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Motivation Tips

The Need For Significance - Motivator Or Tyrant
By:Dr. Raymond Comeau

One of man's primal needs is the need for significance. We have a fundamental need to feel that we are important, that we matter, that we are "somebody." That need is so great that it colors most of our lives.

It's a primal need that stems all the way back to prehistoric time when being part of the pack meant survival and exclusion was a death sentence. Though most people are not even aware of the fact, that need is still with us today, just as powerful as ever. We need to feel important.

The way that we satisfy this need of significance is extremely important because it defines most of the major decisions that we make, how we live our life and what we will become. The difference between a tug and a Good Samaritan is determined by the way each of these two individuals will seek to satisfy the need for personal significance.

The need for personal significance is a great motivator albeit an almost unconscious one. The need is there yet, most of the time, it is not recognized. It remains on the instinctual level. The need craves to be satisfied but it is not recognized as such.

Full awareness and deliberate living are impossible without the conscious recognition of that primal need. Unlike the sex urge, the need for significance flies below radar and is not recognized as such. That is the reason that it may lead us down the wrong path without any awareness of the cause behind it.

In a materialistic world, the need for self-significance tends to be expressed through a display of physical possessions. Thus the desire to acquire the big house, expensive car and other toys that are the hallmarks of abundance and affluence.

Nothing wrong with material possessions so long as they are the by-products of the quest for significance and not the objective of that search. In other words, seeking to attain significance uniquely through a display of personal possessions is to miss the boat completely.

We are not what we own. A pauper who finds and wears an expensive piece of jewelry is still a pauper - regardless of the value of that trinket. The same principle applies universally. The big house, expensive car and sleek boat might give the appearance of self-significance but it is not the genuine item.

To be effectively rewarding, a true sense of self-significance has to be based on a person's self-worth. It comes when we can look ourselves in the mirror and have the feeling that we have been true to ourselves and that we have been doing our best.

True sense of self-significance comes with the understanding that we've faced life with courage, that we've admitted our mistakes, tried to repair them the best that we could and that we are valiantly pursuing the challenge of becoming all that we can be.

Real self-significance has nothing to do with the size of our bank account, our position in society or the number of friends that we have. It has everything to do with self-satisfaction, with genuine pride for our efforts regardless of the results obtained.

Even if we are not fully aware of it, there are some major needs that direct our decisions and thus the course of our lives. That fact has to be consciously understood if we wish to have mastery over our destiny. The need for self-significance is probably the most influential of all of those needs.

For that reason, we need to explore how we seek that sense of self-significance and ascertain that it is done in the most empowering manner possible. That need can be a great source of motivation as it can be a vile tyrant. It can elevate us to great heights as it can crush our integrity in the search of the almighty dollars. It's our need, we are the masters, so it's up to us to decide http://shamoublog.com/.






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