It's Your Motivation Not Your Goal That's Important
By Steven Stosny
The unconscious motivation of behavior is usually different from our perceived goals and intentions.
For instance, Rick came to my office about a "communication problem" with his teenage daughter. He described a terrible altercation that began with his "harsh but right" reproach: "This is the third time I've asked you to clean your room!"
His goal in this interaction, of course, was to get her to clean her room. His intention was to let her know that he was upset because she hadn't. But the motivation that energized his behavior was attack, i.e., make her feel bad for not cleaning her room.
Her emotional response, of course, was defensive. After some mutual name-calling (hers under her breath), she cleaned her room, in submission and humiliation, which she numbed with resentment. In fact, this is why she "forgot" to clean it in the first place.
Rick had begun to misinterpret the normal distractedness of a young teenager as a personal affront to him. Feeling disrespected, he attacked. After only a couple repetitions of this dance, his daughter associated cleaning her room with submission and humiliation.
It turns out that the human brain will do almost anything to avoid thinking about submissive and humiliating behavior. Rick's daughter naturally sought more interesting things to occupy her mind, which made her more likely to "forget" to clean her room. The more often she forgot, the more he attacked, and the more he fooled himself with the "rightness" of his goals and intentions.
Motivations are basic, simple, and straightforward. Goals and intentions are always complicated and often self-deceptive. In any given interaction, people respond emotionally to basic approach, avoid, attack motivations, not to goals and intentions.
Rick's problem with his daughter, by the way, was about importance, not "communication." The most important thing, he later decided, was to teach her cooperation and respect. Attack motivations can evoke submission and fear, along with the resentment that goes with them, but never cooperation and respect.
Rick left my office rejoicing in his "single-session cure." He thought that his new "insight" of what was most important would change everything between him and his daughter. As it turned out, he did behave differently toward her, when he was conscious enough to remember his "insight," usually after an episode of frustrated attacks.
I tried to warn him that conscious insight rarely influences, much less changes, the unconscious stream of small, everyday emotions. Whatever change you make is likely to last only as long as your attention lasts. Once routine sets in, the flow of the stream of emotions returns to automatic pilot.
Most of what we do bypasses conscious thought and feelings. Only waves of larger emotions, like fear, anger, joy, or sadness bulge into awareness. Otherwise, the stream of unconscious small emotions makes a powerful force of habit that easily overrides the best of goals and intentions.
Lasting change usually requires emotional reconditioning, i.e., changing habits. For most of us, that is the only way to ensure that our streams of unconscious, everyday emotions flow from the most important things for us and about us.
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Steven Stosny, Ph.D., treats people for anger and relationship problems. Recent books: How to Improve your Marriage without Talking about It, and Love Without Hurt.
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God bless your family and your marriage.
Jim Stephens
