How to stick to a resolution (5/5)
Foreshadowing | A powerful tool for staying on track.
Often in self help literature we are told to use visualisation of our goals completed, to spark motivation and get us into action. However research not only suggests that this isn’t all that affective, but may even be counter productive. Forgive me for being crude, but it’s kind of like success masturbation. The act of visualising this euphoric state of having made a fortune, sculpted the perfect body or mastered a skill, actually gives us a low grade version of the feelings of success. Theoretically this should inspire us to take action toward that thing in real life, but it can often have the opposite effect. It can dull our motivation to do the work now, because we feel like we’ve got the prize already. So as you are less motivated to pursue real sexual gratification when you’ve just satisfied yourself, so too you are less motivated to go and succeed when you’ve just fantasised about already having the success.
The actions required in the here and now to succeed in the future are often uncomfortable, hard, and not immediately gratifying. So getting our comfort seeking, lazy, current self to effectively suffer (go without, graft, endure, etc) on behalf of our future self isn’t easy. One way of getting us into action is to be in more discomfort now through inaction, than acting would create. You’re motivated to run when disaster is baring down on your current location and survival necessitates it. Luckily as humans we have the incredible power of imagination, and we can harness this to create a state of incredibly high motivation to act now for our future selves. This is called foreshadowing, and even though it may seem a little dark, it is a potent tool we can deploy for our own good.
Foreshadowing a short how to:
Try this next time you struggle to motivate yourself to take action towards your goals. Hold your goal in mind, briefly connect with the reasons why you’re doing it. Now go immediately to the worst case scenario of not achieving it. Deeply connect with the pain and emotional stress you will experience as a result of never coming close. You will notice a sting. A flurry of negative emotions and thoughts flooding your consciousness. Don’t worry, this is your primitive part of your brain setting of alarm signals. These alarm signals are designed to prime your body for action. And there is the magic. After a brief few minutes marinading in that imagined future state of pain, and loss, and missed opportunity, you will likely now look at the tasks in front of you that could save you from the dreadful fate with renewed tenacity and drive. Tasks that once seemed far too much to do now, when Netflix, or instagram, or sleep was con conveniently the alternative, will now seem not all that difficult. You may even feel a low grade sense of disgust at the lazy alternative.
A Personal Example
It’s good that I write this today. It is 5:59am and I’ve been writing for 45 minutes or so. I was tired today, sleep is at a premium at the moment given my third child is only 7 weeks old. I wanted to stay in bed, I could hear the gale force winds battering the window, I knew it was cold outside my warm abode. I could rationalise that doing this after school run (at the expense of the other work I need to do later today) is sensible, and an extra hours sleep would do me good.
So I think briefly of a day 20 years from now when my older daughter asks if I may be able to help her with the deposits for her first home (owning a home, I fear, may be a pipe dream for her generation). I imagine in painful detail telling her the truth. “I cant help you, when you were young instead of working to bring the best of me into the world, I watched Netflix in the evening and slept in on the mornings”. NO. No way. I want to be successful so I can provide my three children with advantages I never had, and not be a burden on them when I age. Yes, I want nice holidays and financial freedom and all the other positive things people want, just like anyone else. But right now, in bed, early on a winters morning, it is the discomfort of this foreshadowed pain that drives me from my bed towards my computer.
Summary
Foreshadowing creates the discomfort now that makes the task at hand less dreadful, and more bearable. Our brains are far better at getting off the couch when it is to avoid suffering that when it is to gain anything. Leverage this fact, use it to your advantage to get moving and stay on track. It will help you take more risks, challenge and expand your comfort zones, and take more action, that is also bigger and bolder towards a better future.
