WHAT YOU SAY YOU WANT
AND WHAT YOU WILL DO TO AVOID IT
[Note that it is usually best to read the articles on this site straight through without following the many links - and then you can go back and do the studying and additional reasoning, considering the links as if they are a 'reading list'.]
LETTING GO OF ONE'S HIGHEST INTENTIONS
I am greatly saddened whenever I see a person let go of his/her highest intentions to create a great, high happiness life - or even lesser goals. I am sad to see that they will let the same old patterns and beliefs pull them down into unnecessary stress, anxiety, and not feeling happy (too) much of the time. I can guarantee that a person will achieve true happiness if he/she sticks with it with adequate devoted time.
The trick is to work out ways that will have people not fall into the same old evolutionary trick that has them stay with the old, moldy existence over the fresh, alive, much higher level existence.
WE EVOLVED INTO THESE MECHANICAL PATTERNS
We evolved in such a way that there will be "opposing forces" to the motivation to create a greater life.
At the time, 10,000 years ago, the behavior that survived was based strictly on what DNA and behaviors had served to have us survive the extreme dangers of the time, when 1/5 of us died from animals and/or human hands. This necessitated our being hyper reactive in the moment, so that we could get the H--- out of there and/or get the superstrength to fight more powerfully. That was appropriate and workable for that time.
Planning for the long term didn't make much sense, since there wasn't much of a long term to plan for (maybe 30 years) and certainly we wouldn't have a long term if we didn't survive all the real dangers in the short term.
None of this reality is obvious to those who haven't studied it and learned about how things work. Many have become victims of the lack of knowing.
Unfortunately, that's what will occur unless there is some "force" that happens that comes upon them that will have them changing the trajectory of their current path by learning what is necessary.
BUT IT JUST "SEEMS" LIKE WE CAN'T CHANGE...
Of course, the incredible failure rate of New Year's resolutions is well-known.
And people are aware of the "fear of change" concept, but they nevertheless become victims of it by not having adequate, well-thought-out strategies to work around it. The "fear of change" is a faux fear, for it has no true basis if we are looking at it factually, from the higher brain. People have superstitiously assumed that this fear is "just what is so" and we largely cannot overcome it.
Though it is not a "legitimate" fear, the physical/mechanical basis for it is real - and we will continue to have that basis predominate in our lives without a change in strategy.
THE FORCE OF RESISTANCE
In talking about rituals that will produce great gains (such as scheduling in learning sessions, etc.) he says: "perhaps the most paradoxical key to ... is to expect resistance to implementing them..." (Learn what resistance actually is: Resistance - How To Remove It, And Have Life Be Easy!.)
We as humans seek "stability" as it has us feel a sense of safety. When we disturb the "balance", so to speak, we want to return to the range of operation we're used to. This is what is called the homeostatic process - to try to get into the fully functioning range so that we survive better.
Physically, that automatic evolved way of being does ordinarily serve us well. For the long term though it does not serve us well, because it stops our getting better so that we can enjoy our longer lives more - and certainly we do not need to have the anxiety, stress, and feeling of threat that is based on faux threats to our existence - since we no longer have the true physical dangers we had before. This is a major concept that must be understood or a person will be stuck in the same, rather primitive way of thinking - and he/she will not be able to become sufficiently wise to be able to create a much, much greater life.
Our mechanical bodies/brains create the necessary motivating chemicals that will have us experience discomfort in order to get us back to homeostasis - and, appropriate to evolution, we react/respond with a corrective action. Except what is true now is that we can
3. We can see through the mechanical process and see that there is nothing to fear and that it was only a false belief/thought that caused the emotion. (This "disappears" most fears.)
[One of the reasons that you must understand that in the real world, in your body and your brain, it is strictly mechanics that everything is running is so that one will not attribute the decision to some mysterious, unknown or fictitious entity that has a will contrary to what else we want. There is no inner child, inner saboteur, inner critic, etc. No such entity exists, and if we realize that we can look to reality to create a greater life, we will not depend on some false concept that will not work. I suggest that one of the essential basics for you to understand also is The Believing Brain, about how we "make up" stuff that is not true and then we believe it is the truth!]
SO, THE STORY GOES...
So, we'll get a little bit of improvement and we'll tend to say "well, that's enough and I need now to get back to my safe cave" - and that means life goes on as it has been going on for decade after decade, as we live the life of a gradually boiling frog, reliving Groundhog Day over and over and over - but we needn't get stuck doing that. We needn't settle for "well, my life isn't that bad. It's not an unhappy life..." when we can choose, instead, to live the proactive life of those who end up having no big problems at all and have the ability to be many, many times happier than others, as they Live Life As A Life Champion. It is not useful to get caught in what is called "The Drift" in life.
And we won't see much of life as it is unless we "get" the "shift" that the character in A Beautiful Mind (the movie) got that freed him up from believing that the delusions that the mind makes up are real (see the movie first if you can, before reading the article I've linked to).
THE REASONS WHY NOT
The irony here is that it will be difficult for you to stay on the path to a much, much better life at first because you will not have learned enough wisdom to see through the faux fears and faux barriers.
Some people will blow off because they are so sensitized to being self critical that they see this learning process, where we are looking at what to correct, as a process that increases their anxieties instead of reducing them.
One of the necessary pieces to "get" is the massive restructuring of viewpoint away from the false and very untrue basis for self-criticism - they must "relearn" this as early as possible so that they can defuse that "opposing force" that will help blow them off course. They must understand the actuality and basis for "No Fault".
Along the same lines, people will become embarrassed and seek to hide (to escape).
They will rationalize without using true logic and reasoning and they'll make the super-error of thought where they believe that "emotional reasoning" is valid (but it is incredibly not valid!).
Some, thinking it is absolutely legitimate, will simply say they are too busy to do it - and that they are too busy to be able to have the time to get unbusy or to work on improving the dysfunction that is creating the lack of time.
Many will just "go away", into distractions (including getting too busy) and whatever will distract their mind from the anxiety of feeling they have to change - so they don't stick around long enough to go past the "breakeven" point to where the benefits of learning far exceed the "costs" of learning.
Schwartz recommends, as does Norcross in Changeology, that we anticipate what will come up that will have us avoid and drop out of following through - and then devise strategies to keep ourselves in the worthy quest.
Of course, you'll have to do this when you are in your higher brain and not your monkey mind - and then put the pieces and strategies into place so that they will work at the times that your primitive brain starts to resist.
STRATEGIES THAT HELP
1. Having a coach or partner produces a positive force and support.
2. Speaking with your coach or consultant as often as you can in order to clear up misunderstandings.
3. Setting up a "check-in" at least every week to see how you are doing - and it is best to use a tracking sheet where you record how often or how well you've done something.
4. Keeping up the momentum, don't take big breaks as the "devil" will get himself thoroughly ensconced. Do as much as possible to study and get ramped up to speed as soon as possible - and then keep up the pace.
5. Make a firm commitment, in writing, that you will stick to it for __ hours a week and state the reasoning for why you MUST do this change.
a. Make the commitment public, such as in your family.
6. Implement things as fast as you can. Being slow or being too "gradual" will slow the momentum and, of course, not get a high enough level of results.
7. Read daily the reasons why you are seeking the improvement in life
WILL YOU COMMIT TO LEARN AND NOT FALL PREY TO THIS?
You can fall prey to your primitive mind operating in a way that does not serve you in this day and age. Or you can choose to, like the captain who had to be tied to the ship's mast when going by The Sirens, tie yourself to your commitment and desire to have a greater life.
Your choice. Another "failure" (of effort), a reinforcement of the "I can't" belief, helplessness, powerlessness - or a determined success no matter what!
______________________________________________________
BUT, SURELY, NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND...
A person who looks at the tradeoffs of investing a bit of time and effort into having a vastly greater life would be likely to say "But, surely, nobody in their right mind would not choose a better life! Who would be so foolish as not to???!!!!"
Well, the problem is that a great deal of time we are operating in our "not right" mind, our primitive brain which is incapable of high level reasoning and merely operating in a primitive manner.
When we see the benefits we are in our higher brain, which is designed for logic and decisionmaking and planning - but it takes some effort to reengage it all the time when the human has evolved to conserve energy (as part of The Motivational Triad) and thus to operate automatically "without thinking".
