In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, motivation is extremely important. Clarifying your motivation or your purpose for doing something, even the small daily issues that arise in life, can be quite useful and enlightening. Here’s a story from Bo Lozoff’s book, It’s a Meaningful Life: It Just Takes Practice that illustrates the point quite well:

“A well-loved monk in Tibet named Gesha Ben was especially known for his scrupulous self-honesty and holding himself to task for impure motivation. At a dinner for monks, Gesha Ben watched as the server moved down the table filling each monk’s bowl with delicious-looking sweet curds. Wehn the server finally arrived at his bowl, Geshe Ben put hi shand over it and said, ‘I cannot have any, thank you. I have enjoyed much more than my share already.'”

Here’s a coaching assignment I think you will may find challenging but also enlightening: Pick a day where you will ‘scrupulously’ examine your motivation for your speaking and actions. Ask yourself whether your life is being shaped by the fear, lack and struggle of your Inherited Purpose (which can your Inherited Purpose feeding your ego of looking good, being right, avoiding conflict, etc). Notice also when it’s clear your actions are being shaped by the Universal Love, abundance and flow of your true Divinely Inspired Life Purpose. At the end of the day, take a few minutes to debrief in your journal what you learned from taking this extra attention at clarifying the purpose behind your actions.