Goal and Motive: What Is the Difference?

Will the object or position you fancy actually make you happier? Wasted effort and disappointment can happen when we confuse goals with motives and means with ends. This happens more often than it seems. To choose the best means to your ends, you need to know the psychological difference between goal and motive.

Smart creatures have goals

All animals react to the situation here and now. Some are smarter; they can also imagine objects and situations beyond the here and now: They are able to have mental representations. Great apes do, and it's likely dogs do too. In any case, humans do.

Representations allow us to imagine, to picture, a desired state and its consequences. For example, a state that would better satisfy our motives. When hungry, you can imagine eating a sandwich and then different ways of getting that sandwich. Interestingly, being able to imagine different alternatives (e.g., making a sandwich, ordering one, stealing one) creates the possibility of a decision, a choice of the best way to get to the final imagined state (here, eating the sandwich) and possible consequences (no longer being hungry). This is the story of our lives: deciding what we want and why, and trying to get there. We act with purpose. A good life, it seems, has a lot to do with making good choices. But what is the psychology behind our "choices"?

Goals are easy to change, whereas motives are not

To understand, we need to clarify the difference between motive and goal. This difference is key because goals are easy to change, whereas motives are not. Take "hunger." This motive can be satisfied by various means (e.g., a sandwich, noodle soup, etc.). You can change the means (the type of food), and that is fine, but you cannot suppress the motive unless you satisfy it. Reasoning cannot stop hunger.

Feeling hungry, like feeling ambitious, is feeling a lack of something and a desire to fill this lack by acting; it is not "rational." A motive is an urge to achieve an inner state which makes one feel balanced or satisfied. Hunger is a motive. So are professional ambition and sociability. Not satisfying such urges may lead to frustration and stress. Satisfying the motive ends the urge: If you are hungry and someone gives you your favourite food right away, you will forget about getting that sandwich. There are many ways to satisfy a motive.

The motive, like any feeling, is vague and difficult to describe. The goal, on the other hand, is clear. It is a conscious representation of what could fulfil the motive. For example, for hunger, a meal; for ambition, a position; for loneliness, a companion. A goal is a conscious representation of a desired final state of things. It directs our activity in the hope that reaching it will satisfy our motive. This is why humans are called "goal-directed" creatures. A single goal can sometimes satisfy several motives: "Getting home for dinner" could simultaneously satisfy the motives of hunger, sociability, and safety. That is good because we have many motives, some more salient than others at a given moment.

A goal is not an end—it's only a means to satisfaction

To achieve the goal, people will imagine a course of action, a "trajectory" of activity that will take them from the current state to the desired final state, the goal. This trajectory will take them through steps (subgoals) that gradually bring them closer to the goal. For example, to get a meal, a possible trajectory is: Get food, cook, serve, and finally eat.

Some behavioural trajectories may be short, such as going out for lunch. Some trajectories may take years, such as gaining access to a prominent social position that satisfies multiple motives (livelihood, recognition, security, power). In societies, and even more so in large societies, the steps in the trajectory that one must take to reach the goal can be complicated and may appear as detours. These "detours" are other activities that have no obvious or immediate connection with the final goal. For example, to reach a high social position, one may have to go through education, hard work, and all the rest.

Activity theory is the field of psychology that studies activity in detail. Let us summarise its relevant aspects for our problem here:

A behavioural trajectory is like a journey on a land with many roads, where at each intersection we choose a particular path (e.g., sandwich or soup?). On this journey, we are driven by motives—urges over which we have limited control—and are directed towards goals (the endpoint the trajectory is aiming for). Goals are easier to change as long as they satisfy the motives. In a nutshell: "Activity is driven by motives and directed towards goals."

Source: Saadi Lahlou

In this figure, discs represent the situations met at the various steps of the trajectory. The dotted line shows the motive moving the activity forward.

The difference between goal and motive is key because, if you want to change behaviour, it is relatively easy to change goals, but it is difficult to suppress a motive. Consider thermal comfort: You can change the goal (wear a jumper vs. turn the heat on), but you cannot suppress the need for body heat—unless you satisfy it.

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Review your goals on a regular basis

Why is this important for the good life? Confusing goal with motive can make you rigid and goal-dependant. Wise people are aware of their motives; they change their goals when they realise that another goal would satisfy their motives better or more easily. What was a good goal a while ago may become a bad choice when the situation changes. Surely, consistency is good because it is necessary to achieve a goal. Nevertheless, being too rigid about goals can be detrimental: A goal is only a means to an end. Do not confuse the how with the why.

Source: DALL-E/OpenAI

Regularly reassessing your decisions and strategies, alone or with people you trust, can be enlightening: What are my motives? Are my current goals the best way to satisfy them? The answer will depend on many things, but the questions are worth asking on a regular basis, especially when it turns out that reaching your current goal is problematic.

Want to know more? Activity theory is more detailed in my latest book.