|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
“Transformation occurs when each decision, no matter how small, nourishes the life you aspire to live rather than the one you’re trying to leave behind.”
We all want better lives. Better jobs, better relationships and better overall quality of life. However, many of us find ourselves stuck in situations that don’t reflect our vision for personal growth, success, and fulfillment.
Every day, millions wake up to continue yesterday’s struggle to break free from the patterns that keep them trapped in a painful existence.
The million-dollar question is: How do we stop feeding the cycle that is keeping us from living the life we want to live?
In this article, I will share the most common reasons we persistently maintain lifestyles that don’t align with our desires.
I will also share how I broke free from self-imposed limitations and created a life that I look forward to waking up to.
Why You Keep Feeding the Life, You Don’t Want to Live
At some point, many of us end up stuck in a life we don’t want.
I can definitely relate to the feeling of living in quiet desperation. Not realizing or understanding the implications of my actions and habits.
For many years, I kept feeding a life I didn’t want to live.
Through personal experience and coaching others, I’ve observed a recurring pattern that hinders our self-improvement.
Motivation is a constant human state. We are all motivated all of the time—just not in the way we think.
Therefore, asking “What motivates us?” is the wrong question.
The better question to ask is, “Why am I motivated?”
While external factors influence our behavior, it’s ultimately our internal motivation that guides our actions. It’s here we must begin our journey.
1. You Fear of Change
Our natural programming is there to instill fear and anxiety of the unknown. It’s what makes us prefer familiarity, but unfortunately,also one of the main reasons we get stuck in undesirable situations.
Often, the best solution is knowing what not to do.
Doing more only adds to the complexity.
Confronting our underlying fears and insecurities removes many unnecessary steps.
When I wanted to get in shape, I found that the best solution wasn’t buying a gym membership, gear, and gadgets. Instead, it was addressing the fears and insecurities I had related to physical activity.
For years, I worked different jobs pursuing new certifications, without realizing that I was compensating for my fears of commitment and imposter syndrome.
In relationships, I kept seeking the perfect partner, which, of course, was a delusion based on my fear of vulnerability and past traumas.
If you had asked me 20 years ago, “Why are you seeking the perfect partner?” I wouldn’t have been able to answer, even if my life depended on it.
Today, I know I felt motivated to do anything to hinder genuine connection, to avoid getting hurt.
I would have a clear idea of what I wanted, but did not fully understand why I wanted it. This lack of understanding turned me into a mindless consumer, pursuing goals that didn’t align with my deeper needs or values.
Much too late in life, I learned that there is a significant difference between what I want and what I need.
External factors, societal expectations, or temporary desires often influence my wants.
In contrast, my needs are more fundamental and aligned with my long-term well-being and personal growth.
This insight has made the world of difference in my life motivating me to:
- Reflect more deeply on my motivations and desires
- Question whether my current goals serve my fundamental needs
- Develop greater self-awareness to make more fulfilling life choices
Any progress—physical, mental, or emotional that we make results from our ability to differentiate between what we want and what we need.
2. You Lack Clarity
Can you think of any area in life where clarity is not an advantage?
When we have clarity, we avoid being reactive and easily influenced. Without it; it becomes difficult to make decisive changes.
For years I kept spreading myself too thin.
I kept my mind, and life so cluttered, That I lost sight of what mattered.
I would lack clarity, goals, and any type of plan, yet I’d give it a go, anyway.
I took on too many things simultaneously, which resulted in mediocre outcomes across the board, making me miserable.
I kept failing until I accepted that my ambiguity functioned as a powerful motivator for avoiding responsibility. By keeping my intentions and actions unclear helped med justify my inaction or blame others.
Clarity functions as a bull’s-eye. Without it, you don’t know what you’re aiming for.
If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, it is like hitting the target in the dark.
After defining my desired lifestyle and goals, I stopped feeding the life I didn’t want and began taking responsibility for creating the life I wanted.
Carity is a skill, it’s a path we choose. A habit we practice.
Today, I choose clarity first. Everything else comes second.
3. You Avoid Discomfort
I’ve made so many more poor decisions out of fear and in an attempt of avoiding discomfort than for any other reason.
You could say I’m a professional in this area with countless hours of training.
For the last six years, I have witnessed an epidemic of teenagers and young adults motivated to stay within their comfort zones.
They are motivated by the constant stream of short-form content making it difficult to focus on longer, more complex tasks.
The outcome?
Children and teenagers practicing less effort and less discomfort until it becomes second nature.
As long as you are a part of a culture that prioritizes fast, fun, and easy products and services, you will not only foster mental and physical weakness but also pass it on to your children.
We remain in our comfort zone because we’ve convinced ourselves that nothing beyond comfortable is worthwhile.
This is a lie that keeps us feeding the life we don’t want.
You don’t suck, you’re just in the wrong place, doing the wrong things, with the wrong people.
Dance like no one is looking and see what happens.
4. Limiting Beliefs Controls Your Choices
Limiting belief beliefs keeps us fat, sick, poor, causing great and irreparable damage in our clouse relationships. They prevent us from identifying change within and take action on it to create a better life for ourselves.
We stop pursuing better opportunities, not because we lack the ability or resources, but because we keep defending a self-image based on limiting beliefs.
Our self-image is incredibly fragile and requires limiting beliefs to survive.
The concept of a fixed, independent self is an illusion created by our thoughts. It’s not something that exists separate from our mental processes.
Modern neuroscience reveals what Buddhism has been saying for over 2,000 years.
Our left hemisphere of the brain creates narratives to interpret and make sense of reality.
Translation: there is no reality besides the one we create for ourselves.
What we call the “self” results from our internal dialogue make up most of our shared human suffering.
We all are the heroes, villains and victims in our own stories, reinventing the self from moment to moment to fit our Self-image.
Our lack of understanding of the self creates contradicting stories we tell ourselves.
We make destructive choices based on limiting beliefs, not empowering thoughts.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
In my experience, doing the work feels too uncomfortable and threatening to our current self-image. So, we keep changing the story to suit our momentary desires.
To achieve lasting change in our behaviors and habits, we must first recognize that the self does not exist without thought.
The life you focus on will manifest and expand.
There is no “self center” in the brain.
There is no self created by the clothes you wear, where you live, where you work, or the relationships you keep.
I’m not defined by being a nurse; I work as one.
I’m not a writer. I write to learn and add value to others.
I’m not a father; I have four teenagers in my life whom I’m privileged to support and love.
I’m not a husband; I’m married to a beautiful soul whom I’m privileged to share my life with.
By separating my actions from our my identity, I have given myself freedom to grow and change without feeling limited by rigid self-definitions.
There is only the self you keep feeding in your mind.
5. You Rely on Willpower to Change
If my behavior isn’t a habit, meaning it’s not automatic and unconscious, I am relying on willpower.
Relying solely on willpower to make life changes is problematic because it’s a limited resource that gets depleted and needs renewal.
Willpower should only be used as a “get out of jail free” card when a habit is not yet in place.
The problem is that we keep incarcerating ourselves with bad choices, and that is not sustainable for long-term change.
As long as we don’t identify the underlying reasons, we will struggle to change and keep resorting to willpower to make progress.
An overreliance on willpower leads to stress, frustration, and even burnout.
The goal is to create an environment where you don’t have to rely on willpower.
The key is recognizing that a better life isn’t something you check off on your to-do list, but a lifestyle you commit to.
That’s what results are made of:
“A firm dedication to a course of action or lifestyle. An ongoing devotion to achieve lasting results—involving sustained effort and perseverance.”
6. You are drowning in a River of Useless Information
We have more information and education possibilities at our fingertips and for free than ever before.
In our pursuit for dopamine hits, we mistake information for knowledge, and knowledge for wisdom.
The amount of information we consume daily creates a mental and emotional clutter, leading to mental fatigue and inaction.
Millions of minds are so filled with a useless excess of information that can’t they focus or think clearly.
What we call burnout is, in reality, a mentally exhausted state where we’ve become so distracted from our needs and values that we keep feeding the same life we want to escape.
Wisdom goes beyond information and knowledge; it’s knowing what not to do.
7. You Keep Procrastinating
The first step towards a better life is to stop putting off the important decisions that keep us stuck living the life we don’t want to live.
The opposite of procrastination is not action, but awareness of our current mindset and environment.
With that said, when I coach people struggling with procrastination, I don’t even mention the word. Instead, I focus on one thing: awareness.
Awareness is the best way to a shine light on the dark corners of our minds.
Procrastination is a functional behavior. It serves a purpose, even if it’s not immediately obvious or beneficial in the long term.
Procrastination also acts as a coping mechanism for underlying issues such as fear, anxiety linked to self-doubt, or lack of clarity.
We will do anything to avoid discomfort or challenging tasks.
Most of us don’t fear failure. We fear success.
Success becomes intimidating as we see a significant gap between our current self and our envisioned successful self.
We procrastinate as a defense mechanism against both potential failure and success.
I invite you to view procrastination as a functional behavior and sign of an underlying need, rather than a flaw.
Note to Self: To stop feeding the life you don’t want, focus on addressing the root causes of your current destructive behaviours.
8. You are Emotionally Attached
In Buddhist philosophy, emotional attachment or clinging is one of the fundamental causes of suffering.
Throughout human history, we have shown how emotional attachments cloud our judgment and hinder our ability to live a peaceful life.
In my life, I have witnessed my excessive desire for possessions and material comfort drive me to physical and mental destruction.
Dysfunctional emotional attachments in close relationships, often characterized by fear of loss and possessiveness, keep me stuck feeding the relationships I didn’t want.
On a collective level, I see who we send young men and women to die in wars to defend beliefs, opinions, or ideologies—traumatizing families.
To break free from the life we don’t want, we need to acknowledge and address our emotional attachments.
9. You Keep Repeating Bad Habits
Deeply ingrained habits persist, even when they’ve become detrimental to our well-being.
Habits are easy to perform and don’t require us to think much.
We are creatures of habit, programed to instinctively shy away from doing hard things and gravitate towards ease.
Even when I know that change will benefit me, I notice how my brain resists the instil discomfort to save glucose.
To escape an undesirable life, I must recognize my destructive habits and transform them into constructive ones.
Lasting change starts with embracing the science of habit formation.
Understanding the neurological basis of habits will help you design more effective strategies for breaking old patterns and establishing new ones.
Actionable Insights
1. Make a Behavioral and Habit Inventory
A study compared writing about past traumas versus future aspirations. People who wrote about their ideal future self for 20 minutes daily saw notable improvements in well-being.
Keep a journal for at least a month to systematically document your current behaviors and habits in relation to your ideal future self.
Don’t enjoy writing? Neither do I. I wrote this entire article while walking in the forest using a speech-to-text Notion note taking app.
I use the paid AI version to summarize my week every Sunday. This allows me to quickly detect patterns, evaluate my present self, and adjust my choices and habits to align with my future self.
If you don’t write it down, you’ll keep feeding the life you don’t want to live.
2. Set Clear Lifestyle Goals
A life without a specific trajectory is like a plane or a boat drifting without coordinates.
Without clear and specific lifestyle goals, you’ll drift off course, often without even noticing.
Not sometimes, but every day.
You’ll become more susceptible to impulsive behavior and bad habits.
Lifestyle goals differ from ordinary goals in that they are specific, personal actions that are defined by how you want to live. They serve as coordinates to keep you on the right track. Your actions keep you moving in the right direction.
When you have defined your non-negotiables needs in life, both short-term and long-term. You want to do as little thinking as possible by providing a clear and specific coordinates to follow.
Start by writing your short-term and long-term life- goals.
Remember; a goal without an action plan is like reaching a destination without coordinates.
Pick one lifestyle goal and focus only on that for three months.
The reason for this approach is that most habits are not isolated behaviors, but consist of multiple sub-habits or related actions.
Focusing on a single lifestyle goal, reduces friction. And as mentioned earlier, the brain loves efficiency.
3. Create an Action Plan
Writing your goals is great.
While SMART goals improve chances of success, they can’t turn vague intentions into actionable plans without additional actions.
A well-crafted action plan differs from goals as it transforms vague intentions into concrete steps. Without one, it’s like going grocery shopping without a list—you do not know what’s already in your pantry.
Break your goals into small, manageable actions that align with autonomy, relatedness and competence.
Goals and actions, though distinct, are interconnected concepts in personal development that we often mistakenly treat as the same thing.
Focusing on actions instead of goals works better because:
They help us form habits and consistency while cultivating flexibility and adaptability as our circumstances evolve.
Goals provide direction, but its consistent actions that lead to a better life.
Aligning your actions with autonomy, relatedness, and competence is crucial for maintaining motivation.
Here’s why:
Actions that support your autonomy, or sense of independence and control over your actions foster intrinsic motivation.
When you have the freedom to make choices aligned with your values and purpose, you’re more likely to stay committed to your goals.
Actions that nurture social connections and a sense of belonging can enhance your overall well-being.
When what you do involves meaningful interactions with others or contributes to a greater cause, you will find the activities inherently rewarding.
Setting goals that allow you to take action and feel a sense of mastery and achievement boosts your self-efficacy and motivation.
Integrate autonomy, relatedness, and competence into your goals and daily actions and you will:
- Increase your self-awareness and confidence
- Become better at adapting to changes and overcome challenges
- Feel a sense of fulfillment and purpose
The aim is to develop a framework for a life centered on personal growth that is both practical and fulfilling.
Note to Self: autonomy, relatedness, and competence motivates us humans. Remove one, and it will affect the others negatively.
Final Thoughts
Most bad habits stem from stress and bordom.
When our work and living environments stifle our autonomy, lack purpose, or diminish our compentence, many of us experience learned helplessness and heightened stress.
In his book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl explains how those in the concentration camps who believed they had no control over their lives were the first to give up.
Between stimulus and response, he argues, we have a choice.
We give up and resort to destructive coping mechanisms because we don’t honor the amazing human beings we are.
Underneath our bad choices and habits is the belief that “this is just how things are,” which leads to a judgmental and self-victimizing inner monologue.
I have accepted and embraced that how i talk to myself matters.
My words become the programming that controls my actions.
My actions become my habits.
My habits determine my entire life.
Good or bad, every thought and decision, no matter how small, contributes to the life I have created. As Frankl points out, it’s not outside circumstances that shape our lives.
“Don’t call it a dream—call it a plan and commit to it daily by giving it a place to live in your calendar.”
Try for an entire week to align your words, thoughts, and actions with the life you want to live and witness something magical happen;
Every decision you make, no matter how small, begins to align with the life you want to live when you stop feeding the life you don’t want to live.
Thanks for reading. If you found this helpful, share it with your family and friends.
Recommended Reading List:
