Leadership

I have been pondering how to inspire people to do better than they think that they can.  This is a tough one for me.  I have come to realize that when I think I am doing a horrible job, which is most of the time because my bar is apparently exceedingly high, other people think I am doing great job, different location of that bar.  When I see people who la-di-dah through work, I have a hard time first understanding it and then second, how to address it.
I can theoretically understand that not everyone is motivated to do the best job that they can and that their motivations lie else where, but in reality I have a hard time getting to it.  I even try to frame the situation with my own short comings--for example, my weight and falling off the ole diet wagon or not even the diet wagon but doing things that actively sabotage myself.  But somehow, I can't translate that.  Somehow, my parents managed to raise three workaholic kids.  We all take great pride in our work,  we all try to do our best with our abilities.  We may not always be the best but there is great effort there.
Managing the human resources is the hardest part of the job, trying to motivate people whose interests lie elsewhere than the job is equally challenging.  This is something that I struggle with.  I would love to be inspirational leader No. 1 but I don't know how to get there.  So I struggle one with what feels like blindfolded and try to mitigate some of my negative characteristics in the process.
Oh, if everyone were just like me.  But, I know that if it were so, then it would be a very sad world.