By Leland Pulley
People do a lot of things for various reasons. Many times, they do not even think about why they are doing something, but merely focus on doing it. Yet in most cases there are motives behind the things people do. Motives affect thoughts and feelings, speech and behavior, and decisions.
Consider first your thoughts and feelings. Motives reveal what you want out of life and how much you will do or pay to fulfill your desires. Stronger motives have more influence on you and weaker motives have less influence. To satisfy motives you think about them often, and plan how to satisfy them. Motives are tied to feelings too. You can almost feel some motives being fulfilled even before they are. Obviously, you have feelings generated when motives are satisfied. When this occurs, you have more pleasant and happier thoughts. You feel better about yourself and life. When motives are not satisfied, just the opposite occurs. In essence, motives affect thought and feelings, and thoughts and feelings affect motives.
For daily routines and repetitious actions, reviewing your motives may seem like a waste of time. This is not true because all those routines and repetitive behavior add up over time and have a significant impact on your life. Therefore, it is good to stop periodically and think about your daily life. Although the typical day may not seem important, hundreds and even thousands of them over the years, become a significant factor in many aspects of your life. For this reason, you need to look at what you say and do on a daily basis over an extended period of time and watch especially for patterns and trends. While doing this, consider the motives behind what you are doing. It can be quite revealing. Try to understand how specific motives influence your speech and actions. If you do a good analysis, you will learn a lot about yourself and see ways to make improvements in your life. Part of your efforts to makes these improvements will be making positive changes in some of your motives. Better motives will allow you to get more benefits out of the same routines, duties, activities, and endeavors. Also, you will change some of these due to changing your motives. You win both ways.
Motives influence the decisions you make. Some of these decisions are less important and some are more important. Either way, you will make better decisions for yourself and others who may be affected, by having good and proper motives behind your behavior and efforts. Think about some recent decisions you made and the motives that caused you to make the choices you did. With some better motives, would some of those choices have been different? Yes, they would. In other words, with changes in motives, your decisions will change.
Motives also influence character. Doing the right things for the right reasons strengthens character or helps you to be a good and righteous individual. When your motives are pure and sincere and clear, people understand you better and trust you more. There is a less confusion and deceit.
Often motives affect enthusiasm and commitment in any endeavor and activity. Stronger and clearer motives, which are appropriate for a goal, will give you incentive and the endurance to pursue the goal until it is achieved. Unclear motives and motives that change with time weaken your efforts to pursue long-term goals or achieve difficult tasks.
It is easier to get other people involved and work together as a group when the motives for a goal or a project are easy to understand and clearly explained to everyone involved. Accepting the motives behind the decision or goal or project, commits people easier and helps them to sustain their joint efforts. This is how good service projects work, as well as company goals, and worthwhile social and political changes in a society.
Motives are usually holistic in nature. For this reason, examine your motives for doing things in all aspects of your life. Why did you buy the house or car that you did? Why do you act a certain way around people at work? What makes you comfortable or uncomfortable when certain topics are brought up in discussions or conversations? Why do you spend so much time with a particular hobby? What motivates you to vote or join a specific political party or run for public office? How important is money and success to you? These and other questions like them can reveal a lot about your basic motives and how you fulfill them.
There are both good and bad motives for almost everything you think and do. Some good motives include learning, serving others, solving problems, self-improvement, preparation for the future, maintaining health, better relationships, obedience, happiness, creativity, fairness, love, etc. Some bad motives include laziness, greed, jealousy, theft, selfishness, cheating to win, too much pride, not accepting blame, seeking power over others, hate, etc.
Wrong motives hinder your efforts and decrease the chance of success. With time they dampen your enthusiasm. There are more negative thought patterns. Bad or negative motives can lead to lots of problems for yourself and others. There are more mistakes made and regrets to live with, as well as more ill will between you and others. In contrast, the right motives help you to clarify and understand what you are doing and why. They lead to better decisions and help to sustain you while striving to reach goals. They lead to more success. Good motives set you free because there is less regret and guilt from the past. There is greater chance for success and happiness in the future.
As you lead your life, strive to have the best motives you can. Resolve any differences between motives that seem to conflict with one another. Utilize the same basic motives in all aspects of your life. It will be easier to manage this way. Continue to monitor, upgrade, and purify your motives. In doing this you will be more successful in doing the right things for the right reasons.
A good person, striving to do good things with the right motives, is a person who has and is developing good character. Is this you? I challenge you to be aware of your motives and modify them as required so they better serve you and others.
Key Words – motives, thoughts, feelings, daily routines, speech, actions, decisions, character, goals, service projects, holistic, good and bad motives
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