Pleasure V Pain

Ever wondered why you keep coming back to goals that you never quite get around to achieving or keep procrastinating about the same thing but never do it?  It's because everything we do is motivated by gaining pleasure and avoiding pain.

Let’s look at some examples:

Procrastination - if you’re procrastinating about doing something it’s because you link more pain to doing that thing than the pleasure you will have when you’ve done it.

Weight Loss – if lose a few pounds then spoil it all by eating copious amounts of  alcohol, that’s because you link more pleasure to eating the chocolate than the pain of losing the weight!

Relationships – If you’re in a relationship that isn’t working and you can’t seem to leave, it’s because you link more pain to ending the relationship than the pleasure you may gain if you do.

Changing Jobs – If you’re unhappy in your job, but don’t leave, it’s because you link more pain to finding and starting a new job than you do to staying in your existing role.

Excessive Drugs/Drinking – If you drink to excess or take drugs, it’s because you link more pleasure to that than the pleasure of being clean/healthy.

As humans every single action we take is geared towards getting out of pain and in to pleasure.  You may say, “But I really want to lose weight!”  Or “I really want to do/be/have that” my answer would be, “Obviously not enough, or else you would have it, or at least be working towards it”.  So how do we do that?  We do it by leverage, until you make the reason for doing/being/having the thing you want bigger than your reason for not doing it, you’ll never achieve it.

In a future post, I’ll talk about leverage and how you can use it in order to achieve your goals.  Until then, whenever you find yourself procrastinating, ask yourself whether it's because it's less painful to do something than it is to do it!

Jo