1-416-561-5780Consider a decision that you have made when the end results were very favorable and satisfying to you. With respect to that decision:
♦ Identify the positive reasons (motives) that led you to make that decision. By “positive”, here, it is meant the altruistic, unselfish motives that you could feel proud of. Write a short statement for each such positive motive for your decision.
♦ Identify and list all the negative motives behind the same decision you chose to work with. By “negative”, here, it is meant the egotistical, selfish motivations that would benefit only you or a small group of people closely related to you, regardless of whether or not others might be at a loss. It also includes motives based on other negative aspects like pride, greed, flattery, fear, obstinacy, etc.
You will have to be persistent and very honest with yourself when identifying your negative motivations, since the ego does not like to admit to having negative thoughts and motivations.
Now consider another decision, when the outcome was not favorable to you. Repeat the procedure of listing your positive and negative motivations to make that decision.
Think of how easy or how difficult it was to identify your positive and negative motivations in each case (the favorable and the unfavorable decision). Which decision had the longer list of negative motivations? And which one had the longer list of positive motivations?
You are encouraged to repeat this exercise with additional decisions of each type: successful and unsuccessful decisions. Observe the resulting lists of positive and negative motivations behind each one and the ease or difficulty that you had to create those lists for each decision.