When achieving desires and goals, people are driven by certain motives. We want something for a reason.
Often, motives conflict with true desires. And it turns out that you spend a huge amount of effort on something you ultimately don’t need, while you actually need something completely different.
How to understand your hidden motives is what we’ll talk about today. Find out which two questions will help you gain clarity.
Two important questions to gain clarity
To understand what motives drive you when achieving goals, ask yourself these two important questions and answer them honestly:
1) What do I want?
Define your goal, take inventory — gather all your thoughts together. Someone wants an apartment, someone wants to open their own center, and so on. Write down your desires, specifically.
At first glance, it will seem natural to want one thing or another. But to understand your true intentions and needs, ask yourself the next question.
2) Why do I want this?
If you dig deep, you will discover many revelations for yourself. In my work, I try to refocus people so they can see the hidden motives that make them act one way or another.
This is the part of the subconscious that is programmed with certain beliefs. We often want something but don’t know why.
It’s one thing when you want something tasty because you’re hungry, and another thing entirely when, for example, you see someone else eating. I don’t know how to choose myself, so I decided to order the same thing someone else is eating.
Find these hidden motives in yourself — why do you want this? Analyze it.
This is not a one-day task. You can’t just sit down and solve it all at once. If you ask yourself the question “Why do I want this?” every time, eventually crystal clarity will come to you — clarity of the driving motive.
See also: 3 signs that will help you identify a true desire
Let me give an example. A common desire is “I want to have my own home.” There’s nothing wrong or scary about that. Your own home can satisfy many needs. One of them is the desire for freedom.
If I want to have my own home, then a rental apartment won’t suit me, because I could be kicked out at any moment. For example, when someone comes to you and says: “You need to move out in 2 days,” and you have a small child in your arms and nowhere to go.
Another example: you lived with authoritarian parents who pushed you around and dictated how you should behave. Then a strong desire for freedom arises inside, and as a tool to fulfill the need for freedom, the desire to have your own separate home appears.
But this is not a motive that can be quickly realized, because the need for freedom can be fulfilled in other ways.
Do you see the dissonance here? Having your own home and having a need for freedom. There are many other options for fulfilling this need.
To understand motives, let’s look at what human needs exist in general.
Six basic human needs that underlie the hidden motives of your desires
Three internal needs:
- the need for love,
- the need for self-esteem,
- the need for security.
These needs are born from within and cannot come from outside. But if you lacked love in childhood, or had a sad first experience with love, or you don’t love yourself, then you will always try to fill this need from the outside.
The same goes for the need for security. If a sense of safety isn’t wired into your energy system, into you, then the universe will always throw situations your way where you feel unsafe. Then you’ll encounter bullies, and various situations will occur that put your safety at risk.
It’s the same with self-esteem. If your parents didn’t cultivate inner self-confidence in you as a child, or didn’t value your opinion, your self-esteem will be low. You will seek validation from outside, look for praise and approval, and become dependent on others’ opinions.
If these three needs are absent within a person, they try to fill them from the outside. And then they become hidden motivators that drive actions.
If I lack love, I won’t try to find love within myself, won’t try to truly open my heart and learn to love. Instead, I’ll look for a person to love me, and I’ll keep searching.
A hidden motive won’t lead to the fulfillment of a dream, even if we want a relationship and declare it.
See also The Art of Simply Living, or What Will Help You Start Living Your Own Life
Three External Needs:
- creative self-expression (tied to people; I want society to accept it),
- the need for new experiences,
- the need for recognition.
Let’s return to your goal and ask yourself: why do I want this? Which of my needs am I trying to satisfy? Is this need internal or external?
For example, your goal is to write a book or build an empire. What is driving you in this case? What need? An internal or external one?
Maybe you want to help as many people as possible, to share your experience. Or perhaps you are driven by a need for recognition.
Sometimes, after this kind of analysis, the original goal changes beyond recognition.
Only after you have identified your true intentions and needs can you move forward.
Maybe you wanted a relationship, but realized you need to give more attention and care to yourself. Or you wanted a child and to go on maternity leave, but in reality, you just need a break from a stressful job.
By gaining clarity, you get to know yourself, your real needs and desires, and this cuts down on a huge amount of actions, time, and energy that you can directly channel into bringing to life what you truly need.
See also How Self-Betrayal Manifests and How to Change It
Share in the comments: in what cases did your hidden motives align with your set tasks and goals? And in what cases was it the exact opposite?
This article was written based on the webinar “The Key to Your Dream”