“The Pain Passes but the Beauty Remains”

How painful does it have to get before you stop procrastinating and take action?

Our new baby is now almost three weeks old.  Big brown eyes, long legs, funny little tail, born in a stable…  Gerry was just about to load the very pregnant mare into the horsebox and drive her to the foaling unit when he realised it was too late, she was already in labour.

There followed 40 minutes of tugging, a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears and finally they delivered the horse of a strong healthy colt.  Strange thing is, eleven years ago when I was pregnant, Gerry decided to forego the ‘ringside seat’ in the delivery suite on the grounds that "I’m no good at that sort of thing".

Did he think he’d have to deliver the baby, I wonder?

Proof though that there is a God (divine retribution for his past misdemeanours) and that when the chips are down – and the waters break – we can all do so much more than we would have believed possible.

My planned birth partner was my sister’s boyfriend.  An unusual arrangement but Sue couldn’t even wash out a chicken without feeling faint and sisterly love just didn’t stretch that far.  Besides, Brian was a plumber and I felt he’d probably be quite an asset to the midwife. As luck would have it, he was out on call when I went into labour, ten days early so I ended up with a newly-qualified midwife and a sister so hyper that in between contractions I had to negotiate a deal: she got the gas and air and I got the epidural.

But she was there for me when I needed her and she ended up actually enjoying the whole experience.  As I said, it’s quite surprising what we’re capable of when our escape route has been bricked up and plastered over.  And that’s got me thinking of the whole area of motivation and what it takes to get us into action.

Though there are many times in my life when I’ve failed (you
might remember my attempts to train for the marathon a couple of years
ago), I’ve also achieved the impossible on loads of occasions.  I’ve
designed the perfect job and talked employers into paying me to do it,
left a long-term co-dependent relationship I thought I’d never be free
of, bloody ‘eck, I even gave up chocolate once for an entire week.

We often berate ourselves for lacking the motivation and willpower to
change things for the better: to lose weight, let go of the
relationships that cause unhappiness, find work we love so much we’d do
it for nothing.  And yet, we’ve all at times managed to achieve stuff
that took great effort, courage and determination.

For me the starting point is pain, that’s the most powerful motivator
in my book.  If you hate your job but put up with it week in, week out,
then the pain of doing it is simply less than the pain you think you’ll
feel by leaving.  Maybe it pays well or it’s comfortingly familiar or
your evil boss gives you something great to moan about with your
friends. Whereas a new job would catapult you right out of your zone.

If you’re desperate to lose weight but continue to pile your shopping
trolley with high calorie goodies, then the pain of your middle-age
spread spreading is just not as bad as having to sort out the problems
that you stifle when you’re stuffing food in your mouth.

A few years ago I lost a lot of weight, about four stone in all.  Once
I started to hear people complimenting me on how great I looked and
felt the joy of loose waistbands and shopping for new clothes, I was
motivated by pleasure.  Eating healthily was immeasurably better than
big meals, constant snacks and trying every new chocolate bar that came
on the market – several times just to be sure.

But my initial motivation, what got me out of my over-sized rut in the
first place was a work colleague suggesting we should do it together
and for me, the pain of her succeeding and me failing would have been
more than I could bear.  No chocolate on the market tasted as sweet as
the sight of the scales going lower and lower.

So, if you’ve been talking forever about achieving a goal but doing
nothing about it, think about – and write down – the pain you are
causing yourself now and in the future by not tackling it.  Make your
list as long as possible!  Project forward five years:

If you had
still not achieved that goal, how painful would life be then?

Not painful enough?  What would have to happen to make it so?

Think about what Jamie Oliver did in his fantastic TV series, "School
Dinners".  He was battling to get the kids to stop eating junk food in
favour of wholesome fresh cooked meals and getting nowhere.  He gave
them a choice of chicken nuggets or ‘proper’ chicken.  They all wanted
the nuggets so he agreed they could have them – but that first they’d
have to make them.  He took a pile of chicken skins and other suspect
parts and asked them to feed it all into the food processor before
covering the mixture with breadcrumbs.  The kids were appalled when
they saw what they were really eating.  After weeks of resistance from
them, Jamie Oliver had finally discovered the pain big enough to get
them to rethink their eating habits.

Of course we often set goals because we are motivated by the pleasure
of the end result – our own business, a book we’ve written, a new home
etc – but when you just can’t get into action however much you think
you want to achieve that goal, it might simply be that you haven’t yet
reached your pain threshold.

I’d love to hear your own experiences of what has motivated you to get
up and take action on one of your goals.  Were you motivated by pain,
pleasure – or something else?  Feel free to comment.