Guilt Isn't Gas - What Is?

In the concluding talk of the Saturday Morning Session of the October 2016 General Conference, Elder Neil L. Andersen spoke of the limitations of guilt:

Guilt has an important role as it awakens us to changes we need to make, but there are limits to how far guilt will help us.

Guilt is like a battery in a gasoline-powered car. It can light up the car, start the engine, and power the headlights, but it will not provide the fuel for the long journey ahead. The battery, by itself, is not sufficient. And neither is guilt.

But what is? I understand that feeling guilty will only get a person so far. To experience enduring change, a person needs something else. But what? If guilt is the battery, what is the gas?

It must be some motivating force, since it provides the fuel to drive change. It must be powerful enough to actually bring about change. And its effects have to be long-term, since a lack of longevity was the main problem Elder Andersen had with guilt.

There are many feelings and conditions that could meet those criteria. Of those many, the first two that come to mind are duty and love. Our duty to God can compel us to repent of our sins and endure on His path, while our love of God can make us want to repent and follow Him, even to the ends of the earth. Of these two, I think that love makes a better "gas," but I would think that either one, or any combination of the two, would work.

There are other forms of spiritual gasoline, I'm sure. If you find that a sense of duty isn't very compelling, or that your love for God isn't strong enough to bring about the changes you know you need to make, perhaps you need to find another form of fuel. God can help you do that, if you want Him to. We're a long way away from where we need to be; we're going to need some kind of fuel to get us there.

But more to the point that Elder Andersen was trying to make, guilt is not the fuel that we need. It may help motivate us at first, but it won't make for good motivation forever. Either it'll stop working on us, or we'll get sick of it and reject it. We need a fuel that we won't grow to resent. In that case, duty may not be the best answer, but perhaps love is.

Whatever fuel we end up relying on, it'll have to be something that can last. It'll have to be something that sticks with us, something we can refresh regularly. It'll have to be something strong enough to motivate us, but something that doesn't leave a bad taste in our mouths. Guilt doesn't work for that because it's a negative emotion; it wouldn't be healthy to use guilt as our motivation constantly. The same goes for any negative emotion, and it may extend to duty as well, depending on how you feel about it. Love is a good motivator, but it may not be the only one. Find a fuel that works for you, and that keeps working for you, and use that as your motivation.

We all need some kind of motivation to help us make the changes we need to make, and since we can't make all those changes overnight, we're going to need a motivator that'll last. Guilt doesn't meet that requirement, so we're going to need some other fuel that does.