Pain or Pleasure: Which drives your life?

Pain or Pleasure, which motivates the choices you make? I like living life to the fullest, so exploring both has been important in understanding what brings me the most joy.  Although you would probably not select pain as your preferred driving force in life, fear often motivates our choices and achievements. Are you in crisis mode, feeling stressed and frustrated?

Regain your power and increase your pleasure with these 3 simple steps.

Step 1: Determine Your Motivating Factor

What is Your Motivating Factor??

Asking yourself these 3 simple questions will help you understand if the choices you are making are motivated by fear or pleasure?

1. Do you get joy from what you are doing? It’s easy to get caught up in all the activities we have to do each day, but ask yourself how it values your life to be doing it. If you can’t answer the question, write this task on a list.

2. Why are you doing this? Are you stuck in a routine or are you excited to participate? Many people feel they have no choice to how their life is running and see no way out.  Each day is a boring routine of all they have to do, making them feel drained and frustrated.

3. What emotion is driving you? Often we will come from guilt, need, loneliness, fear and other negative emotions when doing a task.  Making dinner for your husband can come from love, but if you feel obligated, resentful or have to do it so he doesn’t get upset, you are creating internal stress and pain by continuing to make dinner.

Step 2: Change Your Mindset

1. Act from Pleasure

I find that people are pushing themselves so hard right now. This internal pressure to accomplish paired with a long list of responsibilities are leading to great stress and pain in the body.  If you were running and began to hurt, you would stop.  Yet in our life when the stress comes, often we will block it out and keep going.  While there is some value to accomplishing in this manner, I would like you to consider acting from pleasure rather than pain. Any task can be completed in multiple ways, consider how you can blend pleasure into the work. Listen to music to boost your spirit, mop the floor with your socks and have a potluck dinner with friends so you don’t have to cook so much.

If you were running and began to hurt, you would stop.

2. Being vs. Doing

Coming from the corporate world, I learned that I was important based on how much I could accomplish in a day.  After my layoff, I wrote a list of all the activities I was finally going to catch up on.  Six months later, the items that seemed so important were still on my list.  God had different plans for me and used this quiet time to awaken my intuition.  As I tuned into my deeper desires I realized I wanted to help people and left the corporate world for holistic medicine. I learned the importance of being quiet, listening for internal guidance: “Being” rather than “Doing”.  In this place I was able to accomplish what was most meaningful to me, have more joy in life and help many people.

Stop the routine to find you.

3. Change Perception

Often we get caught up in the routine of life, feeling overwhelmed with all we have to accomplish. If you were to die tomorrow would all the items be important?

I have a client who stressed about clearing boxes from her house for over 1 year. Each day she would worry about how long it would take her to do the project. Her husband was upset that the boxes filled the room, yet every day she was too busy to clean these.  She felt the items in the box were too valuable to throw away, no one else could help her sort through it and so the stress continued.  Today it occurred to her that the items in the box couldn’t be that valuable, since she hadn’t needed any of it over the past year.  Suddenly this project went from extreme stress to ease.  Nothing in the box changed, it was simply her perception that shifted. By looking at your tasks from new perspectives it is possible to reduce your stress, find new solutions and bring more joy to a situation.

• Are you spending more time stressing about a project than it takes to complete it? Check your perception.

4. Outsource

Focusing on what brings you pleasure, it is possible to increase your productivity.  When you are drained and frustrated you will not be working at your optimal pace. More can be accomplished by outsourcing the activities you don’t enjoy and focusing on what you are passionate about. Consider hiring an outsourcing expert online such as elance.com, Many projects can be completed for under $100 by a professional, saving you time with better results. You may also consider switching chores with your spouse or a friend. My husband loved cooking and grocery shopping and I enjoyed gardening. He made dinners and I mowed the lawn.

Be Productive where you are Passionate.

5. Be Selfish

Do you feel guilty being selfish and asking for what you want? Do you put other people’s needs ahead of your own? Why? You are the only one who knows how to truly give yourself pleasure. Think of a child that wants a toy.  They fall in love, want it with all their heart and will do everything possible to fulfill their needs, including tantrums and pleading.  Quickly we learn that we will be punished and separated if we can’t behave. This fear gets programmed deep inside to the extreme that people are afraid to ask for what they desire and are confused to what is appropriate. Practice being Selfish. People want to make you happy and will appreciate knowing what you like rather than having to guess. Chances are even at your extreme you will not be self-centered.

You are the only one who knows how to truly give yourself pleasure.

For years I was content going to any restaurant my friends wanted. I didn’t care if I ate Chinese or Italian food, I would find something on the menu that would be fine. Then I watched the Runaway Bride movie with Julia Roberts.  With each man she would meet she would eat different types of eggs.  She was challenged to choose what was her favorite? Scrambled, Poached, Fried? This made a big impact on me, realizing that I didn’t know what I truly liked. I had changed myself based on the people in my life too.  I set out on a journey of self-discovery, allowing myself to try new things, question what I may have denied myself previously or believed I didn’t like.  It can be fun to explore new cuisine, activities, and cultures.  Forget what you “know”, blindfold yourself if necessary, and discover the world in a pleasant new way. Finding out what you like is the first step, asking for what you need is the second.

Finding out what you like is the first step to fulfillment

asking for what you need is the second.

Step 3: Make Changes

1. Pain to Pleasure

Look at the list of your Motivational Factors.  Choose 1 task that is done from pain and determine if you can apply any of the suggestions from Step 2 to shift to pleasure.  If you need help seeing other possibilities, ask a friend, family member or contact Jeanne@LiveBeyondEcstasy.com for a free consultation.

2. Know Thyself

Choose an item below. Begin surrounding yourself with these pleasures.  It will increase your joy and give you permission to fulfill your needs. For added enjoyment, ask your friends and family to do the same and compare lists. If money is tight, share an imagined experience describing details to each other, look at brochures, be creative and share a vacation in your home.

• Make a list of what would make you happy.
• Think of several activities you would enjoy doing.
• What food do you love to taste?
• What sounds would you like to hear?
• How would you like to be touched? Spoken to?
• Quiet your mind, relax, and take a moment for you.

3. Practice Being Selfish

Practice being selfish, asking for what you need.  Push the limits a bit, so you can feel the internal guilt or ridicule from others.  It’s good to explore these emotions so you don’t let it limit your expression in life.

• Practice asking for 1 thing that you would like today.
• Choose the restaurant and order whatever you want (even if you have to pay for it)
• Feed yourself before your kids and savor each bite.
• Stand in a doorway and let people open it for you.
• Cut in line or traffic to see how it feels.
• Point to the places you would like to be touched and enjoy. Don’t reciprocate for 10 minutes.
• Come up with your own list of what being selfish is to you, then try a few.

Enjoy your life to the fullest. Explore what brings you pleasure and do it often.  You will be happier, healthier and more successful.  To Live Beyond Ecstasy contact Jeanne Lupypciw at Jeanne@LiveBeyondEcstasy.com.

Jeanne Lupypciw is an Inspirational Teacher who helps leaders worldwide connect to their power and move beyond their limitations. For more information contact Jeanne@LiveBeyondEcstasy.com or http://www.unlockblocks.com