For thousands of years, survival was the motivation for us to move away from discomfort of physical suffering and towards pleasure and surviving. Our lives have become too comfortable in this day and age. We don’t need to constantly seeking for food, at least in America, foods are abundant. We don’t have to walk anywhere literally as long distant as we used to. Most of us hold a job that is in an air-conditioned office and sit in front of a computer screen all day. The issue isn’t that things have changed but is our survival focused brains that haven’t caught up to our advancements over the last decades. We need to be willing to move beyond our animal instinct, our animal brain. So how do we do this? First of all I know all of you have a goal that you want to achieve or try to achieve for years. For example, my client says she wants to lose 20 pounds this year and her motivation was so strong, her desire for the weight loss is so strong she said she was committed and all in but then I asked her, so if you don’t lose the weight you going to give me your car? She immediately says wait what, no I am not going to do that. I said, why not? Didn’t you just tell me you are all in? So really, really, really pay attention to the level of your commitment at the start of anything because this is the direct correlation of how successful you will be at that thing you are wanting to achieve. OK, here is the exercise I Want you to go through if you are in a place where it’s safe to pull out a piece of paper and pen to write the stuff down. If not, pause this podcast and come back to this later because this is very important and you might find out the reasons why you don’t have what you wanted yet. OK here it is, I Want you to write down something you want or want to achieve on a piece of paper no matter what and then set a deadline for this. So, example from my client would be I want to lose 20 pounds by the end of 2018 no matter what, and I am all in. Now, I want you to write your compelling reason, the reason why you want to lose 20 pounds, for example. Remember, this gets a lot of my clients they would tell me, well my reason seems so shallow, the real reason is that I just want to look good and feel good about my body. What I have always tell my clients is that, you DO NOT need to have some elaborate noble reasons to do anything, you are a fully-grown adult you can want to have anything you want. This is it, you get this one life you should be able to want to have anything you want. So, I want you to write and re-write this compelling reason that is motivating and relevant to YOU and only you and write it from a place of 0 judgement from yourself. You will need to update it from time to time when your motivation level starts to get low. I usually do this in the morning with my brain dump. Your reason has to be so compelling for you and only to you, so you better like your reason every day. This is the direct factor of your success, don’t move on to the next step until you find your why because this is the anchor when difficulties arise. Next, I want you to list all the competing desires or obstacles. So, some examples are: I will miss out going out with friends, I will feel hungry, I am tired this time won’t matter, it’s my birthday it’s okay to live a little. See some of these reasons/competing desires seem so convincing? In the moment, your animal brain will try to tell you all these lies because it is trying to protect you but you have to practice to notice these thoughts and dismiss them WITHOUT react or respond to the thoughts and feelings arise. So, what this exercise does is that, it helps you to identify your obstacles ahead of time and decide how you want to feel when the moment arise. Decide how you want to feel and what you want to want ahead of time.