The Pain & Pleasure Principle and How to Start Taking Action Today
We only make excuses because we don’t know WHY or HOW to do something.
There are two main drivers when it comes to taking action.
Gain pleasure
Eliminate pain
If the brain can’t link taking action with either one of the above two points then it will see it as a waste of time. The brain will basically say to itself, “why should I spend precious energy on something that is neither an immediate threat, causing pain or providing any pleasure?”
For example, if we want to lose weight, it’s recommended to link working out and eating healthy with the pleasure of looking and feeling good. Alternatively, we can also associate the pain of not working out and eating healthy with feeling unfit and unhealthy.
Either way, in order to take action, we must link action with either pain or pleasure.
When your ‘WHY’ is big enough, the ‘HOW’ becomes easy. This is precisely why we don’t take action. We are limited by the ‘HOW’ and the unknown of “HOW” overwhelms us so we stay put and settle with what we have. And if our WHY is not strong enough, it will not motivate us to take any action.
The brain is programmed not to take risk or take very little risk. If we try to do the unknown or explore options outside our present reality, the brain sees that as a threat to our survival and will do all it can in its power to keep us from taking action.
Unfortunately, this can often hold us back from achieving great things. In fact, it can even keep us from living our lives to the fullest. Therefore, the way around this is to first expose ourselves to certain scenarios mentally, through visualisation.
By visualising ourselves in certain scenarios, we will be better prepared mentally for what could happen and the brain doesn’t completely freak out when it comes time to take action and do the things we keep telling ourselves we’re going to do.
This is not only necessary for big life decisions, but also for the smaller ones that we make on a daily basis. By being mentally prepared, we can also deal with difficult situations more effectively and maintain our composure under pressure.
At FCC these are some of the things that we go through with our Fighters to help ensure that they’re able to start taking control over their everyday lives and long term goals.
We’re currently in Block 2 of FCC which is all about striking, mindset and taking action.
Click here to read more about Block 2: Mindset & Striking
Stay tuned for more updates as we progress through rest of the eight-week challenge. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with our Challengers’ journeys.
