For Yourself

For motivation to take place, it has to be for yourself. It can either be: ‘I’m doing this exclusively for myself’ as, say, a novelist or an artist. Or, it can be: ‘I’m doing this for my boss but really for myself, for the income and the pride I put into it.’ No matter what you’re doing, you have to—in full honesty—be able to say it’s mainly for yourself. You can’t lie to yourself; it has to be the truth. Human beings are by nature selfish and self-interested. We’re taught the opposite, but that’s wrong. Motivation has to occur in the context of self-interest, or not at all.