Be Your Best

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

All of us have those dreaded ‘things’ that we need to address, but we don’t want to.  We know they are impeding our progress, keeping us from reaching long term goals or levels of happiness.  Amazing how many of these ‘things’ deal with our health isn’t it?

But when you finally make the decision to address them, generally speaking, they are never quite as bad as you thought they were going to be.

I have two stories about these dreaded ‘things’ that I needed to address, one very recent, and one pretty old now.  Both stories illustrate the same main point as well as a couple of additional important learnings.

12 Mountain Dews

As far back as I can remember, I drank lots of pop/soda every day.  Not sure at what point I was consuming more than 10 cans a day, but it was quite a long while ago.  Of course when I was developing this soda/pop habit, there was no caffeine vs. non-caffeine or sugar vs. non-sugar awareness like happened in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. 

No doubt I became addicted to caffeine, but not via coffee.  My caffeine addiction was 100% from soda pop, and my absolute favorite was Mountain Dew.  Of course there is no secret as to why that probably was — it had the greatest amount of caffeine and I think one of the highest sugar contents as well.  It really tasted good to me as well.

In college I actually kept many of the pop cans I consumed and built interesting pieces of furniture out of cans using a solder iron — this was sort of a badge of honor for me.  I continued consuming 10-12 cans of pop every day well after college…until one day.

A high school buddy of mine invited me to his college alma mater football game one Saturday and spend some time catching up.  He is an Ear/Nose/Throat Surgeon and Doctor.  At half time, we were headed to get a hot dog when he asked me “are you still drinking all the Mountain Dew you used to drink in high school?”.  I said, “yes, why do you ask”.  He said “that stuff is going to kill you at some point; not today or tomorrow, but the caffeine in that volume will cause you problems at some point.”  That moment hit home hard.  For whatever reason, I did not debate myself as to whether I needed to stop.  I knew it already.  But I dreaded the thought, because I had already experienced severe headaches even just going 3-4 hours without caffeine.  This moment reminded me that I had wanted to stop for a long time, but could not pull the trigger.

I knew I needed to go cold turkey, as I would not be able to manage half-in half-out or a slow transition, but I was not debating “if” I was going to stop.  I went cold turkey from that moment at the football game on, which was 9 years ago now.  It was hard and painful for about a week or so.  Terrible headaches and difficulty sleeping — but then I was over it, just like that.

The Dreaded Dental Issue

Just recently, my dentist indicated that I needed to take care of a receding gum line issue.  She first addressed it as something I should ‘think about’.  I did think about it, and decided, ‘not an issue I need to mess with.”  The next time I went in for my 6 month checkup, she said, you obviously did not take care of that receding gum line issue.  I said “I thought you just gave me a helpful suggestion, but it was sort of an optional concept.”  She then made it pretty clear “unless you want major teeth problems later, it is not an option.  Take care of it.”  Well, as much as I dreaded having the surgery done, I set up the appointment.

The procedure took about 90 minutes, some stitches, and a period of making sure not to disturb the affected areas of my mouth (which I am doing as I write this).  It’s done.  Not healed yet, but done.

Lessons Learned From The Dreaded Things

First and foremost, neither of these situations turned out to be as bad as I thought they would be.  And I as reflect on the many things in life I have dreaded doing, pretty much none of them were as bad as I thought they would be — some actually enjoyable (neither of these examples above fit that category, but not as bad as I imagined).  This is a good point to try to remember as new issues or situations emerge that you dread.  The ‘data’ indicates they will not be as bad as you think.  Not sure if you have ever heard that FEAR stands for Fantasized Experiences Appearing Real.  Key word here is Fantasized.  Our mind has a knack of fantasizing the worst images for things we don’t want to do.

But there are couple of other lessons that may be more compelling.  First, the feeling of accomplishment for both events was substantial.  Tackling something that you know you should do but don’t want to provides a really big mental boost.  Feels really good.

But maybe more telling is to understand how important and effective ‘pain’ is as a motivator.  I did finally do something in both cases that was a result of perceived intense ‘pain’ in the future, not for pleasure or gain.  As has been heavily studied and documented, pain is usually a more effective motivator than pleasure.  Key takeaway for me:  if you are not able to stop doing something or start doing something you should, look at the ‘pain’ factor involved.  If you can get that pain level of the thing you want to do or not do to a sufficient level, the task becomes substantially easier.  And if you think about it, pain is just a form of a firm deadline (“dead line”).  In my two examples, I became highly focused on the ‘dead’ line pain that spurred action.

Best Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford