I have some friends who overeat and are overweight. I was talking about it with a friend and I realized it made perfect sense. They don’t have a “reason why” to stop overeating and lose weight. In the moment when food is present, there’s no reason NOT to simply respond to the primal brain and eat all of the salty, sugary food. In fact, without a reason NOT to eat all of the food, it would seem to be illogical to not simply respond to the primal brain’s urge to eat the food that delivers all of the dopamine. If there’s no reason to avoid the dopamine, your brain would simply do the action and get the dopamine.

I find I have the same issue with motivating myself. If I’m not clear on a very motivating reason why, it’s easy to fall back to habits that simply make the primal brain feel good. I may have a logical reason why to not eat sugar (it’s bad for me) or to work on my business (I like money), but I find that if the reason doesn’t create a powerful emotion … if my why isn’t strong and engaging to my emotions … then it’s easy to eat sugar and say I’ll work on my business tomorrow.

I’m very comfortable now in my late 40’s – and I get peeved at myself for not having a driving why to motivate me. Now that I realize that money and other things won’t make me happy, my motivation for getting “all the things” has diminished greatly. How do you create a real, believable reason WHY to do something (or stop doing something) when you realize life is always 50/50 – and you won’t feel better THERE than you feel HERE? Any suggestions on creating a new reason why that’s compelling – knowing that your life before the thing and after the thing will feel mostly the same… 50/50? Thanks!