Today we ask that you examine your motivations for doing things.

There are weak reasons for doing things, and there are strong reasons for doing things.

Weak reasons for doing things include: money, status, duty, obligation, guilt, security, and fear.

When any of those reasons are your primary motivation for taking action, no good will come of it.  Sooner or later, you will feel drained and weak.  You will feel a great deal of resistance.  You may even make yourself sick.

Strong reasons for doing things include: love, faith, passion, excitement, a desire to create good, a desire to create meaning, a desire to create beauty, a desire to create a joyful experience, a desire to invent and explore, a desire to create healing, a desire to help others.

When you have a strong motivation behind your actions, there is plenty of energy and drive to see it through.  You feel motivated.  You feel good.  The process may be challenging, and difficult.  But you have the strength to face those challenges.  You feel whole, and integrated.

Now: it is possible to exchange a weak motivation for a strong one.

For example: perhaps you originally got into the work you do because you had a strong motivation.  Like someone who becomes a doctor because she wishes to help people.  But over time, confusion sets in.  The doctor’s primary motivation may shift and become about money, with helping people as a secondary motivation.

When this happens, existential confusion sets in.  The doctor is unhappy, and finds her work to be tiresome and unrewarding.

In order to restore balance, the doctor must shift her motivation, and reconnect with the desire to help people as her primary motivation.  If she does, her energy and ability will be restored, and she will regain her sense of purpose.

So you see: the change does not have to be external.  The doctor does not need to find a new career.  The change is purely internal.  The doctor shifts her primary motivation for doing what she does from a weak motivation, to a strong one.

All of you have this power, and this applies to even the most mundane actions.  When you do things, ask yourself: why am I doing this?  And notice the first answer that arises.  That is your primary motivation.  If the answer is a weak motivation, see if you can dig deeper and find a stronger motivation to connect to.

For example: perhaps you must interact with a troublesome family member.  A weak motive for doing this would be out of guilt, and obligation.  A strong motive would be that you love this person and wish to create good for them.  If you can connect with this strong motive as your primary motive before the interaction, you may find that things go much better.

It really is amazing, how much power you have to shape your life experience.