I've always read in many books that setting goals will drive you to achieve better and faster.  Here is an interesting true story on having a burning goal. -

This happened in wintergrasp.  My first time there.  I'm runnig around exploring when I notice saronite nodes here and there.  Mind you this is the first time i mined saronite.  Even then my mining was in the upper 430's from mining the cobalt.  So i am just running around and my mining is at 442.  Suddenly I run into a Titanium node.   My thoughts - OH MY GOD! I run up to mine it only to find out that I'm too low, need 450 mining.  I panic, then I decide to quickly run around and mine the saronite nodes, I only need 8.

So I'm running around, and getting the saronite.  There is tons of it in that zone.  And guess what, I fin anouther node of Titanium.  OH MY GOD.  So I pray pray noone ( especially some alliance toon) will find it before I get to 450.

Well to make the longs torry short, I did not get the titanium nodes :(.  I got to 450 and right at that moment anouther horde player got to them.  I walked away from there with 450 mning though, and 3 stacks of saronite.