Are you familiar with that empowering sensation when you start a new project or just decide to make a change in your life? You feel powerful and full of energy, nothing could stand between you and your dream right?
Well, what happens not long after? When you actually have to put some effort to make your dream come true, you start seeing obstacles and things don't look so glamorous anymore.
There's that voice that whispers in your year - (or is it just me?) - that it's too hard, it's a wild-goose chase, not gonna happen man so you better save the effort. And what do you do? You abandon your dream convincing yourself that you took the right decision.
In reality what happens is a rather strange phenomenon where your own brain is trying to sabotage you.
The wonderful empowering feeling i was describing in the beginning is nothing more than a chemical cocktail that your brains gets addicted to.
You(your brain) likes that feeling so it wants more of it. The problem is that life has shown you that it doesn't lasts too long. Moments of joy and success are generally speaking pretty rare throughout life.
Your brain also knows that for success to happen you have to put in a lot of effort, and only than you can reap the benefits and feel the joy.
I believe that during millions of years of evolution, the human brain has developed a way to get its kicks by using a trick called imagination. By just fantasising about a glorious future it generates in the present that chemical cocktail it yearns for.
Why work for something when you can just imagine you already achieved your goals and get your reward that way? This is what i call the lazy brain theory.
The downside is that eventually reality catches up with you, and you discover that you haven't actually achieved anything in your life, so you start to feel depressed.
What do you think your brain is gonna do now? Imagine a brighter future again :) and for a while giving you more false hopes. This is a vicious circle that can easily spiral out of control and lead to serious issues like severe depression.
How can you stop this? Do something about it! Stop fantasising and put in some effort if you really want to change something.
I'm all about positive thinking (The Secret) but that is just the beginning. Your thoughts are not gonna manifest into reality without action.