Why People Do What They Do

Wednesday, 03. December 2008 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.

“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, they will be in control or your life.” – Anthony Robbins

What you link pain to, and what you link pleasure to, will inevitably shape your life. Human beings are not random creatures, everything we do, we do for a reason. We may not be aware of the reason consciously, but there is undoubtedly a driving force behind our daily behaviors and choices. And two of these driving forces are: 1) What we think will provide “pleasure” – and, 2) What we believe will cause “pain.”

For example – Procrastination – when you know what should be done, yet choose not to do it… Why does this happen? The answer is simple: at some level you believe that taking action at this moment would be more painful than just putting it off. (Remember, we will tend to do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.)  *** Yet, have you ever had the experience of putting something off for so long that suddenly you felt pressure to just get it done? What happened? You changed what you linked pain and pleasure to. Suddenly, not taking action became more painful than continuing to put it off.

If understood, we can use this information to harness the force of pain and pleasure to bring positive change in our lives – for what you associate pain and pleasure to in your life will ultimately shape your destiny.

The truth is that we can learn to condition our minds, bodies, and emotions to link pain or pleasure to whatever we choose. By changing what we associate pain and pleasure with, we can alter our eating, exercise, smoking, anger, spiritual, mental, spending… or other habits in healthier and more positive ways.