Motivation: Pain vs. Pleasure

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Motivation: Pain vs. Pleasure

Pain-based motivation fades when circumstances improve slightly. You decide to act, things get better for a moment, then you're back wondering why you never followed through. Pleasure sustains what pain cannot.

January 20, 2026

Have you noticed how your motivation to change spikes when the pain gets bad enough, then vanishes when things settle down?

You’re unhappy in your job, a relationship, a family situation. The frustration builds and you decide to take action. Just as you do, things get slightly better, maybe even go quiet. Three months later, the problems are back and you wonder why you never followed through.

Pain is strong, but unstable. It breaks complacency, but it fades. People adapt to imperfect situations remarkably quickly. When circumstances improve even slightly, the urgency drops.

Pain pushes you just far enough away from what hurts until it doesn’t. Pleasure pulls you all the way towards what you want.

Pleasure-based motivation is anchored in attraction to a future that feels real and desirable. When you can picture that clearly, motivation becomes durable. With a pull toward something better, you don’t revert to familiar patterns as soon as pressure eases – you keep going.

In other words, people commit more deeply to what they want to build, than to what they want to escape.

What pain is currently pushing you to change? And what pleasure could pull you there instead?

If you want to find out how to sustain your motivation, coaching can help. Contact me for an exploratory conversation using the button at the top.

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