The controlling forces that direct your life
If you want to help someone you need to find what already motivates them and influence them.
Why don’t we all follow the steps for success if they’re so simple?
Because of fear:
Fear of success
Fear of failure
Fear of what they’re going to say
Fear of getting hurt…
In essence: fear of pain.
Our need to avoid pain and our desire to gain pleasure are the two twin forces that control our actions.
From the two forces, avoiding pain is much stronger than gaining pleasure. Because that’s what has kept human beings alive for ages, it’s hardwired in our brains.
It’s very different if we associate dieting, exercise, school, finances, etc. with something that’s giving us pleasure or with something painful.
There are two special cases:
- If we’ve associated both taking action and not taking action as painful, we’ll take the less painful option. If both actions give us pleasure, we’ll take the most pleasurable one.
- If we’ve associated pleasure but also pain to some action, we may begin to do it and sabotage ourselves at some point because we want it but our subconscious mind will try to avoid the pain.
We can and must use that in our favour if we want to succeed.
Think of any area of your life where you procrastinate, where you’re sabotaging yourself or any goal towards which you’re not taking action. What’s stopping you?
The answer is what you link pain and pleasure to. And how can we change that?
Using, once again, the power of focus. Because whatever we focus on is what’s most real to us. So, focus your attention on:
- How not changing your behaviour will be much more painful than changing it
- How changing your behaviour will bring you measurable and immediate pleasure
The past does not equal the future
Tony Robbins
👉 Assignment
Remember: Use pain and pleasure instead of letting pain and pleasure use you!
STEP 1: Four new actions.
What are four new actions you know you should take now
STEP 2: Pain you’ve associated with following through.
What is the pain you’ve associated with these actions in the past?
STEP 3: Pleasure you’ve associated with not following through.
What is the pleasure you took from not following through in the past?
STEP 4: Pain if you don’t follow through.
What will it cost you if you don’t follow through now?
STEP 5: Pleasure if you do follow through.
What are the benefits you’ll gain by taking action in each of these areas now? How will it enhance your life? How will it create greater joy, happiness, success, freedom or pride?
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