Everything we want in life is for how we think it will make us feel. You want to lose weight to feel comfortable. You want to be married because you will feel wanted, or chosen. You might want a different living situation because you might feel independent. I want a clean house because it makes me feel less frazzled.
We do everything because we want that feeling.
So at the beginning of the year a lot of us set goals and plan out things because we think that in the achieving of them we will feel something. Now it’s almost March and maybe you aren’t tackling those anymore or maybe you, are but regardless, understanding why you are doing something is really powerful.
Let’s say you want to run a marathon. Your brain will get super excited about the possibilities and what it will feel like finishing it. It will dream about what it will feel like to have that done and how proud you will feel for doing all the work. You will find fun training plans and envision checking off the boxes of each work out. You will feel excitement and a sense of purpose with all of this. And then you start putting in the work. It will be hard. You won’t want to do it. Your brain will offer you excuses because it wants immediate gratification and what you are working towards is not immediate. Obstacles will come up. You will want to quit. And a little bit of you will think, “Wow this was a bad idea, why did I ever think I could do this.”
You feel disappointed that you can’t really try for the things you want in life and often this creates a slippery slope to just being complacent where you are instead of working through all that comes up to make it to the other side.
Often when I work with clients they are in the “river of misery”. The river of misery is the place between where they used to be before working with me and where they really want to be. They want to be on the other side, having tackled their goal and standing tall and proud and seeing that they created the follow through. They set their mind to something and made it happen.
It can be anything.
Losing weight
Buying your own place
Saving money
Dating
Switching jobs
Moving
Waking up early
Running a marathon
In the river of misery we become someone different than before. We do things we never have before. We continually bump up against old beliefs and have to deal with them. This work is not easy; it is not supposed to be. But the one thing that continually rings true is understanding why you are doing it at all.
Taking the time to ask yourself, “Why do I want to do this?” is going to be very important because when things get hard, and they will, you need to have a whole slew of reasons you are fighting for this.
Because the desire for quitting, and to give into whatever the immediate gratification is, will be strong, you need a lot of really good reasons why you are trying to run a marathon, or lose the weight, or meet the guy, or save the money.
Understanding why you want something is important.
Why do you want to lose weight? I want to feel comfortable. Why do you want to feel comfortable? So I can buy clothes that fit, and I feel good in. Why is that important to you? Because I have been hiding for a long time and I want to stop hiding. Why do you want to stop hiding? Because I have to stop hiding in order to meet guys and get married.
Now you have more understanding of your why.
But let me walk you through this process. Let’s say you want to lose weight but your desire for eating ice cream is much higher than your desire to actually go out and meet guys. And a small bit of you believes that this is all impossible anyways. The losing weight and the meeting guys. So you have two competing desires; ice cream and marriage. The one right in front of you is immediate, quick, fast dopamine hit. You want it, you can have it. Not a lot of work, not a lot of changing your thinking. Just yes, and yes. But what happens is in that moment your why for ice cream (I have had a hard week, I have been so good, I deserve it) is much stronger than (I want to eat healthy and fit into clothes and feel comfortable so I can meet guys) is less strong.
In that moment your why for the hit is way more powerful than your why for the delayed gratification and the long term dopamine.
Understanding this is key. It is in the little moments when ice cream is presented that our brains do a whole slew of thinking. Should I eat this, should I not. I want this, but I also want _________ fill in the blank.
Knowing your very long list of whys and how this goal is important to you, because this is who you are becoming, helps you have a lot more behind why you wouldn’t want to eat the ice cream.
So the next time you are presented with ice cream you are fully aware that the immediate reasons why will be there, but the 100 reasons you don’t want to eat the ice cream will be there too. And over time you will stay committed to those whys more than you are committed to the immediate gratification.
Focusing your brain on your why is going to be something you will have to practice doing. It is not something you have trained yourself in before. Seeing the competing desires of short term and long term gratification at war will help you understand why your why is so important. If it doesn’t have something worth fighting for, it won’t. So a list of a bunch of reasons why you want your goal is going to be key. Focusing on those is important.
So get in the habit of asking yourself, “Why do I want this?” and keeping asking why so you can have a ton of reasons behind what you are fighting for.
Then with that list begin to tackle all of the obstacles and fight for who you are becoming, not who you used to be.
And if you need any help, that is what I am here for.
Angie
