A story is not a story without conflict. After all, why would the reader follow your main character if everything goes to plan and everything is rainbows and butterflies?
A conflict is something: a person, event or philosophy that hinders a character from reaching his goal. Whoa, you might be thinking, goal? Did you say goal? I thought we were talking about conflict! Well, there can be no conflict if there is no goal.
A character should be driven by a main purpose, say, finishing a race in first place so that he could use the prize money to pay for his mother's hospital bills. All throughout your story, every action made by the character should lead to this goal. Provide reasons why this is his goal, make it his passion so that the readers would root for him to succeed.
A good conflict to this would be a rival who is just as passionate as your main character, may be even more so, because of even bigger reasons. Make this rival ruthless in his pursuit of his own goal, thus, preventing your main character from reaching his goal.
Another conflict would be an injury, say, a previously broken foot that prevents him from sprinting at a high speed.
Look around you. Look at your office mates or friends. What are their goals? What's preventing them from reaching their goals? Look at yourself, what are your goals? Why should you achieve them? What's preventing you from reaching them?
Create a good conflict. Make readers root for your character. Make them hate the conflict. This is the main ingredient of a good, engaging story.
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