Running from pain is setting you up for failure

Running from the pain is setting you up for failure!

Kyle here.

Pain is a powerful motivator but only for short spurts. It’s not sustainable.

If you want to create sustainable, long term results in any area of your life you’ll have to tap into a higher form of motivation than pain.

When pain is the motivator the primary goal is moving away from the pain. If moving away from the pain is the goal, any direction will work. And usually the quickest path with the least resistance is the most enticing, regardless of where it leads.

You’re not as concerned with where the path leads since the pain is their focus and you are more or less looking over your shoulder to see what you need to do in order to outrun it.

Take for example trying to lose weight, or improve your health and physic.

If you are operating from pain you will probably have some level of judgement about how you currently look.

“I look disgusting”, might be a regular thought you repeat in your mind. In fact the thoughts in your mind probably generate a great deal of the pain and suffering you experience.

From this space of self-loathing you will most likely set goals to not look “disgusting”, and all of your efforts, actions, and intentions will be laced with a feeling of disgust for yourself.

You will force yourself to exercise as punishment for looking so bad.

You will make strict diet decisions with food you don’t love. Again, as punishment for looking so bad.

From this space eating cheat food looks like a reward, and taking a break from exercise looks like a reward.

This wires your brain backwards. It trains your thinking to sabotage you in the future.

After all, if exercise and healthy eating is a punishment for how “bad” you look, you will only endure that punishment as long as you absolutely have to.

If garbage food and idleness is a reward, you will only punish yourself enough, or suffer enough to change the scales a little, before you will reward yourself with the type of food and activity that is part of the problem in the first place.

The solution is simple.

Set goals that are based in the energy of what you want and frame them in your mind in a way that inspires you, and makes the goals a desirable reward you will work hard to get and continue to work hard to maintain.

How can you see healthy food as the highest and best way to eat?

See it as the reward you give your body from a space of gratitude. Thanking it for all the amazing things it does to keep you healthy and vibrant.

Can we change our thinking to see exercise as an investment? Something we do to take the best care of ourselves? Similar to how we take care of a car by washing it and getting oil changes and other maintenance.

Being drawn forward by the desire and inspiration for what you want is sustainable energy. You can tap into it over and over, and each time you do it creates more energy in you.  

The same is true for all areas of your life.

It works for your health.

It works for your relationships.

It works for your business.

So the question is simple.

What can you do today to set goals that inspire you and help you tap into long term sustainable energy?

Write those goals down.

Be inspired by your life.