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Pain...and pleasure...but in my case it's pain.
We're not driven by logic or new information, unless they lead to an emotion. Logic won't drive us to behave differently. Emotion does. The association of pain or pleasure drive us to act...which is why feelings are called e-motions. Emotions get us to move, to act, to behave.
It's why diets don't work. They don't address the emotion we associate to food. It's so damn simple when you think about it. If you associate pleasure with pizza, you will associate sacrifice if you stop eating pizza because of a diet. Naturally, you will want to both relieve the feeling of sacrifice (avoid pain) and pursue the pleasure you associate with eating pizza (pursue pleasure). It's inevitable!
If your feelings toward food do not change, ultimately your actions toward food will not change. Emotions drives action. Diets fail, but not because we don't know that pizza or fat is bad for us. We have that knowledge. We know what to do--the diets tell us what to do. And we may follow them for a time because we feel good about ourselves for following them...but only for a while. Because if we still feel pleasure in eating food that's bad for us, if we still feel pain in avoiding bad foods, those feelings will drive us to eat the bad foods. NO EXCEPTIONS.
The solution? Change the feelings we associate to food that's bad for us AND to food that's good for us. Instead of focusing on the taste of of chocolate, focus on something painful, like the sick feeling you get when you eat too much of it, the nausea. Focus on the pain it can cause, the embarrassment of not fitting into your clothes, the stares people give you, the pain you would endure if you became diabetic. Find the pain that matters to you and focus on that.
You must replace the pleasure you associate to the food with something that hurts, something that's painful, something you want to avoid at all costs, something that motivates you to stop eating that bad food. Focus on that. Or focus on something pleasurable you will receive by not eating bad food--use the carrot and the stick. But for most people, the stick is more motivating.
Similarly, you need to focus on the pleasure good foods give you AND the pain that eating good foods helps you avoid. Those pains and pleasures need to matter to you--they can't be those valued by someone else. They must be yours. They must match your values.
The point is you need change what you associate pain and pleasure to. Without doing that, the diet or any change you attempt, will always fail.
If your feelings stay the same, your behavior ultimately stays the same.
You must change your feelings to make that kind of change. It's not enough to know what to do. You have to feel why it MUST be done. Feel why you have no other choice. Feel why it must change right now and change forever.
What will you focus on the next time you grab something to eat? It's probably unconscious to you, so you'll have to interrupt your unconscious pattern and DECIDE to focus on what you really want. It will take some conscious effort, but soon you will replace the old pattern, the old association, and the old behavior with a new one--IF you use pain and pleasure to your advantage.
Submodalities--these are the tools we can use to change our the feelings we associate with food or anything else. the size and brightness of the picture, the loudness of the sound, the taste of vomit, the feeling in your stomach...use submodalities to communicate to yourself more effectively. Meaning.
- Decide what to focus on
- Decide the meaning
- Decide the action to take
I don't need a new diet or piece of exercise equipment. I need motivation.
 | Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny! by Anthony Robbins |