Motives determine everything, but only you know what they truly are. Because we can convince ourselves at some point in time that any actions we take are justified, it can be hard to display your true intentions. It's important to denote the difference between motives and intention. While they may be used interchangeably, motives could be either external or internal forces, while intentions are internal desires. Whether you mean to or not, there is a hint of both your motivations and intentions portrayed in every action that you take. The world looks at the actions we perform; reading between the lines they try to discern why you do what you do. Even though they may think that they know for certain what is motivating you, anything that they come up is only a guess or a gut feeling at best. For this reason, you need to make your intentions abundantly clear, because when they're not people generally assume that they're self-serving. People make split second assessments about you because we all have a deep need to gauge whether we can trust someone. Everything you say and do is either consciously or subconsciously evaluated. This process is something that comes completely natural to us - we automatically "judge" people because our mind tells us we need to have some idea of their intentions before we can proceed. Why do we feel such a strong need to know other people's intentions and yet gloss over our own as if they were less important? All too often people will find themselves fairly far along in life without having a clue how they got there. The hard truth is that there was no intentionality behind the actions they took, they lived a reactive life. For better or for worse motives undeniably shape your life, and yet so many people give such little thought to them. They make such a difference that you can have drastically different outcomes for nearly identical actions with contrasting motives.

Similar actions with divergent motives

Think of two people that volunteer at a homeless shelter. One does it just so they can post about it on social media and the other volunteers because they genuinely care about improving their community. Both of them are performing the same actions as they're serving - maybe even saying the exact same things, but their intentions are completely different. The homeless they're serving will see through this and have a natural affinity for the one serving who earnestly wants to be there. The reason for this is simply because they willingly chose to be there and choose to enjoy that decision. Therefore the two people serving will get completely different results and reactions. Service isn't something we should want to get through, it's an opportunity and a privilege to participate in. Who do you think will have the greater impact? It's not what they did in the end that mattered, but the intentions behind what they did.

Why are our intentions often so murky?

Remember the last time you went to the fridge looking for something even though you'd already been there several times before and found nothing? We do things for no particular reason more often than we'd like to admit. Outsiders may be able to put a finger on it, but when we're trapped in our own perspective sometimes we're blinded to reality. Everyone around you knows it about everyone but themselves, but your actions are a direct reflection of your desires. Typically we don't know what we want, and we don't know why we want what we want. We tend to buy into what the masses think is desirable and use their sheer numbers as a source of affirmation. Think about the person aimlessly shopping who comes home with that amazing thing they can't live without. But what's crazy is they didn't even know it existed the day before. This isn't only how people shop, but it's how much of society spends their lives. We end up living our lives by this "go with the flow" status quo. And by the time we realize what's happened we've lost extensive measures of our valuable time. This lack of clarity in thought leads to a lack of decisiveness in action. It seems circular, but the reason why so many people can't take action is because they don't have a reason to act. After living life aimlessly, they eventually come to adopt someone else's reasons. They may have never given any thought to defining their own reasons, but that's because they never intended to discover and know themselves. The key to not living a life with murky intentions is to take responsibility for your actions. This means never playing the victim card and either finding a way or making one. This is easier said than done, but it starts with introspection and evaluating why you want what you want (something only you can know). This will form and strengthen the most important relationship you can ever have; that is your relationship with yourself.

Do pure motives even exist?

Along your journey of introspection you will undoubtedly question virtually everything, but among everything you will question whether or not your existence should be self-serving. We're always doing something for a reason, and more often than not that reason is likely yourself. It's not wrong to look after and take care of yourself, in fact it'd be wrong not to do this. But even though those intentions serve yourself, they enable you to serve others. You have to be selfish before you can be selfless. But on this journey you must ask yourself if you intend to be selfless after you're selfish or will you continually bask in your egocentric little world. Many will choose the latter because they don't think they'll find fulfillment in the former. This couldn't be further from the truth. I've come to learn that the more you give the more you get if you don't give as a means to receive. This might sound like the reason behind why much of the world thinks they should do the right thing - you guessed it, karma.

The intentions of karma

We all know the saying that good things happen to good people. But think of it another way, those who intend to be good find themselves in good situations. Now we know that this isn't always the case, but oftentimes I and many others have found it to be true. There's no hard science to back karma, and that's alright because hard science doesn't dictate how we live our life, it only dictates life itself. Karma is often viewed as some temperamental and unpredictable mystical force. Though there may be some truth to that, attributing anything to magic and pixie dust never allows you to harness it's potential. So instead of thinking about karma in this way, which serves no one, I tend to look at karma as a muscle. The more good things you do (reps in the gym) the more good will result from it. You may not see the results immediately, but eventually if you consistently do good the results will come. One principle that I've lived my life by and continually found to be true is that if you look for the good in life (specifically other people) you'll find it. Think about that one person in your life who always seems to put the people around them in a bad mood. It's as if they're infecting everyone that crosses their path with a similar temperament. I simply see that the opposite of this can be true and flip that principle on its head by trying to infect the people around me with kindness and friendliness. We all are multifaceted people who have both good and bad sides to us, but it's when we are intentional about bringing the good side of ourselves out that we become a magnet and beacon of good. Don't fall victim to karma, wield it as a tool.

You can't stumble upon good intentions

The greats of history didn't just stumble upon their greatness, but rather they crafted who they were and shaped themselves because they intended to; no force of nature would stop them. That's what it means to live an intentional life. Intentionality means having a vision and making it happen because you believe in it. As a result of this pursuit, meaning, discipline, fortitude, and other such virtues arise and will overflow from your life. At times it might look as if your intentions are something you can't control, but in those moments your inner most desires are revealed. So where do our desires and therefore intentions come from? They emanate from the core of who you are and aren't something that you can fake until you make. There is no quick fix to realign your intentions, you'll spend a lifetime developing them. In many ways your intentions reflect your character and your character is direct reflection of your relationship with yourself. This relationship must be approached with the utmost brutal honesty. You know in your heart whether or not you intend to do something, lying to yourself will only denigrate your relationship with yourself, eventually destroying your faith in your capabilities. We all know someone who is all talk and no action (and I'm not talking about politicians). They become this way because they became comfortable lying to themselves. But the only person they're fooling is themselves, people can see their (and your) motives plain as day from miles away. Ultimately, the way you act is determined by where you place your values - which means that when anyone sees your actions, they are seeing your values and by extension your intentions. Your intentions shape your life and who you are - without them your life has no shape, other than that which is thrust upon you by the world. Don't let your life be a circumstantial fluke. Who do you intend to be?