What is the Core Motivation Behind Your New Year’s Resolutions?

As a recovering goals addict, my resolutions have shifted from a lengthy list of what would make me “my ideal perfect” to one core desired state…consciously knowing and extending myself from wholeness. When this happens, the core motivation behind all that we do is driven from love.

Now there is nothing wrong with wanting to improve or change our habits…unless they are rooted in a desire to feel loved, worthy, approved, or validated. This is where we have to become mindful of the driving force behind the desire to set and accomplish a particular goal.

Is the goal serving as an extension of love or is the goal seeking love through its accomplishment?

The answer to this question reveals whether or not a particular goal is being driven from ego’s desire to feel secure and whole or if the goal is being set from a place of peace and power that allows us to extend the love that we consciously know ourselves to be.

If the goal is being set from a desire to feel secure and whole (ego), we can use this to direct our inner healing, such that we’re able to extend from love (instead of in search of love). All inner healing is aimed at correcting the belief that we must do something to attain love.

You are love. Ego simply likes to hide this from your conscious awareness so that it can continue to run the show. In order to know the truth of what you are (love), you must disentangle yourself from ego’s (false) claim to truth.

At the root of ego is the fear-inducing belief that we are somehow incomplete. The more aligned we are with this particular perception, the more attached we are to needing our particular laundry list of goals to be in place to feel secure and whole.

This is ego’s masterful disguise. Blind to it, we’re run by it, constantly chasing one goal after another, in search of love, peace and fulfillment, only to learn that each of these roads leads to a dead-end (i.e. another goal in search of the same thing).

The only way to break ego’s spell is to recognize that it will never lead to knowing and experiencing love in a permanent manner.

Prior to setting a particular goal, you assume that reaching the goal will automatically lead to feeling love. This assumption is based on ego’s view of how things work. It believes it must “do to get” or “get to have”.

But if you are love (and you are), why must you do anything to get love?

And if you are love (which you are), why must you get something to have what you already are?

Ego’s logic directly opposes the spiritual teaching that you are love. Given that it’s logic does not align with spiritual truths, it follows that an error in our perception must be corrected if we’re ever to know that which we are.

To consciously know love, the gap in perception between being and having must be unified in our awareness. Ego sees “having” through the act of attainment, whereas a higher-state of consciousness (one were love is known) sees no gap between being and having…

Being love, you have love. Having love, you extend love. Nothing is done to get. Giving and receiving become one.

Mentally recognizing this gap in perception is what allows you to open to a new system of thought…one that leads to consciously knowing that you are indeed love.

And so the inner work begins…

Ego’s thoughts system must be fully seen through to make room for one that allows love to be known.

An example to help clarify the process…

If, in the past, you believed you must do something (i.e., lose weight, accomplish a goal, etc.) to feel worthy of love, you were under the premise that you could only love yourself or receive love from others if you achieved said goal. This falls under ego’s system of thought that says we must “do to get”.

The perceptual gap between being and having is at play and is driving our thoughts and behavior. An error is our perception must be corrected if we’re to reverse what is at play.

The goal that moves us towards knowing love asks: what perceptual conditions must I meet to know love?

Since love exists as a state of being and is not something that can be attained, the only course of action is to correct that which blocks us from knowing this in our conscious awareness…our association with the ego’s thought system. This is the error in our perception that must be healed.

Since the ego’s thought system has been running the mind, this statement of intention asks what conditions must be met to release to the ego’s thought system, so that a new thought system can be established in its place…one that leads to consciously knowing love.

Putting every goal through this litmus test of the ego’s thought system versus that which will lead to knowing love is a total game changer. Instead of running down a thousand different roads that we hope will lead to love (but can’t because the ego is running the show), we reroute all of our efforts into actually knowing love.

Once we indicate that we desire to know love and are willing to do the necessary inner work, it’s as if we set off a bunch of flares, signaling to the divine we are in need of help and welcome any and all assistance in bringing us home.

You will never be without support, so go ahead…set off the flares! 🙂

To establishing knowing love as the goal of all goals,

Shanna