Huna Article

Huna International

Motivation is the Moving Force
by Kala H Kos

Through the Huna teachings you may be familiar with much information about what it takes to create your life the way you want it to be. However, you may not be making the time or the effort to change your old thoughts and habits, to plan and to carry through with action. In fact, you may be asking yourself, "Why aren't I doing those things? I really want to do them." Perhaps--but not as much as you don't want to do them! You'd rather do something else or think about something else because your motivation isn't yet strong enough. Maybe you're dealing with the fear of failure, or you haven't made the goal important enough. You must be more excited about succeeding than you are afraid of failing. The motivation to change has got to be stronger than the motivation to stay the same!

Motivation is the moving force; it moves you to act. Your motivation is based upon the strength of your desire, which is based upon the importance of what you want. The more important you make your goal, the more you'll be motivated to move toward it. Increasing your motivation will also help you increase your concentration.

The third principle says, "You get what you concentrate on." In other words, you experience the results of your most dominant and consistent thinking. To concentrate is to think persistently and clearly about your aims. When you really want something, you concentrate your attention on it until you get it.

A prime example of this comes from one of the most talked-about films of the seventies, Kramer vs. Kramer, which starred Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. It dramatically illustrates the power of heightened concentration. The film is about a major transition in the life of a man whose wife leaves their marriage unexpectedly. Because the emotional strain and the additional demands of caring for his son disrupt his work, Ted Kramer is fired from his position as art director at a major advertising agency. He then learns that his estranged wife, Joanna, is suing him for custody of their son, Billy.

Wanting very much to keep his child, Ted hires an attorney who tells him that if he's unemployed, he has no chance of winning the case. In desperation, he manages to make a last-minute appointment with a small ad agency on the last working day before Christmas. Though the head of the agency is obviously impatient to begin his vacation and reluctant to hire someone so over-qualified, Ted's intense desire and sheer determination land him the job.

The more important the goal, the stronger the desire. One of the most powerful factors in bringing ideas into form is the intensity of the desire. Kramer vs. Kramer is a perfect example of increased concentration, motivation and desire. Devotion to his son made Ted Kramer's goal urgently important. Focusing intensely on his goal--to care for and be with Billy--moved him to take every available action and overcome every apparent obstacle.

Since the intensity of your desire is so important, how can you increase it? Make the end result, the goal, more important by deciding that it is. Give it importance through your own personal authority. This desire--the passion about it, the fierce determination to achieve it -- is not the same feeling as a yearning, which implies the idea of wanting something you don't have or cannot get. Rather it is the kind of feeling that says: "This is what I want, and this is what I'm going to have!"

So remember to build motivation by building up your desire to achieve your goal. You can amass so much energy this way that when you focus your attention it has much more power. Happy creating!

Kala Kos is an Alakai and Faculty member of Huna International. She gives Huna classes and workshops on Kauai, on the US Mainland, in Canada and in Europe. See her listing at the Alakai Hut.