Today I gave a talk (sermon) at my Church about the law of obedience. The law of obedience is being willing to follow all of the commandments that God has given us. It made me think of three reasons why we could be motivated to do something:

1. Fear of the consequences if we don’t do it.
2. Desire for the rewards of doing it.
3. Because we love it.

I’ve thought about how this applies to backcountry skiing. I can avoid dangerous slopes for the fear of dying in an avalanche, or I could do it because I love my Mom.

I could do a mountain bike race for the desire to win, or to be on the podium, or because I love it.

When our motivation to act is because of love for the action, we’re more likely to be satisfied and to enjoy whatever it is.

Tonight I was at a devotional with John Schmidt, the pianist for the Piano Guys. He’s absolutely incredibly and it made me think about the journey to becoming great at anything. I think that we must be motivated by love in order to become great in a good way. Sure there have been great people who have been motivated by greed, power, etc. But they’re usually evil. If you want to be great and good, your motivation should be love. If you don’t love what you’re doing, stop. Think about what you can change. What are you motivated to do because you LOVE it?

I can think of a few things:

1. Spending time with friends and family.
2. Taking classes about things I enjoy like philosophy, psychology, business, etc.
3. Strengthening my spirituality by praying, going to Church, serving in the temple, etc.
4. Mountain biking/ racing/ coaching.
5. Skiing
6. Writing this Blog/ recording my podcast.
7. Reading good books and watching good movies.

You may not be able to love everything you do. But I would strongly suggest living a life that you can honestly say you love, by spending the majority of time doing things you love with people you love. One of the great philosophers Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche posed an interesting thought experiment. He suggested that if we can be willing to live the same day over and over and over and over again for the rest of eternity, then we’re doing it right.

So are you living right? Are you motivated my love?