You have to know why

I do occasional flight instruction and a few weeks ago I was asked to fly with a lady that the regular instructor was having problems getting ready for her flight test. Since I didn't know her I felt that asking her about her motivation for learning to fly was fair game as she had close to 200 hours logged and had failed her FAA flight test three times. She had a nice Piper Cherokee 140 like what I had learned to fly in that her boyfriend had bought for her to learn in. He owns a Beechcraft Bonanza.
She told me that she got very nervous during an exam, and that she didn't feel the examiners had been fair with her. I questioned about what she thought she would do after she got her pilot license, since I had seen a bit of self-sabotage in both karate and flight training when someone got near a "promotion". She answered that her boyfriend, who was quite a bit older, had expressed the desire for her to fly his bigger, faster, more complex airplane in the event he lost his medical certificate. A medical is necessary for pilots to fly aircraft of the type most of us fly. She stated she didn't want to fly it because it scared her. So it boiled down to her training to get a license she really didn't want to fly and airplane she didn't want to fly.
We went out to fly and she did a fine job. When we landed I told her I thought there was no reason she couldn't be a pilot if she really wanted to. But I counseled her that she really had to want to do it for herself and nobody else. Yesterday I got a phone call from her flight instructor telling me that she and her boyfriend were selling both airplanes and she was quitting. "You nailed it" he said.
I've seen many a student in my studio who was there because someone else wanted them there; a parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse who was really into the arts and wanted this person to be as well. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. As my title says, you have to know why you're doing something. A little introspection can be a good thing.