Every day, we tend to make certain decisions in our life that are either simple, like buying a cappuccino or a latte, or big ones, like immigrating to another country or starting a business.
Here is a question: have you ever wondered how we make decisions?
In this article, we will go through some basic but overlooked concepts: the pain and pleasure.
Human decisions can be manipulated by emotions: The more we are aware of our emotions, the better we are at decision-making. These emotions are referred to it as the pain and (greed or desire). We buy a new, nice car to impress our friends: That’s an example of desire. We could be scared of a joint venture, or a specific investment, because we don’t want the pain that comes from such action, if it fails.
Now that we understand what kind of emotions affect us. It is good to tell how we perceive pain in the first place. Let’s take going to the gym as an example: Many people would love to have a fit body, but they find it very painful (or unpleasant) to leave their comfort bed early morning to go to work out, or after a long working day. In this example, they passively connected the pain with going to the gym.
As a result, their mind would create unlimited excuses NOT to go, such as: I’m tired, I have a long day ahead and need to sleep well, yesterday I lifted heavy weights, so today I’ll rest, etc.
Another example would be taking drugs, drinking alcohol or eating sugary-unhealthy foods. Why? People passively linked those substances to pleasure and enjoyment. (sugar is more damaging substance than you think-It manipulate your dopamine levels).
It is quite important that we become aware of our emotions, and how we link pain and pleasure to certain actions, if we can connect the right emotion to the right action, then we would achieve life mastery!
If you’d like to read more about this topic, I recommend checking out Tony Robbins book “Awaken the Giant Within”. It’s available on Amazon.
Are you suffering from an addiction? What are your pain and pleasure points? Comment below!
