Pain vs. Pleasure

Everything we do is a result of our need to avoid pain or our desire to gain pleasure. People try to change and fail because they try to change the behavior not the cause behind it. We often fail to act on what we know is right because we associate more pain in doing that necessary thing than not doing it. The key in any long term change is to gain leverage on ourselves by associating so much pain in not making the change that it is simple for us to do what is necessary to go in our preferred direction. When talking before about the "falls syndrome" we need to keep fresh in our minds the pain associated with not making the the changes necessary now, the behaviors will then follow easily.

People fear of loss is greater than their desire for gain. Which would motivate you more keeping someone from stealing 100k you've earned in the last 5 years or the potential for you to earn 100k in the next 5 years? Most people would work harder to keep what they have then to take the risk necessary to get what they really want. People who experience pain don't always change because we all have a pain threshold. Finally we reach a level that cannot be accepted anymore. In our business many people do not work as hard as the should. They don't learn and pay attention as much as they should. They desire for big things but that potential for gain is not enough to change their behaviors over a consistent period of time. Then one day when the pain of failure becomes too high the pain actually becomes their friend and ally. It drives them to finally do what it takes to produce the results they always wanted. Donald Trump receives great pain from being 2nd place in anything. Mother Teresa's pain was from seeing some suffer. Helping others helped her pain. We need to link pain to our bad habits. I use to love the feeling of being super full after gorging on food. I have now started linking that feeling to great pain.

If we fail to direct our own associations to pain and pleasure, we're living like animals or machines, continually reacting to our environment allowing whatever comes up next to determine how we feel and the quality of our lives.