For the past two weeks we have been talking about the motivation as the drug that will bring you to your goals. True motivation is an internal process in which pain and pleasure are activated enough to provoke you to act in a certain way. Everything we do is with the good intention of either avoiding pain or gaining pleasure. Pain and pleasure are the driving forces behind all of our behaviors.
So how do we know what events are associated with pain and which are associated with pleasure. Our past experiences. Other people's experiences. What we see, what we hear. If a person says hello to a stranger and the stranger gets mad and yells at them, they could get a strong negative feeling about the whole encounter. The person may make an unconscious negative association between confronting strangers and upset feelings. The peron may not even realize that the next time they confront a stranger they are reluctant to do so. The person may or may not realize why this is happening.
Out brains link things together in this sam way almost instantly. This is why we have a difficult time changig. Many associations we make are below our own awareness, so we rarely even question them. Rest assure they are going on, all the time, even when you are awae of it.
Why do associations occur? It would be difficult to function in a world in which we would have to relearn things each time we are presented with them. We connect new material to things we already know. We make mental shortcuts. We connect pain and pleasure to things based often on our first experience with them or someone elses opinion. How productive are your associations is the real question!
To succeed you must simply decide what action you must take to achieve your goals and then link pain to not taking this action and pleasure to taking it. When you get a strong emotional reaction to anything, remember the situation. Your emotions are an excellent alarm system and a great opportunity for self-exploration. Decide what emotion your feeling and what it is connected to. Ask yourself if this connection is productive. If it is not you will need to form a new connection.
Once you determine an unproductive association:
Step 1: decide what emotions are connected to what thoughts or situations
step 2: challenge that connection. is it rational? does it makes sense? look for all the wholes in the logic of your connection. Write them down.
step 3: write down a new empowering connection and all the reasons this association makes sense.
step 4: look at the writing you did on step 2 and 3 at least 3 days a week for 10 minutes each time. You need to spend time and get emotionally involved in your reactions. You must really feel these new associations. Keep going over these writings until you feel the new associations. just like you would not lift weights once for a body building competition, you must TRAIN YOUR BRAIN the same way. Do this several times a week.
Make pain and pleasure work for you not against you.
Gene Zannetti
Peak Performance Specialist
genezannetti@gmail.com
908-337-6143
visit my blog at http://genezannetti.blogspot.com
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