Pleasure and productivity

Esther Perel, a world-renowned psychotherapist, noted that often psychologists and coaches remove the cast from the broken arm but don’t teach what to do with that arm. We help clients overcome challenges but don’t show how to enjoy our achievements and existence.

All my life, I focused on mastering productivity, effectiveness, and excellence. The pleasure was never a goal. It was not something respectable or honorable to seek. The pain is always glorified and pleasure condemned. Working hard is promoted, and focusing on pleasure is considered a waste of time and life.

“It would be sad to live a life not knowing what the pleasure of living is,” I thought. So, I set out to discover what pleasure means.

Studying the concept of pleasure appeals better than happiness because it draws attention to consider the state of our physical body. We tend to ignore our body needs, and it is an integral influencer of our emotional and mental states.

The exploration started with staggering feelings of guilt, shame, and selfishness when I would choose to follow my needs instead of the to-do list.

I needed to resolve an intense clash of my values first. Permitting to value me not only for achievements but also for pleasing myself. The pleasure had to become a priority on my value list, and it led me to astonishing discoveries:

• Caring for ourselves is not self-indulgence but self-preservation.
• Pleasure is not an achievement but a process.
• Pleasure is not something that just happens and something that we need to deserve.
• Pleasure is something that we need to intentionally create.
• Pleasure starts from self-awareness and self-acceptance.
• Pleasure is a source and result of our freedom, confidence, sovereignty, tremendous energy, alignment, and health.
• Pleasure makes time and stress of it running by disappear.
• Focus on pleasure makes us more productive! We become driven not by the fear of not achieving our dreams but by the true love of what we do. This creates less resistance to what we need to do, more energy and stamina.

What is your relationship with pleasure?

I am wishing you the New Year to be full of incredible pleasures!

Inga Stasiulionyte, Olympian, Master Performance Coach, and sports industry consultant, shares the high-performance insights and case studies of the challenges that her clients face.