Personal Power - Day Two

Hello folks! Once again I've been listening to Personal Power (or my 'brainwash discs' as Stephen calls them) and I've got my notes and actions below. Regardless of whether you want to call it brainwashing I believe it works but the only person that can make it work is yourself and to do that you need to follow through. I stuck to last nights tasks. How? By following through. Normally I set out with the best of intentions but I never follow through. By implementing the strategies and using the tools that Personal Power gave me I was able to do that.

Here are my notes and tasks for today's session. Forgive me, but they're very long!

DAY 2

The most important factor in success is knowing what you want. Most people think they want something but they don’t want it enough to do what it takes to achieve it.

Many of us read articles or watch TV programmes that tell us the best way to succeed in different areas their lives but they don’t follow through. They know the theory but they don’t carry it out.

Reminder: The controlling forces of pain and pleasure. Everything is done through the need to avoid pain or the desire for pleasure.

Why do women put on make-up? Either to make them feel more attractive or make others think you are (gain pleasure) OR other women don’t enjoy putting it on but still put it on so that others don’t think they’re lazy/ugly (avoid pain).

Procrastination is the silent killer. We think that taking action would be more painful than taking no action and doing nothing and taking no action would be less painful. Sometimes we leave things until the last minute and due to the fear of pain (not getting something handed in at work the next day) we finally get round to do it but if we’d done it as soon as we were given it then we wouldn’t have had the pain of worrying about it in the lead-up to it being due or the pain of staying up all night the night before getting it done.

95% of people who go on a diet will have not only put on all lost weight after two years but will have gained an additional two pounds. Diets don’t work, changing our eating habits permanently work though. We eat unhealthy foods because we associate our favourite foods with deep deep pleasure. But being fat is far more painful. But in that moment that we’re eating that unhealthy packet of crisps or bar of chocolate that seems more pleasureable. This is all about changing our associations between pleasure and pain. A brief moment of pleasure is not worth a life-time of pain. We don’t need to ‘discipline’ ourselves just change associations.

If we fall for someone but don’t tell them then you associated more pain with asking them out than the pleasure of being in a relationship. Is the momentary pain of rejection a greater motivating factor than a lifelong relationship? People are much more motivated by the desire to avoid pain than anything else. Which pain is more intense though? Is it the pain of a single rejection or the pain of being single?

Does being in a relationship mean lots of pleasure? Love? Happiness? Security? Closeness? Oneness? Some people get in a relationship then don’t want to be in it and associate it with pain. Worse than that, though, is if they love the person and give 100% and then the other person hurts/rejects them. There will be times in your life when other people disappoint you. The challenge is learning to deal with being hurt by others. This causes us to associate relationships with pain but there is a conflict because we still associate them with pleasure. This is what causes some people to sabotage their own relationships when they’re going well because they are experiencing pleasure and something in their head tells them happy relationships lead to pain eventually. This doesn’t need to be the case.

Pain/Pleasure affects the business world. Marketing is also down to pleasure and pain. Adverts try to make you link pleasure to their product and pain to the competition’s product.

In the 21st century everything is moving so fast that we need to learn quickly. Learning shouldn’t be passive (maybe that’s where I went wrong at school, sitting sleeping) but should be interactive. Taking notes (like this) really helps us retain 75% to 90% more (I learnt that yesterday, and remembered it!).

Would a telephone company advert say ‘We know you miss your mum, give her a call!’? Instead they would show an old lady upset and saying ‘My son hasn’t called me for so long, I miss him, he doesn’t love me anymore. I’m being left alone and lonely’. The causes all the old people watching to feel this pain and all the young people watching to feel guilty – This is the pain element. Later in the advert we see the son calling the mother and she’s smiling and thinking ‘Oh, my son does love me’ and then the music comes on in the background and there’s an incredible bond – This is the pleasure element. It shows your pain and then shows you how to heal the pain and gain pleasure.

Would you work harder to save £10,000 or to stop someone stealing it from you? Easy, to stop them stealing because you don’t want that pain. That's true for me, I love saving money by getting the best 'deals' at supermarkets etc but don't put the same effort into earning money.

How we can use the understanding these controlling factors? We need to focus on the bigger picture and focus on the pain/pleasure balance. People stick to diets because they’ve been through the ‘threshold’ where they associate the food with more pain than pleasure but eventually they lose this focus. Link not taking action as being more painful than taking it. You need to control your mental focus. Do it upfront, don’t wait until life puts you in a pressure situation.

If you can’t be bothered to phone somebody to wish them happy birthday think how it’s going to make them feel and how it’s going to make you feel? If you don’t phone them everyone will feel bad. If you phone them everyone will feel good.

Use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do it you control life. If you don’t control it then like most people then life controls you.

If there’s something you want to do and you’re not doing it and you can’t figure it out… it’s because you link more pain with it than pleasure.

If you don’t have money it’s because at some degree, even just a tiny little bit somewhere in your mind you link it with pain. It’s either going to be painful to get it (effort) or to get money you think you have to take advantage of people which most people don’t want to do… or people will be jealous of you and you’ll end up lonely.

Your brain is like a scale weighing up pleasure and pain. If you don’t follow through then it’s because the scales are set up wrong and you need to rebalance them.

To change it once-and-for-all you need to decide to control the focus of your mind. What will be the pain if you DON’T do it?

Repetition is the mother of all skill and things need to be repeated until the point is hammered home. A great minister once started giving the identical sermon to his church every week and after five weeks the elders took him aside to check everything was ok. Everything was and he said he was going to keep giving it until people started to apply it.

1) Write down four actions that need taken in your life that you need to take (not the same as yesterdays). They can be simple like making one phone call or huge thinks that’ll impact the rest of your life.
a) Write down the pain you associate with taking this action.
b) Write down the pleasure you’ve got from not following through.
c) Write down what it’ll cost you if you don’t follow through on this action over the next few years: Emotionally? Self-image? Physical energy levels? Self-esteem? Financially? Personal relationships. Emotions drive us not intellect so write how it feels and don’t just be logical (ie, not dieting you’ll be fat).
d) Write down what you’d gain by taking this action right now. Control? Self-confidence? Energy and health? Stronger relationships? More will power for other areas of your life? Gain gain gain.

This is the impact for the present and the long-term. Use the carrot and the stick on yourself. You don’t need others to do it for you.

1) Lose weight
a) Will lose the only comfort I get in life… food! I might need to exercise. I’ll need to pay for new clothes. I might not keep the weight off then will face the shame of gaining weight again.
b) I get to eat lots of crisps and buttered toast and cakes and chocolate and biscuits. It’s great eating six slices of toast and a 10 ounce bag of cheetos at 3am while watching an episode of House.
c) If I don’t lose weight people will judge me as greedy (well, fair cop) and they’ll be embarrassed to be around me because of the way I look. I’ll also be embarrassed by the way I look. I can’t wear fashionable clothes and struggle to find nice things that fit and when I do shop I’m only thinking about what won’t make me look too fat. It means I can’t do things I enjoy like going swimming or if I were to gain lots of weight would limit lots of other things like not being able to fit on rides at Alton Towers which would be bad. My health will also get bad and I may have lots of horrible medical complications and will be a burden to people who’ll be looking after me, that’s if any of them stick around. I might end up not able to get out and do thing things I enjoy doing and being with the people I like to be with so I might be isolated and bored. My belly might get so big I can’t get close enough to see the TV screen. My self-esteem will be low. My health will be poor. I’ll spend far more money than I need to on junk food and most importantly I’ll never find the next Mrs Thompson.
d) I would feel like I had some control in my life and that if I could beat something like this then I could do anything I set out to do. I’d feel fitter and more energetic. I’d start to look better and be able to wear better clothes. I’d be more able to keep up with other people. My health would improve and I’d feel better about myself. I wouldn’t have to deal with all of the issues above. I felt good when I followed through with yesterdays action and could feel like that all of the time when I followed through. People would be more happy to be around me and be seen with me and if I really got in shape, along with other factors… I might just be able to attract the next Mrs Thompson.

2) Always do the paper work I get at the first available opportunity
a) I have to take time out of what I’m doing at the time and make the effort. I might need to not speak on MSN or play a game or watch a TV programme or even go out with people. I need to find everything I need to do the paperwork and do it then post it/hand it in etc.
b) I’ve been able to do the things I like to do and have not had to go to the effort.
c) If I don’t start doing paperwork then, in the short term, I lose the paperwork and the hassle and embarrassment of asking others to give me another copy which will also inconvenience them. I have the constant worry of knowing that I’m putting it off so I have a nagging in my head. Sometimes the paperwork might be a form for something (ie new taxicard) and by not filling it in I’m not receiving the benefit of whatever the form is for. I also need to be able to complete assignments for University and, in the longer term, work. If I don’t do them then I will fail or, at least, not fulfil my full potential and this will let other people down and will also mean I will do less well in my course and career which will have a negative impact on other areas of my life. If I leave them to the last minute then I have no flexibility in when I can do them and I can’t spread them out over time or put in the appropriate amount of research.
d) If I were to follow through with doing paper work on time then I wouldn’t have to lose the bits of paper or part-filled forms! I wouldn’t have it nagging in my mind. I’d be able to make use of whatever it is that I’ve actually got the form for in many cases. I’d have the flexibility of doing it when was convenient rather than needing to do it immediately because it’s due in. If I give myself time to do assignments/essays etc then I am more likely to be able to do them to the best of my ability which will make me feel good about myself and help me to get better grades which will make others proud of me. Forming good habits like this can then be kept for life and will allow me to function well in the workplace.

3) Keep my room/home tidy.
a) I have to get up off my bum and sort things out. I need to find rubbish and put that in a bag and sort out paperwork. I need to make a pile of dirty laundry and take that through and stick it in the washing machine. I need to keep my clean laundry, tablets, gadgets, books and everything else tidy… but it only ever gets untidy again. Sounds like so much hard work which will take me away from doing the things which I like to do!
b) I’ve been able to do the things I like to do and not bother tidying, other than that there’s probably not very much pleasure associated with this one.
c) It’s not nice to live surrounded by crap. It makes me feel ashamed of myself and ashamed to let others see my room. There’s a danger of me running out of clean laundry in the very near future. I half-kill myself whenever I come into the room and have to perform wonderful gymnastic acts in order to just get onto my bed. I also risk breaking things whenever I walk anywhere as I’m likely to stand on something valuable… or at least hurt my foot or trip up and smash into something of value. I also lose things and take forever to find them. I’ve got a terrible memory and always forget where I put things so it’s even more important to be ultra-organised so that I’m not looking in huge piles of junk for my phone/glasses/water/pills/charger etc. I also feel bad when people see my room and are disappointed that I’m untidy. If I keep an untidy (or even unclean) flat when I move in then people won’t want to visit me and I’ll be lonely.
d) If I were to start being tidy RIGHT NOW then I would feel better about myself. I’d be staying in a nicer environment. If I tidy it I might also find some of that paperwork I need to fill in! I would also not risk losing or breaking things. Other people would also be happier with me and proud of me for getting my act together and being tidier and if I’m tidier here then people will have more confidence in my abilities to keep my new flat tidier. If it is kept tidier then I’ll feel less ashamed when I invite people over and I’ll be able to look forward to visitors without the dread of what they’ll say/think. I’d be able to find things so much easier which would also save me time to do the things I like or need to do. Others would be proud of me and I’d be proud of myself.

4) Better oral-hygiene (I’m British, so whilst I always brush my teeth… there is room for greater oral hygiene).
a) The times when you need to brush/rinse/floss your teeth are always when you’re at your most tired either first thing in the morning or last thing at night and all you want to do is go to sleep. It’s time consuming and sometimes painful and like all the other things I take issue with…. Takes effort. I’m willing to take effort for something that benefits someone else, just not myself.
b) By half-heartedly brushing my teeth either two hours after I’ve got up or two hours before I even eat my supper (dumb, but marginally better than not doing it at all) I get to not have to stand in front of the sink brushing my teeth when I’m really tired and my eyes are half-closed. It means I get to sit in my warm bed with my laptop watching House/ER etc and eating toast/crisps and get to go to sleep with the taste of these things in my mouth.
c) If I don’t follow through with brushing (right into the gums, and using some force and spending more than 30 seconds doing it) then my teeth won’t look very nice. My breath might also smell as bits of food rot between my teeth if I don’t floss properly. My teeth will end up a horrible colour and people will see bits of food wedged near my gums. I would be ashamed to smile in case people saw my teeth. I might get holes in my teeth which will be very painful and might require expensive treatment and then I could lose my teeth and need to start wearing dentures which would not look very nice and mean I’d be limited to what I could eat. They would also feel horrible and unnatural in my mouth and I’d have to use adhesive to keep them in. Losing my teeth would also affect the clarity of my speech. It is less attractive to others (regardless of relationship to you) to have bad/false teeth as a young person.
d) If I were to follow through and spend the time and energy required at the times required then I’d feel better about myself knowing I was achieving something on a twice-daily basis. I wouldn’t worry about getting too close to people when I speak to them in case my breath happens to smell bad because I didn’t use mouthwash to kill the nasty bacteria in my mouth that morning. I’d be happier smiling without feeling the need to hide my teeth. I’d be able to keep my own teeth much longer and not have to experience painful tooth-ache or painful dental treatments. I wouldn’t have to get dentures and any of the associated problems above. This would help me feel better about myself and it’d make others think better of me.

Well, that’s my four tasks for today. I’m going to follow through with these right now and continue to follow through on yesterdays. My next task is to implement a and that is to tidy my room.