Once you understand and accept these facts the point here is to take control over these two powerful motivating factors and use them to motivate yourself to get what you really want in life and not let them randomly motivate you in the wrong direction.

This is more complicated then it may at first seem. We’re not just talking about the simple immediate things that would obviously cause a person to experience pain or pleasure. Like putting your hand on a hot stove or having the pleasure of being on the receiving end of a relaxing message by a favorable partner. There are some other important factors that come into play like focus and belief, and the differences between instant gratification and longer term pleasures and pains.

This example will get my point across more clearly. Let’s say that a certain pro is doing pretty well in the Nationals for his first year, say consistent top 20 finishes.  Let’s say he has the typical problem of not being in good enough shape. He could be doing better but he gets tired after the half way point and fades. Obviously he needs a better diet and training habits, but during the week when he should be training he focuses on how training is painful.

In his gut feelings he believes that training is painful. This guy needs to change what he is focusing his attention on and what he is allowing himself to believe. Instead of focusing his attention on how training at that moment will be painful, he should be focusing his attention on how not training will be way more painful. He should reprogram his beliefs to truly believe that training at that moment will bring him a lot of pleasure and help him to avoid pain by focusing his attention on how painful it will be when he gets tired and fades behind in the races.

How getting tried and being in not good enough shape will cause him to not have good sponsors and be paid lots of money to race, loose his ride and have to go to work doing something that he hates to do and so on. This is just one simple, quick example on how changing your focus and beliefs will cause you to use the two greatest motivators of pain and pleasure to motive you in a positive direction instead of letting pain and pleasure motive you down the wrong path.

Beware of the instant gratifiers. Keep your focus and beliefs aimed down the road, toward the long run. When you have the erg to have a nice big bowl of ice cream, don’t focus and believe on how eating that ice cream is going to give you instant pleasure. Instead focus and believe on how eating that ice cream is going to overload your body with sugar and make you tried and out of shape.

How it’s going to make it more difficult for you to reach your ultimate goals. When you truly focus on and believe this you won’t even want the ice cream. But if you don’t focus on and believe this it’s already too late. You’re going to want the ice cream and it’s just going to be a matter of time before the ice cream wins out. Hey, by the way, I’m not down on ice cream. It’s okay once in a while. I’m just using this example for diet which applies to all good and bad foods that you should or should not be eating. The same goes for all motivating and non-motivating factors in your life. The point is to control your focus and beliefs. Keep them on the major things that are really worth wild and don’t get side tracked into the minor things that are here and gone in an instant.

Remember that you can reach any realistic goals that you really, really want. If you want it bad enough, you’re willing to do whatever it takes, and you apply yourself 100%, you can do it. Remember this saying.  A truly strong desire is like the desire that a drowning man has for a breath of air or like the desert lost man has for a drink of water. One thing that you may have to learn to do well in order to reach your ultimate goals is to take control and use your own mind more effectively.  Wow, that was almost a novel I hope it helps.