Your Life Theme offers a framework that gives shape to what motivates and drives you throughout your life.
You are not a personality. You are an identity. And that identity is driven by one of four archetypes or as I like to call them “Life Themes.”
My research has revealed in the writings from the ancient Egyptians, American Indians of North America, global Shamans, European philosophers and psychotherapists, the historical presence of four universal and innate sources of motivation.
They are described by different names in different cultures but I chose to use the western classic words for the four virtues: Love, Justice, Wisdom and Power.
These represent four and the only four major motivating forces that can explain human behavior.
These four archetypes have many roles and functions that compose our identity. It is their adequacy of expression that is responsible for us living a life of happiness and success.While each of us contains all four, there is one that takes precedent over the others.
They are responsible for our feelings and emotional reactions often causing anxiety, fear, anger, self-doubt, alienation, the lack of life meaning and purpose. Once you know your personal driving Archetype, you will be able to understand its presence and better manage your life and your relationships.
The motivation of each of the four Life Themes are described here:
• The Love Theme is motivated to better humanity by trying to correct that which causes pain, discomfort, suffering, and victimization. It is driven by love, compassion, and empathy.
• The Justice Theme seeks balance and harmony. Justice is expressed in several ways. It seeks to correct injustice and immorality in people, relationships and organizations. It also gets expressed by seeking balance and perfection using design through engineering, art, music, and literature.
• The Wisdom Theme is driven by a need to know in order to exercise sound judgment in problem solving and goal attainment. Wisdom finds its expression and purpose through teaching, learning, and working with data.
• The Power Theme needs to act upon thoughts and get into action. Empowerment finds its expression and purpose through Power as a natural leader and agent of change.
As you can see, there is something deeper than our personality at work that is running the show. Our personality is merely the way we appear in social situations. It is not what drives us.
What drives us are ancient archetypal forces based on moral and ethical virtues. I like to see these virtues as gifts that we are born with and are compelled to express and give throughout our life.
All of us need all four of the universal motivation systems regardless of our upbringing, opportunities, and physical attributes:
• If humans could not learn survival skills, find social cooperation, or change our environment through creative thought, we could not take care of our loved ones or ourselves. We would not know how to show compassion to others. (Love)
• If humans did not have the ability to find mutually beneficial moral and ethical relationships among each other, society could not function as a whole and we could not survive. As it is, life gives us a sense of belonging. (Justice)
• If humans were not curious to learn our environment, how to associate with others, or how to feed, clothe, or protect ourselves from the environment, we could not survive. As it is, life gives us meaning. (Wisdom)
• If humans did not have the motivation to act and change our environment or ourselves, we could not survive. After all, humans are the least prepared species for physical survival without our ability to invent and create change. (Power)
Each of us use each of the universal motivation systems in our lives. We learn in order to understand (Wisdom) the meaning of all that is in our environment; this learning occurs progressively through exchanges (Justice) of experiences with others as we act (Power) to produce and impact our environment. This is all dedicated to affirm (Love) our identity and promote well-being in the world.