Action, Fun and Adventure

How long will you do something if you don’t like doing it?  Not for long, right?  Unless you are one of those people who have to stay moving because that’s who they are.  But even if you are THAT person, you may find that you start and quit a lot of things.

Why is that?  Are you lazy?  No, that’s not it; because you’re active.  The problem is that you have mastered failure patterns in your life.  Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I’ve mastered these as well.

Perhaps the problem is negative neuro-associations to what you need to do to reach your goal.  For example, let’s say you are trying to live a healthier lifestyle of eating.  But in the past you have gone on super rigid, extremely restrictive diet programs.  So for you, even the thought of restricting your eating in some way sets off those negative thought patterns.  Negative neuro-associations are bombs that instantly destroy a positive mind.

The cure for this is to create positive triggers and use those to push your mind in a positive direction whenever those negative thoughts take over.   Let’s set up a positive trigger to offset the negative trigger for changing your eating habits.  Make the trigger something physical like putting your right hand in your pocket or rubbing the back of your neck.  Now practice – put your hand in your pocket and repeat after me, “ It’s easy and fun for me to take  the action steps today to invest in my future self.”   Practice this every time you feel the negative thoughts and soon you’ll have turned your thoughts around.

Maybe your problem is that you focus only on what is wrong, not on what is right.  Let’s take our lifestyle change as an example.  Your focus may be only on the foods you can’t have.    The key here is to find the healthy foods you really like and plan those into your meals as often as possible.  Then every time you start focusing on your deprivation, correct that thinking by reminding yourself of all the luscious things you are eating and can have on your new healthy lifestyle.  Focus on other positive things, such as how great you feel, how much energy you have, how much better your clothes fit.

The final obstacle may be the thought pattern of mentally magnifying the size and/or difficulty of goal achieving tasks.  That’s what procrastination does a lot of the time.  The more we put off a task, the larger it grows.  I know for me that if something seems too large, then my tendency is to just avoid doing anything about it at all.  The best way to handle this problem is to break the task down into smaller parts.  Instead of making all of your lifestyle changes at once, find 3 things that you can change this week.  And then build on it from there.

And if you hate doing some of the things you need to do to reach your goals, it’s just a matter of time before you quit… and move on to the next thing, leaving behind you a wake of frustration.   Isn’t that why we jump from diet to diet to diet in hopes of finding that magic one that will give us quick results so we can get back to our regular life rather than making it a lifestyle change?

When this is the case, our efforts are half-hearted at best and sometimes we give up and just quit.  I would suggest writing down the needed action steps to reach your goals.  Then read them out loud in order to hear how much you love taking all the goal achieving actions.  Tell yourself that you are always looking for the fun in your duties and decisions, that you are great at finding what’s enjoyable or what could be enjoyable about your tasks or decisions.  Tell yourself that you see your responsibilities as easy.  And finally, tell yourself that you see each task you finish as bringing you closer to achieving your ultimate goal.

And when it’s your habit to see your goal achieving tasks and decisions in this light, then you will stick with them longer, you will enjoy each and every day of your life more, you will notice a dramatic drop in stress, your confidence will be higher.

You will actually look happily forward to doing whatever you have to do to succeed. Now won’t that be fun?  It will be action, fun and adventure!