In order to better understand people, we need to understand how pain and pleasure motivate. We either move away from pain or we move towards pleasure.
Moving away from pain is reactive and moving towards pleasure is proactive.
Most of the time people are moving away from pain rather than moving towards what they really want (sigh, sigh again, unfortunately this is the state of mass consciousness). And, we have a high tolerance for putting up with pain. Things have to get bad before we consider change.
Painful Growth Stories
Even when being proactive, people often make the mistake of bringing pain to the process. Their growth story has pain in it. This has them get in their own way and sabotage their progress.
For example: I want to get into great shape and I can imagine how good that would feel. But, my story about getting into shape has elements like: deprivation, this won’t be fun, it will be uncomfortable, and it is going to take sooooooooo long.
In this example, there is more pain in my growth story than there is in my current situation. Consequently, I’m going to stay where I am at and minimize my pain.
Take a look at your growth stories and see how much pain is in them. If there is pain, then we need to reconstruct our story. Our stories need to feel good and inspire us.
If I let go of my old story, an apple will taste better than an apple pie, exercise can be tremendously fun, pushing myself can be thrilling and enlivening, and I can see and celebrate progress.
With this new story, moving away from the pain of being out of shape and moving towards the pleasure of being in great shape becomes easy and enjoyable.
The old story requires tremendous effort. The new story has magnetism easily pulling me forward.
Building an elegant trap
Understanding this pain/pleasure principle allows us to trap ourselves in positions where the growth path is less painful than the status quo.
Three years ago, I took an honest look at my life and realized I was living in massive delusion. I was pretending that things were getting better and that success was just around the corner. The truth was that I was flat lining. Nothing was changing. I was living Einstein’s definition of insanity ~ doing the same things over and over while expecting a different result.
I also realized that I was not walking my talk. I was not doing the things I was telling my clients to do.
The word “boot camp” popped into my head and I decided that I needed to put myself in a boot camp where I would spend an hour a day using the personal growth tools and strategies that I have in my tool bag. It was time to walk my talk.
I quickly noticed some really positive changes and realized that if I needed this than so did other people. So, I created the Wealth Consciousness Boot Camp and invited my database to join. Sure enough, some people sent me some money and joined.
I had just built an elegant trap. There was no way I could lead daily check in calls about doing the work if I wasn’t doing the work myself. That would be horribly painful. Furthermore, there was no way I could skip a day because people were paying me to be there. Now the pain of not doing my personal growth work was far more painful than doing the work would ever be.
I built an amazing trap. I’ve been leading the Wealth Consciousness Boot Camp for 3 years now. I have been on a 6:30am conference call for 1095 days in a row which means that I have been doing personal growth work for 1095 days in a row too.
I’ve driven down the mountain to get cell signal when I’m camping. I’ve gotten up at 4:30am while fishing in Alaska, after going to bed at 2:30am. I’ve gotten up on January 1st after a little too much celebration. I’ve done whatever it takes to be on those calls because the trap is so good.
Honesty note: I have missed 2 calls. One day my alarm clock broke. I now have a backup alarm set on my phone. And, I skipped one day last summer because it was a 1-hour drive to cell service. But, I had someone else set up to cover the call.
So, how can you trap yourself? Accountability, consequences and rewards can all work to trap yourself.
A friend of mine had been talking for months about doing a project that would grow his business. However, he never took any action on it.
I helped him to create a trap. He seriously disliked President Bush. So we made a deal. If he did not have this project done in a month, he would need to get a t-shirt made that said, “I LOVE GEORGE BUSH!” And, he would have to wear it to several public events of my choosing. He got the project done at lightning speed.
The pain of the consequence was far greater than the pain of doing the project.
Where would you benefit from trapping yourself and what kind of trap can you build?
Much love,
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