Our Motivation is Everything

Starting with Why

“Why?”. It is a crucial question to ask in every circumstance. It gets us to answers we’d otherwise leave buried away. By going through a series of whys we can unlock the motivations for our behaviors and thus the core of our being–since to ‘be’ is to ‘act’. Thus the question to everything is “why?”.

Childlike Innocence.

Imagine the child grasping for their earliest sense of worldly understanding, they observe a behavior and they ask why, usually followed by a seemingly endless series of additional whys. This is a childlike innocence we are called to mimic ourselves. If we want to understand anything, including ourselves, then we need to be as curious as this child and start asking ourselves why and why again and again–even when we feel like we can’t go any deeper into explanation.

Investigating our whys is investigating our motivation

When we ask ourselves “why?” we are getting right down to the core of what we believe. This is crucial to proper understanding of ourselves and the direction in which we’re heading. We do many things throughout the day. In fact there seem to be too many to keep track of but this is exactly what I’m going to propose.

Do not let an action slip away without first asking yourself why.

How much of our daily behaviors our ‘built in’ at this point? We did something one time and we just kept on doing it again and again without much more thought to it. It became a part of our daily drill, the motions we can perform on autopilot and sometimes do. In a good condition this is called habit: in a not so good one this is called vice. Both habits and vices are critical components of our action and thus our being itself. Therefore, it is crucial that we understand where they are coming from and in order to do that we need to start asking ourselves ‘why’ before they continue to herd our behavior.

Getting to the Bottom - Getting to the Why

Now that we’ve set the stage, let us consider some practical strategies to carrying this perspective with you before you let any of those pre-disposed actions carry you around any longer.

While our habits and vices will be a good start since they are the most consistent in our normal behavior, eventually this will be a practice to assume in all actions you decide to choose in your day. Whether you want to start with the biggest pieces of your daily behavior now or tackle on all your behavior at once, that is your choice but the important thing is you’re starting this now and you are going to keep with it­ until you know exactly why you do everything that you do. “Why?”, you ask? Good question! Because you no longer want to have hidden motivations string you along as their puppet. You want to take charge of your life and be the director of your own actions and therefore your own being. You are responsible for your actions and behaviors and therefore you should be the decision maker, not the other way around with actions and behaviors making the choices for you.

Now then let’s take a look.

Before you do anything, ask yourself ‘why?’

For some actions this may be easy, others maybe not. Why do I brush my teeth? I want to maintain good dental hygiene and health. Why? I don’t want to lose my teeth or have smelly breath. Why? It would be hard to live the best I can if I choose to neglect my teeth and watch them go. Why? …You get the point.

Keep on asking why’s until you feel like you have gotten to the absolute bottom of its underlying motivation. This is especially critical to the bigger choices in life–the ones we are really interested in getting at here. We can all probably agree that good dental hygiene is a good action to abide by but what about where you place your hope in life or what you aspire for in this worldly life and beyond? These bigger questions will involve a much greater series of ‘whys’ and it will be crucial to get through every last one of them if you’re going to take anything from starting this practice to begin with.

Remember: where the whys are there also is your motivation and as such your most undisputed beliefs, even the ones we don’t remember choosing to begin with. Keep going with this until you reach this place, this is where we can enact big change in our life. It is hard to change our behavior until we first know why it is that we do it.

Now that you have reached the ultimate why, determine if the action is worth doing

Is this helping me get to where I want to be going? Is this motivation to do it in line with the type of person I aim to be? Now that I understand why I am truly doing this, is it a good use of my time or not? Does the end justify the means?

What’s in and what’s out

Now that you have done the investigative work, start choosing what are going to be your habits and the regular actions you perform.

Put together in a cohesive framework that places your goals and your highest character at the main stage, you have now have cut through the unnecessary of your life and what remains is only that which is worth doing and so is elevating your actions, and thus your being, and ultimately your self.