Motivation
Motivation is the frequency underneath why you move. Not what you do and not how you decide, but what draws you into action or into a conversation before either of those begins. There are six, and it is read from the Color beneath your Personality Sun and Earth.
With Perspective it makes up the mind half of the Variable, the half covered by Rave Psychology rather than by PHS.
The six, and what each transfers to
The Sun and Earth sit opposite each other on the wheel, so they always carry the same Color, which is why Motivation is a single value rather than a pair. Each one has a harmonic it slips into when you are not running correctly.
| Color | Motivation | Transfers to | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fear | 4 · Need | Moving because something has to be resolved before it can be safe. |
| 2 | Hope | 5 · Guilt | Moving because something better is coming. |
| 3 | Desire | 6 · Innocence | Moving because you want the thing, and leading rather than following. |
| 4 | Need | 1 · Fear | Moving toward what is needed. The transpersonal color, and the one that requires something from outside itself. |
| 5 | Guilt | 2 · Hope | Moving because you can see there is something you could do about it. |
| 6 | Innocence | 3 · Desire | Moving without an agenda attached, in tune with the moment rather than steering it. |
The pairs are 1 and 4, 2 and 5, 3 and 6, and they run in both directions. Fear becomes Need and Need becomes Fear, depending on which one you started with.
These are not judgements
The six names are ordinary English words carrying a lot of moral freight, and that is the main obstacle to learning this material. Ra used them mostly in their not-self sense, describing what each looks like when it has gone wrong, and the everyday meanings we already attach to them come from the same place. So people arrive at this table hoping for Hope and dreading Guilt.
Correctly lived, Guilt means you can see there is something you could do about a situation, which is what makes someone step in and fix it. Innocence means acting without an agenda attached. Fear means resolving what has to be resolved before anything is safe. None of the six is better than the others, and the one you have is not up for negotiation.
Transference, and why you will recognize the wrong one
Color is not stable. It moves, and the direction it moves in is fixed by the harmonic. The condition that decides whether you are in your own Motivation or in its transference is whether you are experimenting with Strategy and Authority or making decisions with the mind. Because most people do the second for most of their lives, most people are transferred most of the time.
The practical consequence is that when someone is told their Motivation for the first time, they very often say it does not sound like them, and the transferred one sounds exactly like them. That reaction is the expected result. It is not evidence the calculation is wrong.
The not-self version: dumb or blind
A useful pair of words for spotting transference in yourself is dumb or blind. Blind fear rather than fear that resolves something. Blind hope, which is hoping instead of acting. Blind desire, which is desperation. Blind need, blind guilt, blind innocence, which is the version with its head in the sand while something goes unattended. The tell is not the emotion, it is that the awareness has dropped out of it and you have stopped being able to tell the difference between things.
Where it comes from in the chart
Motivation is a Color value, which means it sits below the line and cannot be read off the bodygraph. It is the fourth of the four Transformations, and it belongs to the Personality side, the conscious side, which is where your mental process is imprinted to express itself. It arrives through your Profile, the costume you are wearing, and two people with the same Profile and different Motivations are recognizably running different software.
| Transformation | Read from | Side |
|---|---|---|
| Motivation | Personality Sun and Earth | Mind |
| Perspective | Personality Nodes | Mind |
| Determination | Design Sun and Earth | Body |
| Environment | Design Nodes | Body |
Ra Uru Hu on this, in his own voice
2 recordings from the Jovian Archive, played through SoundCloud. Nothing loads from SoundCloud until you press play.
- The Majority of Humanity Are Motivated Incorrectly SoundCloud
- What Motivates Your Mind? SoundCloud
Common questions
What is Motivation in Human Design?
Motivation is one of the four Transformations, and it describes the frequency underneath why you move: what draws you into action or into a conversation in the first place. It is read from the Color of your Personality Sun and Earth, which puts it on the conscious, mental side of the chart. There are six, and everyone has one.
What are the six Motivations?
Fear, Hope, Desire, Need, Guilt and Innocence, numbered one to six. The words are ordinary English and that is a trap, because most people hear them as judgements. Being motivated by Guilt is not a character flaw, and being motivated by Innocence is not naivety. They are descriptions of a mechanism, not a scorecard.
What is transferred Motivation?
Each Motivation has a harmonic it slips into when you are not operating correctly: Fear and Need trade places, so do Hope and Guilt, and so do Desire and Innocence. That slip is called transference. Because most people spend most of their lives making decisions with the mind rather than through Strategy and Authority, most people are in transference most of the time, which is why so many identify strongly with the wrong one of the pair when they first meet this material.
Why do I recognize my transferred Motivation more than my real one?
Because it is the one you have been living. When people first learn their correct Motivation the common reaction is that it does not sound like them at all, and the transferred one sounds exactly like them. That is the expected result rather than a sign the chart is wrong. The correct one becomes recognizable as deconditioning proceeds, not before.
How is Motivation connected to my open centers?
Transference runs through openness. Wherever you are undefined is where you are amplifying and taking in what is not yours, and that is the doorway the transferred Motivation comes through. An undefined Heart, for example, produces an ongoing attempt to prove you are good enough, and whatever your Motivation is gets bent around that attempt. The place you feel least sure of yourself is generally where the transference lives.
Can I change my Motivation?
No, and that is the point. Your Motivation is fixed, the same way your Type is. What changes is whether you are running it or running its transference, and the only thing that moves that needle is experimenting with your Strategy and Authority long enough for the mind to stop driving. There is no exercise that installs the correct Motivation directly.
Written on Motivation
Articles on the six motivational colors, transferred motivation, and how the not-self version of each one shows up.