Putting in the Work

To change something you have to be 100% willing to put in the work. If doing the same thing you have always done worked, you would not be looking for a "solution" in the first place, so you have to think that nothing will change if you keep doing those same things, right?

It presents a sticky problem - things aren't working, you know that and you really want them to be different - but at the same time, you like the things you do. The problem looks like an addiction to the things you are doing, but the real addiction is to the payoff you get for doing the things you do.

Let's say it's your M.O. is about work - you work at a place and then you get fired. So you work at a place for a month or two. During the first few weeks you put forth your best foot - you're never late, you work hard, you seek to always keep busy and even when you're not asked to do things, you do them anyway.

But once you've been there a month or two that picture starts to change, you start showing attitude, you start slacking off and not doing anything when no one is "looking," taking longer breaks, leaving early, and generally messing around. The guaranteed outcome of that behavior is to be dismissed in bad grace. But the payoff of the behavior is that you have proven you are no good, you have proven that nobody likes you, that you have bad luck, that you have bad bosses, etc. etc. etc.

The underlying payoff in this behavior is that you don't feel like you deserve to be successful in what you do and you are proving it. If you are not willing to put in the work to change that belief and change the subsequent behaviors, the fact is that you will continue to have the same experience again and again and again. Because, to reiterate, if doing the same thing you have always done worked, you would not be looking for a "solution" in the first place.

Life is a bucket of opportunities to look at the outcomes you are getting from your behavior and find the underlying payoffs. Then it's up to you to put in the work and change them.

Blessings.
- Darshan

© 2009 Darshan F Jessop