The Pleasure Pain Principle.
The Pleasure-Pain Principle
Humans are hard-wired to avoid pain and seek pleasure. This is part of our nature and is built into everyone.
This instinct helped our ancestors survive, by seeking comfort warmth and shelter, by eating whatever was available. Avoiding unnecessary risks, we had more chance of surviving.
Today we still have this software programmed into us even though our world is extremely different.
The majority of us have our survival needs met , we have safety security and warmth. We’re almost too comfortable.
However becoming too comfortable and avoiding discomfort will make you miserable.
becoming too comfortable makes us
Avoid difficult conversations.
Fear rejection.
Snooze the alarm.
Scroll on our phones for hours.
Buy things that we think will make us happy.
Skip workouts we promised ourselves we’d do.
We choose comfort and pleasure, avoiding discomfort in countless ways.
By avoiding difficult conversations, we’re left with lingering anxiety. By choosing easy, convenient foods, we’re comfort eating our way to obesity.
When we choose to sleep in, scroll our phones, or spend our money impulsively, we trap ourselves in a cycle of short-term comfort, pushing discomfort further down the road.
The pleasure-pain principle rules our micro-decisions and slowly steers the course of our lives—until we take control of it.
Constantly consuming quick, easy pleasure leaves a void of pain that can only be filled with more short-term pleasure, trapping us in a loop as we seek a way out.
While the pleasure-pain principle will always be a part of us, learning to recognize it and control it is a crucial step toward better well-being.
We must embrace pain and discomfort as necessary parts of our growth and experience and realise that somethings arent that painful at all.
Actively choose discomfort instead of avoiding or fearing it:
Have the difficult conversation.
Leave your phone at home.
Introduce yourself.
Put down the snacks.
Get up when the alarm goes off.
Admit when you're wrong.
Stop letting the fear of uncomfortable things rule you—fear is a terrible liar.
When we incorporate difficult or uncomfortable habits into our lives, we exercise our minds and strengthen our ability to endure discomfort.
By leaning into discomfort, we rewire our minds to enjoy overcoming challenges we previously thought were difficult.
We can't change our basic nature, but we can attach new meaning to discomfort. The reward is found in the process of doing hard things.
Journal prompt.
Look back at the last week.
Look at what you avoided, ask yourself why. What reasons did you give for avoiding it ?
In the past what have you avoided due to it being uncomfortable ? What was the result of that avoidance ?
Now choose a task you have been putting off and get to work.
Write down how you feel once it’s done.