Mind Body Soul | Expert Advice

Yahoo!Xtra Mind Body Soul Expert Advice

Every single thing that we do is driven psychologically by a basic desire to either gain pleasure, or avoid pain.
This is very useful to know if you're trying to change aspects of your life, because if you can change your thinking, then your doing will naturally change as well.

The quick facts:

• The motivation to avoid pain is usually stronger than the motivation to gain pleasure.
• Most people focus on avoiding pain and gaining pleasure in the short term, but to be successful you need to focus on avoiding pain and gaining pleasure long term.
• Everybody's perception of what causes pain and pleasure is different and linked to their own experiences.

To make changes in our lives we need to change how we think and how we act.
One simple way to do this is to change what you link your pain and pleasure to.
For greater success you also need to shift your focus from short term pain and pleasure, to long term pain and pleasure.

Here's an example:

If you're overweight you may be focusing on the short term pleasure that you link to eating too much, or eating unhealthy foods.
Or, you might be avoiding pain that you link with exercising.
Or, maybe you're avoiding the pain of dealing with a problem and instead seeking pleasure and comfort from food.

• You can motivate yourself to make the changes you need to by creating new long term links to pain and pleasure for yourself.
• You might choose to avoid the pain associated with long term health problems, or of looking fat and not being able to wear nice clothes.
• Also add in some long term pleasure associations, such as looking and feeling fantastic, and being able to play with your children.
• The key thing to remember is that the new links and associations must be personal and real for you.
• And, they need to be strong enough to over-ride your existing pleasure and pain associations of eating the cake and avoiding the gym!

Another common example is staying in a relationship that is no longer positive or satisfying. In the short term, you may gain pleasure from having a date to go out with and avoid the pain of being lonely.

But is it costing you the long term pleasure of having a fulfilling relationship, and the long term pain of realising you've wasted many years staying in an empty relationship?

And yes...i am having another night of broken sleep.