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The Controlling Forces That Direct Your Life

 Ultimately, everything we do in our lives is driven by our fundamental need to avoid pain and our desire to gain pleasure; both are biologically driven and constitute a controlling force in our lives.

We will do far more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure. Pain is the greater motivator in the short term.

To get what you want in your life, you have to figure out what stops you. Whenever you procrastinate, it’s because you think that taking action would be more painful than doing nothing or not taking action. Conversely, sometimes if you procrastinate for too long, it reverses on you! For example, if you keep putting something off (like a term paper or your taxes), you may get to a point the night before it’s due where you start to think that not doing it will be more painful than doing it. And then all night long, you experience the pain of getting the job done.

You must learn to control the motivating forces of pain and pleasure.

How can you use this understanding? At any moment in time, you must realize that your reality is based on whatever you focus on. In other words, whatever you focus your attention on is what is most real to you. 


If you are avoiding anything in your life or if you’re sabotaging your success in any area, it’s because you are experiencing approach/avoidance. You have a mixed set of associations about pain and pleasure. You think that by doing something (e.g. getting into a relationship), you will gain more pleasure, but at the same time, you think it might mean pain (e.g. the relationship might end). So as soon as you start to make progress, you sabotage it. 

If you want to change this once and for all, you have to decide right now that you control the focus of your mind. If you’re not following through, all you have to do is focus on “What’s the pain I’m going to have if I don’t do this?” instead of focusing on the pain you might experience from taking the action. You also have to focus on what pleasure you will experience when you do follow through. You must change what you link pain and pleasure to in order to change your behavior.





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