Of course you don’t feel like doing it. Getting up early to go to the gym or taking a bit of extra time to prepare a healthy meal – your mind and body look for the easy way out (which is completely normal).
But remember – the gains you make occur when you push your limits. You need to step outside of your comfort zone, which by definition is uncomfortable.
Most people would probably agree with me that lying is, generally, a “bad” thing (although sometimes one might lie for the “right” reasons).
But constructing lies, in general, requires time and effort. It requires the liar to make the facts fit their story, remember exactly what pieces of information they told to different people, and think ahead constantly. This is a waste of precious resources of the mind.
Sometimes hearing feedback is hard. I’m sure I speak for most people when I say that I would prefer to know what I’m wrong by others so that I can do it different in future.
The key to this is finding out what you don’t know about yourself. An interesting framework for thinking about this is the Johari Window. It is a model which represents what we do and do not know about ourselves and what others do and do not know about ourselves.
I’m not an expert on happiness, but I believe there is one thing that happiness is not – pleasure.
To me, they are different feelings. Don’t get me wrong, I think they are related, but one thing I see time and time again is people justifying unhealthy or destructive choices by saying “Well it makes me happy, so therefore I will continue to do it.”
Ever noticed how certain structures in place within our world create a strong desire to get to the next level? Customer rewards programs, employment and even computer games, like World of Warcraft. It seems that a desire to get to the next level is one that is wired up deep within us.
But what if our energies were being directed at the wrong things? What if we are spending too much time and energy getting to the next level for the wrong reasons?