What Are You Motivated By: Pain or Pleasure?

People are motivated by pain than pleasure. In other words, they are more determined to move away from their pain, than they are to move toward pleasure.

Think about that for yourself. What motivates you? Do you have to get really unhappy with the way your life is in order for you to make changes? Do you have to be really angry at someone before you tell them how you feel? Do you have to have serious bodily pain before you go to the doctor or massage therapist?

Or are you more motivated to move toward pleasure? Do you go to the dentist twice a year to practice preventive maintenance on your teeth? Do you take your car in for service every 10,000 miles to keep it humming smoothly? Do you offer gratitude every day to count your blessings and attract more good into your life?

Organizational consultant and seminar leader Robert Fritz’s studies have shown that although we might use scare tactics to make short term changes or reach short term goals, we must move toward something positive to make lasting change or reach bigger goals. The goal, the desire, or whatever the positive motivation is will more likely draw ir to you because of the law of attraction.

As we know, what we focus on is what we create. When we’re moving away from pain, we’re focused on the pain, and often we create more pain. Say you have a toothache. You can go to the dentist and expect the worst and you might get some bad news. But if you’ve been taking care of your teeth and you go to the dentist with a toothache, imagining it’s just a minor issue, you will most likely have good news.

What would you rather focus on anyway–what you want to avoid or what you want to create? If you feel good about the pleasure you want to move toward, your emotions help fuel the creation of the experience. For example, if you say want to work less and spend more time with your family, you could focus on the pain of having a demanding boss, uncooperative co-workers, or challenging customers as being the source of your working long hours. Or you could focus on the joy of taking your family out to dinner and a movie, coaching your kids’ sports teams, or going on a romantic weekend with your spouse. The positive emotions generated by the picture you want to move toward will engage your energies to draw new opportunities to you.

So when you find yourself motivated by moving away from something, turn it around into a moving toward. Here are some examples:

• Move away from being overweight or move toward being healthy and self confident
• Move away from being lonely or move toward having an intimate partner
• Move away from financial struggle or move toward financial freedom
• Move away from temper tantrums or move toward conscious communication
• Move away from being critical or move toward being accepting

Whether you want to change a habit or behavior, or you’re going after a goal, focus on the vision of where you’re going, feel how you’ll feel when you’re there, and your chances for success will be optimized!

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Thanks to Widow’s Quest for including this post in the Carnival of Positive Thinking, to Living by Design for featuring this post in the Living by Design Blog Carnival, to Your Finish Rich Plan for publishing this post in the Rich Life Carnival, to Anand Dhillon.com for inclusion in the Carnival of Self-Mastery, and to Journey Inward Productions publication in the Inner Wisdom Project.

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