Pain And Pleasure
Let's Use Them To Wake Us Up
The theory about pain and pleasure can actually help us a lot when it comes waking up easily in the morning. Why? Because the mind ultimately control all of our actions. We must therefore control the mind. And trust me when I say that it's a bit harder to control our mind in half-awake state...
It’s important that we really understand why we are doing the things we are doing. This understanding will lead you to a much better change for a long-term solution for how to wake up.
Let’s take the example with booking an early meeting in the morning. It basically works because most of us associate more pain with standing up a colleague and not being able to keep our word compared to the slight pleasure we get from sleeping those extra minutes. The pain of losing our face basically drives us to get up and do as we decided. We are forced, actually pushed to get up.
However, when we don’t have any early meetings booked it becomes a head-to-head battle of pleasures and pains. The pleasure of lying in the soooo comfortable and warm bed versus...
Well, versus what?
This is where you have to find your reason to get up in the morning. Either it can be to avoid the pain of something (e.g. missing a meeting) or it can be to gain the pleasure of doing something (e.g. going for a fresh morning walk). The second reason is a motivational reason to get up and much more fun to have as a reason, wouldn't you say?
When you are lying there in bed, you might feel deep inside of you that it would be tremendously painful to roll your body out of bed. What you need to understand is that you have a very shortsighted mind in that specific situation. Because I bet that you didn't even consider this feeling when you set the alarm the day before. Then you thought of all the HUGE benefits of being an early riser and it all seemed so simple, right?
Your other mind, so to speak, is the longsighted mind that tries to get you to see the implications of snoozing in bed for too long.
Let's break these two minds down a bit and see where they are coming from.
| The Shortsighted Mind | |
|---|---|
| Gaining Pleasure | Comfortable and warm bed Continue sleeping will make me have more energy |
| Avoiding Pain | Cold room Having to work Having to think |
| The Longsighted Mind | |
|---|---|
| Gaining Pleasure | Accomplishing my goals Having more energy Get to plan my day No stress in the morning |
| Avoiding Pain | Being marked as lazy Wasting my life |
The listed pains and pleasures are just examples but illustrates the working of these two mindsets.
This pain and pleasure theory can help us all shed some light on ourselves to really understand our inner drivers. These two minds are in constant battle, but mastering these and knowing when to use each of them will give you the edge in life. A great starting point is to learn how to wake up.
To illustrate this battle, let’s look at an example of how it might sound...
A True Story - From Your Head
|
The Shortsighted Mind “Oh crap, not again!” “Hey you, hold on a minute here! There’s no rush, we have a whole day to live.” "Now you listen to me boy, let’s chill. Let’s stay warm and safe here for a while. We ain’t going anywhere.” ”Decided, schmecided.” “It doesn’t matter what we said, ok. Things are different now. So the decision now is to continue lying here so just be do both of us a favor and be quiet for a while.” “Just shush it!” |
The Longsighted Mind “Sweet, a new day, let’s get going!” “What are you taking about?! Let’s get out there and accomplish some goals, let’s enjoy life to the fullest.” “But, but yesterday we decided for this time…” ”But we all agreed, don’t you remember? We realized how important it was for us to really take advantage of the entire day and stop wasting time lying around half-asleep in the mornings. You can’t deny that?? “Well, don’t come crawling to me next time you’re wondering why you’re so tired and always behind your plan!” “Fine. But tomorrow…” |
Motivate Yourself Up - And Stay Up
In conclusion, I have two points of great importance that I would like to emphasize. The first one is that you really have to understand the reason why you want to get up in the morning. Even if you don't want to be an early riser, you still have to get out of bed at some point.
Understanding this, will make it so much easier for you to really wake up easy in the morning.
The second point I want to mention is that you really have to try to use the longsighted mind once you wake up. Without this skill, you might end up snoozing even with a really strong motivational reason to get up. So please, learn how to not get back to bed.
So check out the 2-step process of turning into an early riser:
Reading these two guides will give you the complete foundation to become an early riser.
Early Riser > How To Wake Up > Pain And Pleasure
Thanks for reading! By Matthew M. McEwan
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