Employment Research Institute's Chief Executive Officer, A. Harrison Barnes, in a webinar discussed how a motivating force can drive you towards achieving your goals.

If you look at the lives of the super successful, you will notice that they have a motivating force or sheer routine and discipline constantly urging them ahead. Most people need a combination of a motivational force and a strong disciplining routine to achieve their potential. However, many people do not need a routine; they can be successful on the sheer force of their internal motivating force. Harrison analyzes this motivating force as an intense emotion that drives people to put in their best. This force can often have its roots in a person’s childhood whereby they are driven either by love, or by the negative emotions of anger or lack of something they wanted and couldn’t have as children. Both, anger and love can drive a person towards greater heights. Many people are driven to do better by their intense love towards a loved one. Similarly, feelings of anger resulting from criticism in the childhood for example, can also spur people on to do better.

There are also instances of emotions being used to fuel negative goals; in fact, this is the basis of several crimes where people use their anger or resentment as the primary driver. People often go astray in their lives when they channelize their emotions into negative goals. In contrast, if you are using routine to find success in your goals, Harrison feels it is important to keep measuring yourself. Unless you measure yourself, you will never find out whether you are making progress or not.