How Your Emotions Are Stopping You From Achieving Your Goals
Do you ever find yourself feeling useless and unproductive? Do you feel guilty when you indulge in some relaxation? Do you look back and think about everything you should’ve achieved by now, and wonder why you didn’t?
Humans function based on pain and pleasure. And most of the time, you are choosing pleasure. Whenever you set a new goal or task for yourself, you unconsciously know that it’s going to take some effort a.k.a. pain. And it’s a lot easier to just lay on the couch and do nothing a.k.a. pleasure.
You know you want to sleep better but you continue to use your phone until late at night. You want to lose weight but those cupcakes sure are delicious. You want to be on time but the bed is so comfy. You know you shouldn’t do it, but it feels so good.
However, achieving that task will give you more satisfaction and pleasure than the one you get from putting it off. You are choosing a momentary pleasure over long term satisfaction. You know perfectly that you will feel accomplished and satisfied after you do that work you are putting off. So why are we doing this to ourselves?
Emotions In The Decision-Making Process
At the time of making a decision, we are putting our emotions over reason. We are letting our emotional-mind control our decisions. This makes us vulnerable to lose sight of what we really want and act on impulses.
The first rule of advertising is to appeal to emotions. This makes us easy targets for advertising and companies that have their own agendas. If you let your emotions dictate your decisions, you will be controlled by everything but yourself.
“You must be the master of your emotions if you wish to live in peace, for he who can control himself, becomes free.”
— Leon Brown
So It’s Time We Start Choosing Pain
Easier said than done, right? Well, think about it this way — It’s a short term pain for long term pleasure. Think about your future self, not your present self. Think about the long term — “What will make me feel better tomorrow?”
When you think about what you want to achieve and everything you have to do to achieve it, it seems a lot more further away than it really is. Focus on how you will feel once you achieve that goal. And start working for it one step at a time. Every day you have a new chance to push through the temptation and get one step closer to what you want to achieve.
Balance Is Key
This doesn’t mean that we can never relax or listen to our emotional-self. But there must be a balance. A balance in which you feel good about relaxing and indulging and not guilty. Allowing you to make time for your emotions while not letting them get in the way of your goals.
Once you prove to yourself that you can do it, you have jumped that barrier. Then, you can allow yourself some indulgence. What fun is it to achieve a goal if we had an awful time working for it? We must also learn to enjoy the process. The balance between what your emotions want and what your rational-mind wants will allow you to enjoy the process.
Here’s What You Can Start Doing Today
So your emotions don’t get in the way of your goals and you can enjoy the process.
- Self-awareness: catch yourself making emotional decisions.
- Think of the long term, not the short term
- Balance your emotional and rational-self by making time for the emotional wants when it is appropriate.
- Stop waiting for a more convenient time, start now!
- Challenge yourself: everything seems a lot more fun when its a challenge.
- Simplify your goals to smaller steps.
- Create penalties for when you indulge in that short-term pleasure.
- Create rewards for when you do the hard work.
“It is more terrifying to fail than it is to succeed”
— Mark Adams
