Pain Motivates Change

There are two great motivating forces in life: The pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of discomfort.  But that’s not to say they’re even… Our need to avoid discomfort is a far more powerful motivator than getting more of what we want. We are all psychologically wired to avoid pain.

I saw this recently with a client of mine. He’s an ambitious entrepreneur whose business isn’t growing like he wants it to, but he hasn’t been doing much about it. He’s been stuck in a disappointing, underperforming cycle and has grown comfortable with it. And he feels justified about it because he thinks he’s “doing all the right things” and just doesn’t have enough time for anything else, stuck and at full capacity.

That is until I had him complete a time audit, and it was compelling. Just one week of reviewing how he spends his time, on a half hour by half hour basis, completely shifted his perspective. He’s been telling himself that he didn’t have the time to put into more marketing, and that his travel schedule has been keeping him from being more successful, but this exercise illuminated something different. He’s been wasteful of his time. He’s been irresponsible. And the pain of accepting it struck him like a dagger.

This elevated pain is creating ripples into his daily choices. Instead of rationalizing that he doesn't have the time for thing, now his self-image is being put into question. And it hurts, so he’s changing his habits. And now that he’s aware of how distracted he’s been doing unimportant things, he’s more unwilling to tolerate it.

Motivation is just a fuel for action, and the more reason you have for changing your life in a specific way, the more likely it is to happen. 

The same psychological concept ties into the idea of loss aversion. People are more motivated to avoid losing something they already have than they are to gain something new. A study from behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman suggests that ‘people feel the pain of losing $100 about twice as strongly as they feel the pleasure of gaining $100.’ 

This is why subscription services like Netflix position their renewal message as “Don’t lose access” vs “get more entertainment”, and apps tell you to “not break your streak” instead of encouraging you to “increase your streak”. It’s a tactic you’ll start noticing everywhere, and they do it because it works - pain influences behavior and motivates change more than pleasure ever could.