Did you know that your brain is too intelligent and that it can stop you from succeeding? Have you ever thought that you mind might be too intelligent?
Yeah... Basically your mind tends to protect you from… well whatever it subconsciously considers to be “bad” for you. How does that work? Suppose something happened when you were young and left you a small trauma. You won't remember anything about it and probably you can barely remember it happened, but your mind will still subconsciously associate the elements of that moment which generated the trauma with something that should be avoided and that shouldn’t repeat. It doesn't even have to be a trauma. It can be any simple mental association, where your mind keeps the idea that a certain action will lead to a negative consequence and you will feel strongly towards the idea that you shouldn't do it.
Obviously, you're going to laugh and say that you're an intelligent human being and you use logic and you won’t let such small petty little things from misleading you. Guess again! What happens is that you won’t be conscious that you are avoiding it, you'll just avoid it automatically and barely realize the fact (that you're avoiding that action).
The best and easiest example from a guy’s perspective is working out. Working out provides two contrary feelings. On one hand you have a positive feeling due to certain “pleasure” chemicals being released in your brain when you are working out mix and the release of testosterone in your blood. We call it “getting pumped” and “feeling the rush”. It actually feels really good. On the other hand you have the pain in your muscle, due to muscular fatigue. This one feels really bad. Obviously since there’s a positive and negative aspect, you'll still be okay with doing it, as long as you don't have an alternative choice which will provide only positive reinforcement, without any of the negatives: like eating or sitting on the couch. Unfortunately you always have that alternative so your mind will always try and protect you from getting a mixed feeling and provide you with a solely positive feeling.
I think you get the picture of how this works, by now, but you're probably wondering about how you should go about it. Actually the way to take care of this problem is the very easy and at the same time very cumbersome: you have to be ever-vigilant. Pay attention to every single feeling you have (I said feeling, NOT emotion, use Google to find the difference if you didn't know there is one). Every time you have a feeling (could be hunger, thirst or anything else for that matter) try and quickly see what causes it and based on it’s root you can choose to maintain it (if it’s positive), take an action which will solve the root of the feeling or plan to take an action will solve the root of the feeling.
To go back, to our original example, you will want to work out, but you will feel uneasy about it and you will “feel” like not doing it and doing something else instead. You might find that the root is that you don't like the way your muscles feel after. Remind yourself your goal or why it is you want to perform said action, in order to motivate yourself and as an extra suggestion, picture the way you’d feel if said goal was achieved. You'll feel great about it and it will give you enough edge, to cancel your original slightly negative feeling and you’ll get it done instead. This whole mental process will be done in an instant, by replacing a slightly negative mental image with a positive one. Your brain may be protecting you, but sometimes it might be working against you. You just have to be even smarter, watch what it’s doing and make sure it does it’s job well.
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