do something—all the ways it will be scary or boring, time consuming or complicated—to focusing on how we can make it happen in spite of any difficulties. Once we’ve seen how something can give us benefits that are important to us, and then envisioned a future in which we’re enjoying those benefits, we start looking for ways we can create opportunities to make that future a reality. I’ve found it’s almost magical, that shift in focus that unleashes a person’s aspiration.
One of the most exciting examples of that “aspiration magic” I’ve ever experienced happened about ten years ago. I was coaching the CEO of a company that was growing rapidly from small to midsized. He was a great operator, very smart and experienced, and the business was focused and well organized as a result. The problem was that he had gotten to a point where he really needed to start letting go of the day-to-day operations. He needed—badly—to delegate more of his key responsibilities to the folks who worked for him, because as the business got larger and more complex, he was becoming a bottleneck. All the important decisions were still going through him, and even though he had lots of energy and intelligence, it just wasn’t possible for him to keep up. It was frustrating and demoralizing for his executives as well, and I knew he was about to lose one of his key folks if he didn’t change. We had talked about the issue at length, and he understood the problem intellectually. I taught him our delegation model; he didn’t really use it. I started to understand that this was an aspiration problem.
So I asked him what benefits he might get from delegating more. He said, “Oh I know it’s probably a good idea, but I just have high standards, and I need to make sure the most important things happen the way they need to… sometimes people just don’t ask the right questions if I’m not around.” Instead of focusing on the benefits, he was telling me all the difficulties he saw in doing it—no wonder his aspiration was nonexistent! I said, “Yeah, I know it would be tough to manage the company in a whole different way, and it seems fraught with difficulties. Humor me, though: How might it benefit you?”
He actually stopped and thought about it. “You know,” he said, “if I could figure out how to get some of this stuff off my plate—and still get great results, you understand—I’d have more time to think about what we’re going to need to do over the next year or two to incorporate some of this new technology into our operations. It’s irritating not to have time to focus on that—and it’s bad for the business.” He paused for another minute, tapping his pen on the desk. “And I know Jack’s frustrated. I don’t want to lose him—he’s my best guy. I’m sure if I stepped back from his area, he’d be a lot happier.” I agreed on both counts, and we started talking about how to make it happen.
I won’t say that he changed overnight, or that he changed 100 percent—to this day, he has some unhelpful tendencies toward micromanaging. But within a couple of months, most of his direct reports mentioned to me that his approach had changed significantly: he was less likely to second-guess their decisions and he had started saying, “Come to me if you have a problem with that, but otherwise it’s yours to do,” and sticking to it. Staff meetings had shifted from him mostly giving direction to him mostly listening to the function heads’ reports and asking good and useful questions.
And that’s a wonderful setup for the remaining three skills of ANEW; as soon as you start aspiring to learn something, you’re in a much better mental space to become neutrally self-aware, endlessly curious, and willing to be bad first in that area, so that you actually can learn new skills and new ways of behaving, like my client did.
It was true for Michelangelo, it’s true for Detavio Samuels and my now-better-at-delegating client, and it’s true for you—aspiration is a necessary and powerful beginning—but it’s just the beginning…