Without pain not much seems to change.
Humans are motivated to move either towards pleasure or away from pain.
Usually, though, in order for humans to move FAST there needs to be a big enough motivator.
Take for instance, the HUSTLE… hustle is usually the consequence of stress or of pressure to perform. It’s so interesting how many hours upon hours people can pour into their business when their back is against the wall. Usually, this is because they have a very high need to make money…. Because the PAIN is in feeling broke. The pain is in a feeling of not achieving their financial goals. Their pain is not having financial choices.
However, when that financial pressure if off or the pressure to perform, it can be hard for some to find the motivation to dig deep and not coast.
“The secret of success if learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.” Tony Robbins
I remember having a conversation with a kickass, successful high achiever a couple of years ago about why she wanted to do my high-level mentoring program.. and she said, “Because I’ve been coasting along, and it needs to stop”. I know for me, that this has been something that I’ve had to deal with over the years as well.
I mean, when I’ve thought about it, there have been things running through my head around “Well, why do I need to make more money. Why do I want to keep doing this? Why should I keep pushing and trying to move past or through some perceived barrier?”….
And I come back to what am I motivated by?
For me to move faster, I have to be moving away from pain or away from the threat of pain or away from perceived pain.
Some examples might be:
- Losing face
- Loss of money
- Not reaching my goals
- Feeling like shit
- Shame
- Not having the money, I want
- Seeing other people ‘make it’ when I’m left behind
Some examples of moving towards pleasure, however, are:
- Fun
- Joy
- Satisfaction
- Financial rewards
- Financial choices
- Holidays
- Ego feeling good
- Hitting my goals
For me, in the second group, it kind of feels like ‘nice to have’ versus a necessity.
I remember one of the best analogies I heard to explain this, was this: If you were to put your hand on a hot plate on the stove, you’d move your hand very quickly away. It HURTS! It’s hot. You’re likely to get burned.
But if you put your hand on a warm hot plate, or one that’s just turned on…even though you know it might get a bit hot, you know you have plenty of time to move it.
Moving towards pleasure would like “I’m a bit hot, I’ll go and grab a cool drink to cool myself down”. But if there’s no sense of urgency or sense of pain, it’s like a ‘nice to have’ again, rather than a necessity.
It takes me back to 2011. I started my business in 2010 when I was still in corporate and I knew that I wanted to make it work. But in Feb 2011 I resigned from my 6-figure role… and all that security .. (remembering I’ve told you in the past I’m fiercely driven by being financially independent).. and I felt like I was losing time and money FAST. I was investing everything we had (we had about $20K saved by the time I left) and I used all of that money to try and get the business working. From using that to keep the household afloat, to using some of it on courses, the mortgage payments came out of that… we were on a shoestring budget like you wouldn’t believe.
The PAIN – future perceived pain – was that I didn’t want to have to get another job. I wanted to make this business work. I HAD to. I had images of me walking down the street, running into old work colleagues or clients and have them ask me how business was… only to tell them that it was ‘GREAT’ … whilst feeling like I was dying on the inside, knowing I was about 4 weeks away from having to find work.
That imaginary future was enough to see me putting in countless hours, doing more and more and more and more.
Now, let me tell you something. The way I was working was not resourceful. I was stressed out of my eyeballs. I was not a nice person to be around, I don’t think. I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue not long after all of this.
It was a living nightmare.
But for me, when my backs against a wall, I somehow, some way find a way to dig deep and go harder.
I am thoroughly motivated by both real pain and perceived pain and the avoidance of it.
The thought for me, of getting my business back to $1M a year isn’t enough for me to do things in the way I did in the past.. even in my imaginary world, I can’t bear it!
For me, the thought of having something, achieving something, getting something, being something or someone in the future doesn’t seem to be enough to motivate me.
For instance. I know how to make $1M per year. I can do all the things that I have done in the past. Hustle my ass off. Run webinar after webinar. Run 8-week program after 8-week program. Spend 100’s of thousands of dollars a year on advertising. Grow and build a team. I can do ALL of that. But I don’t WANT to!!!!!
The desire to make $1M is not enough for me to put myself IN pain to do it! Funny, isn’t it?
But.. the ‘need’ to make more than $20K/mth if my revenue drops to that is enough to make me hustle like a madwoman.
So how can you get leverage over yourself?
I keep literally a couple of thousand dollars in my business account. All the other money goes all the other places. Tax, GST, payments, salary, subscriptions, luxury accounts.. all over the place. I keep it minimal to keep a bit of pressure on. Even though logically I know I can pull money from one place to the next and have it land in my business account in about 3 seconds’ flat!!!!!
What about you? What motivates YOU more?
Moving away from pain (or perceived pain) or the desire to achieve a goal?
Let me know your thoughts! I love hearing how different people think!
