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cousin_it comments on "Follow your dreams" as a case study in incorrect thinking - Less Wrong Discussion
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The advice to "follow your dreams" seems to have two different interpretations, "use your gut feeling to choose your career" and "strive for excellence in your chosen career". I'm mostly objecting to the first interpretation.
As to what motivates people, I've come to believe that our interests and motivations are changeable, though I believed otherwise for many years. You can consciously choose to abandon a hopeless dream, and get a different dream that will motivate you just as much.
I don't think making decisions based on gut feelings is the core issue. How does someone come to want to be a sports star?
1) They usually look towards people who they perceive to be high status and want to copy them.
2) They look at which activity they did in the past that they enjoy or where they got approval from others and then try to think up a career that matches them.
The first one could be good if the person has good role models but a lot of people simply have poor role models that don't make the world a better place.
The second is problematic because a student who just finishes school has no experience at all in the majority of tasks that need doing in the world and thus won't have any reference experience that they enjoy them.
Motivation is a gut feeling and without motivation you won't strive for excellence.