Goals and pleasure zones

Human nature seeks to avoid pain and pursue pleasure. It's what has evolved society, created communities, built businesses, and sees us make goals every year.

These changes, when applied to our personal and profession pursuits can be the achievement of our life's desires. It could brings us to better health, a new job opportunity or more fulfilling relationships. But what do you do when you feel stuck? Those times when you "should" make a change - and you either don't get started or don't finish.

The simple answer is that your should was not powerful enough to be a must. You didn't attach enough emotion, pain or pleasure to spring you out of your stuck-ness. I'm sure you've observed this before on someone you are close with. I often see it with those wanting to exercise more, change jobs or ask for a pay rise. They just keep talking and talking, this inertia builds - or they start and lose momentum and become deflated.

Anything worth having in life is worth working for. - Andrew Carnegie

We are often held back from change by ourselves due a perception of fear. I'm not referring to the life endangering fear associated with putting your hand in a piranha tank. I'm talking about fear that is imagined for the future, or it happened in the past and you have conditioned yourself to believe history will repeat. So how can you break through this fear? You have to shift your change from a should to a must. I'm going to give you the three punches, doing them in order will knock out your shoulds forever.

This exercise works best when written down. So grab a pen and paper and write in big letters at the top of the page what you really want and be very specific!

1. Feel the pain

You need to create massive pain associated with not changing. What? you say - that's crazy, we humans avoid pain. Yes, that is exactly right, so if you can associate enough pain to your current state of not changing it acts as a catalyst.

Think back to when you've made a change in the past. Something happened where you went from being in an average situation that made you unhappy and those feelings built up over time. Until your inner threshold was reached and you made a decision to change.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What does this cost me? (financial, time, emotions)

• What am I losing because of this?

• How is it impacting on my loved ones?

• How do I really feel about this situation?

2. Connect to your identity

Secondly, focus on everything that is important to you, be it people, values and your thoughts on yourself. How is what you are experiencing or the change you want to achieve - consistent or inconsistent with these values?

How you live up to your own standards can be a source of great pride or pain. There may be unique situations in life where your behaviours and actions may not match your own standards, but if you are permanently living there, self-resentment can spread like a weed.

Questions to ask yourself:

• How does the current situation stop me living to my values?

• How did I previously change X but have not yet changed Y?

• What is really holding me back from making the change?

• Who is the person I want to be in the future?

3. Pleasure zone

Lastly, you need to associate extraordinary pleasure with the new change. This pleasure will be so alluring that you must change! You need to feel that life will be so much better with this new and improved you.

Try sitting down with your eyes closed to visualise and feel all those emotions flooding in of what this new pleasure and change will feel like. Imagine yourself in the future and how it will positively impact on your family and loved ones. It is likely this change will bring new experiences so ask your mind's eye play them like a movie, or a sit-com with the audience laughter of how funny, witty and engaging you are!

If you've done this well, you should feel a natural hit of dopamine. Ride that wave!

Questions to ask yourself:

• When I change, what will life look like?

• How will I feel about myself in the future? How will others feel about me?

• How will I benefit from this change? (financial, time, emotion)

• What will change for my loved ones?

Now never leave the sight of setting a goal without taking one step towards it's achievement. What is the first thing you will do now to make your change happen?

This post was inspired by my readings on neuro-associative conditioning and Tony Robbins. Thanks for reading, if you are interested in more ways to Think Ascend, subscribe to my mailing list for must shaping content.