The 43-year-old Scot, whose first game in charge will be at home to Arsenal on Sunday, made clear at a presentation at the Reebok Stadium that he saw Bolton as his best bet for a long-term career in the Premier League.
Avoiding relegation will be the immediate priority however, with his new employers currently 18th in the 20 team standings, although Coyle expected both Bolton and Burnley to beat the drop in the end.
"The emotional attachment alone goes without saying," he said of Burnley. "But I tried to take the emotion out of it and make what we felt, myself and my staff, was a football decision."
Coyle, who played for Bolton in the mid 1990s, joined Burnley in 2007 and last season took them back into the top flight of English football for the first time since 1976. They are 14th in the league, but just two points ahead of Bolton.
Burnley do not have the resources of the league's big-hitters and Coyle questioned how much would have been available to him in the summer even if they stayed up after the struggles of this year.
"It was very much a transitional period. I was probably trying to move things quicker than the finance would dictate," he said.
"There's two things that happen as a football manager. You do well, and you move on. Or you don't, and you're moved on. That's sort of what's happened."
Coyle felt Bolton, with their facilities and infrastructure, had more to offer.
"I have an unbelievable challenge ahead of us here, a magnificent football club and magnificent stadium and we now have to take that on," he said.
"My motivation isn't the finance or anything else that goes with it. If it was finance, I'd have taken the Celtic job.
"I want to be involved at the highest level. The highest level in world football is the English Premier League and I want to do that for a sustained period.
"Celtic was the team I supported as a boy and I spoke to Celtic in the summer and they offered me the job and I turned it down to stay with Burnley. I think that puts a few things to bed in terms of motivated by finance and everything else."
