Why You Do What You Do

Why it’s essential to have big enough “whys” to accomplish your grandest goals and dreams, and why success is almost impossible without them.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss the essential nature of having emotionally compelling reasons why you want what you want in life in order to achieve it. I discuss how to properly set your goals, which are what you really want, and how to create emotionally reasons why you want it that are so compelling, it gives you leverage upon yourself that will help you to take continuous, relentless action towards its attainment, even when you are fearful, uncertain and don’t feel like it. This is the method I have used for over twenty-five years to continually achieve every personal and professional goal I have ever set for myself.

If you’re setting goals in life, and you’re having a hard time reaching them or you give up after awhile, then what you’re missing is a big enough “Why?” In other words, you have to know what you want, and you have to know why you want it. And without a compelling reason why you’re going to do something, you’re not going to get very far in life.

If you’ve read my second book “Mastering Yourself,” I go into extensive detail of how I changed my thinking. When you have a written list of goals and the reasons why you want those goals, the pain you’re going to experience if you put off doing what you know you need to do and the pleasure you’re going to experience if you do the things you know you need to do, that’s how you get emotional leverage upon yourself.

Most people think about their goals, and they think about all the things they have to do, how long it’s going to take and it’s going to be really hard. It’s like looking up a giant mountain and going, “Man, that’s going to be a lot of work to climb that,” so they don’t do anything, because they associate massive pain with achieving that particular goal.

Accomplishing any goal in life is really the result of breaking it down into small, daily to achieve goals. For example, when I was in college and struggling to finish, what I realized was, I had a few classes such as Calculus that I had taken and dropped three times. In my mind, I was afraid that I wasn’t smart enough to pass, because my mother’s way of trying to motivate me was to always tell me I’d never amount to anything.

Masculine energy grows through challenge, but when you’re constantly told you’re basically not going to amount to anything, then you start to think you’re a loser and not worthy of this. So what I would do is just keep putting it off, because I associated pleasure with putting things off, and I really didn’t realize I was doing this. This was happening subconsciously. I was causing myself to pretty much not do anything, because I associated pleasure with putting it off and pain with actually doing the work and potentially finding out that I really was a dumbass.

What I recognized when I really got into Tony Robbins’ work and the Personal Power cd’s he was selling in the late 80’s and 90’s was, I needed to write down the goal I wanted, which was to graduate with my degree in Construction Management. It didn’t matter if I passed all of my other classes. If I didn’t get Calculus out of the way, I wasn’t going to get that piece of paper. What I learned to do was ask myself, “What’s the pain I’m going to experience if I don’t sit down and do these Calculus problems that I scheduled to do tonight?” What I realized was, if I don’t do these problems tonight, then I’m going to have to stay up extra late tomorrow night to do them, and then that’s going to put me behind. That’s not going to be pleasurable.

However, If I actually do these problems tonight, the positive I’m going to experience is the positive emotions of a sense of accomplishment, and ultimately if I continue to do this, then I pass this class, I get my degree, I get my contractor’s license, I’m able to get the kind of job I want and earn the kind of money I want, eventually attract the kind of woman that I want in my life, have the kinds of houses, cars and toys that I want and have all the kinds of things I want to enjoy and experience in life. And if I don’t do these problems tonight, I’m not going to get any of that. All of my goals and all of the things I wanted to accomplish in life could only take place in my mind if I got my degree. Therefore, if I didn’t get my degree, I’d experience a lot of pain. It completely changed the way I look at things.

Another example is, I really enjoy running, but I fucking hate lifting weights. I don’t enjoy it. I love the way I feel after lifting weights, and I love the way that it makes me look. I notice that women pay way more attention to me when I’ve been working out steadily with weights, versus when I take a couple of months off, and it affects my health. I take all the positive that comes from it, so I have to psychologically think about these things when I think about being lazy, when I feel like I don’t want to go to Whole Foods and make green juice and green smoothies, and eat the kind of diet I want. I love junk food, pizza and beer and enjoying the good life just as much as anybody else, but the bottom line is, you’ve got to be healthy at least 80% of the time, and 20% of the time you can fuck off and eat the junk food.

What I also talk about in my second book, “Mastering Yourself,” is all of the health problems that I used to have. And I know how that feels. As soon as I start eating shitty and not taking care of myself, I start getting a runny nose, I don’t sleep as well, I start getting fucking zits, my energy drops, I’m not mentally sharp, and I don’t love the way it makes me feel.

The one thing I always loved to do was running, and it’s not really that hard to motivate myself, because I enjoy the feeling after I’ve run a couple of miles on the treadmill and how my mind is sharper. I literally physically feel worse if I don’t take care of my body. If I run out of green juice, and I don’t go to Whole Foods, because I feel like being lazy, a day or so without any green juice, I start physically feeling it, and I don’t like how that feels. So obviously, there’s a lot of pleasure that I associate with doing the things that are healthy, and I literally, physically actually experience pain when I don’t take care of myself.

I think in terms of, what pain am I going to cause myself by being a lazy ass right now, and what pleasure am I going to experience by taking care of the things I know I need to take care of right now? When you start doing this for the first time, you’re going to have your main goals, all the things that are most important to you. On the left column, you want to put all the pain you’re going to experience if you don’t do what you know you need to do, and on the right column you’re going to put all the pleasure you’re going to gain and experience if you do what you know you need to do. And you want to review it every day. You want to put it on the back of your medicine cabinet, maybe even tape it to your mirror. Have it in the notes on your phone. Tape it to the visor in your car. Have it as the screensaver on your computer. Have it so it’s something that you review continually, because whatever you focus on is going to expand.

If you’re forcing yourself to look at your goals, the things that you want, the reason why you want it and the pain you’re going to experience if you don’t do what you know you need to do, that’s how you’re going to perpetually and continually get leverage on yourself. Because really, every day that you get up, it’s a fucking battle with yourself. Are you going to do what you need to do, or are you going to make an excuse and not do it?

Like I said, when I was younger I didn’t understand how I was thinking about things in terms of associating all this pleasure with being a lazy ass and avoiding finding out that I was potentially stupid and not good enough to get my degree. But as I talk about in the book, when I actually scheduled things out and practiced time management, I actually ended up with more free time on my hands. I looked forward to the weekends, and I got to spend time with my friends, because I was always caught up with my homework.

Start doing these things day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after year. If you can motivate yourself to do something for two weeks, then you can do it for thirty days. If you can do it for thirty days, you can do it for two months. If you can do it for two months, you can make it to six months. If you can make it to six months, you can make it to two years.

Every single day when you get up, there are things you know you need to take care of. And if you’re feeling like being lazy, if you’re feeling like putting it off, which we all do, start going through through the scenarios. What am I going to miss out on? What’s it going to cost me a year from now? What am I going to miss out on five, ten, twenty years from now if I don’t do these things that I know I need to do?

When you think this way, and you learn to train your brain to think differently about the things you need to take care of, it changes your paradigm. Then you look and you go, “Wow, there is so much downside risk and so much pain with being a lazy ass,” you’re going to get up and take care of business. And repetition is the mother of skill. You get really good at it, and it literally changes the way you think. Like Wayne Dyer said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

“In order to achieve and experience all that you want to in life, you must first know what you want, and then why you want it. The most effective way to set and achieve goals is to write down each goal, and then come up with a list of the negative emotions and experiences you will have by not taking action and not achieving it. Then list the positive emotions and experiences you will have if you do take action and do achieve it. Then you must review each goal daily and the associated pain you will experience if you don’t do what you know you need to do, and the pleasure you will experience if you do what you know you need to do. This is based upon Aristotle’s observation that people will do more to avoid pain than they will do to gain pleasure. This makes avoiding the goal and not taking action painful and taking action to achieve the goal pleasurable. Most people that don’t achieve their goals associate pain with taking action and trying, therefore they never start trying, or they only try to accomplish their goals for a very short period of time before giving up. Without creating the proper emotional leverage upon yourself, achieving your goals will be almost impossible.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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