Gratification
The secret to success is to wake up in the morning and treat yourself well. Do what you must do, when you must do it, whether you like it or not. Use NLP to like it, it’s better. Steve Boyley
The gratifications are activities we very much like doing, but they are not necessarily accompanied by any raw feelings at all. Rather, the gratifications engage us fully, we become immersed and absorbed in them, and we lose self-consciousness. On a contrary the pleasures are delights that have clear sensory and strong emotional components, what philosophers call “raw feels”: ecstasy, thrills, orgasm, delight, mirth, exuberance, and comfort. They are evanescent, and they involve little, if any, thinking.
Life case – Brent
Brent had a good life, a house, a wife, few kids and a job providing for it. He got fired from his job and he believed it was because he was a bad employee. He was not the only one fired at that time. The company decided to outsource the activity of the department he worked for. Brent was so comfortable in his job, he never took seriously the information put forward by the management about outsourcing certain departments. Brent believed, his department will stay and he will stay since he worked there for so many years. He believed the company owe him that and missed all the signals to act, when there was a proper time for action. He took being fired very personally. He stayed home for a week and started feeling depressed. His wife was working and her income was not enough to pay for all the bills. He started looking for a new job and since he took being fired so personally he ruined his self-image. When he was invited for an interview he would not show up or he was in shame and could not even look at people potentially hiring him. His esteem went lower each time he was invited for a job interview. He started drinking and becoming aggressive to his wife and kids. In 2 month they have to foreclosure their house and move to an apartment for rent. He would take some occasional jobs just to have enough for his drinking. His wife was understanding and supportive however, he would not let her close. In fact he did not let close anyone. They were totally broke and apparently the downward spiral did not end there. Their kids needed medical attention and they would not have money to pay for it. In few month the whole family was only a shadow of what they were. One evening, drunk he got in to a fight. A police officer arrested him and he had to spend a night in jail. His shame of being fired after 12 years working with the company was overpowering his judgement. He would hung out the bars and drink to soften his self-induced depression and shame. He knew this cannot continue this way, he just felt hopeless. His wife was away and he had to stay home with his kids. His son came to him and told him that he misses his dad and the times they were making little boat models together and putting them into the bottles. Making boat models in the bottles was Brent’s passion. He could spend hours and days doing it and his son really enjoyed it. Some of the boat models had a real little steam engine and testing them where little smoke came out of them while they started to run was a real magic and fun.
Brent got upset and started yelling at his son. His son started crying saying, Dad it was only a job. I miss you. And I miss making boats models together. We were so happy and it was so much fun. Brent could not remember anymore the reason for losing his passion. He was mad and yet; it was only a job, it was only a job, it was only a job started echoing in his head. He calmed down hugging his crying soon, ashamed he apologized. I am sorry son. You are right. Yes you are right, it was only a job. For Brent feeling his sons gratitude for time spent together and realizing it was only a job was the spark that opened the doorway out of his downward spiral.
Enjoying a great conversation, rock climbing, reading a good book, dancing, and making a slam dunk are all examples of activities in which time stops for us, our skills match the challenge, and we are in touch with our strengths is where gratification takes place. The gratifications last longer than the pleasures and goes beyond the need for security once we taste it. Gratifications involves quite a lot of thinking and interpretation, they do not habituate easily, and they are undergirded by our strengths and virtues.[5]
Gratification is a state of a whole being, where a person is in full alignment with self, life purpose, life he/she is living and the job or whatever activity the person is doing, this is where the PAL alignment takes place. It is probably ideal to achieve such complete alignment and yet there are only few role models in the world demonstrating it. Having such a job, where a person won’t need to work for anything entire life it requires courage. The courage to step out from a comfort zone of deceptive security, pleasures and dare to dream and to pursue and fulfill the dream by taking actions. Dreams don’t work unless you do. Doing that, we do not need to work anymore because we are living our universal mission. When we start consciously to co-create our mission with the creation we become the most powerful co-creator and co-manifestor[6]. All the forces in the Universe will work for us according to the Law of Attraction. We start sailing on the wind of inspiration, motivation, authentic dreams, fulfilling our true Purposeful Authentic Life (PAL).
Self Application
Whatever you’re goanna do, some people will like it, some won’t, whole bunch won’t care at all, therefore be authentic, be inspired, be creative. You are the only right person for the job of your life and the only one entrusted to be able to do it right.
The Message from the Science of Positive Psychology is optimistic and encouraging that if you find yourself stuck in the parking lot of life, with few and only ephemeral pleasures, with minimal gratifications, and without meaning, there is a road out. On this road out coaching can be of great assistance to clients in finding it, by taking clients through the countryside of pleasure and gratification, up into the highlands of strength and virtue, and finally to the peaks of lasting fulfillment: Purposeful (meaningful) Authentic Life.
Happiness in the present moment consists of very different states from happiness about the past and about the future, and itself embraces two very distinct kinds of things: pleasures and gratifications.
The exercise of kindness is a gratification, in contrast to a pleasure. The gratification for example calls on your strengths to rise to an occasion and meet a challenge. Kindness for example is not accompanied by a distinguishable stream of positive emotion like joy; rather, it consists in total engagement and in the loss of self-consciousness. When achieving a state of gratification time stops.
With our mind and our senses we are easy to recognize levels of discomfort and yet most often we insist in this levels of discomfort. Most often we only run a mental, intellectual or logical left brain check whether or not we need to do something. In general we tend to comply while neglecting our inner guidance in particular when we have a higher authority to report to. We would do a job until we drop. We can get tired and exhausted that sometime even a long weekend sleeping in bed is not enough to recover. Sometime this is necessary. Sometime doing nothing is more of a value than forcing something to happen. If you are stuck or late on a job, go home early. You will be much more effective when return to it rested. It is therefore important to choose a job that fit your abilities and lifestyle. Sometime it will require to take a training or an evening class to get new skills to get a job we truly want and love doing it. Sometime it will be required to start our own business. Lastly working SMART[7] and not hard is absolutely a better solution. When we love ourselves enough we won’t let hardness to sneak in and to kill our joy to life, to work, to create, to relationships, etc. Exercising kindness is essential. Executing a constant check on our feelings and emotions, being attentive to how do we feel about certain people, activity, places is essential as well. Do we feel stress or inspiration, and do we feel attraction or escaping from it. Do we feel lightness or heaviness, Do we trust or doubt this is the right thing for us, do we feel we live in our truth or being a fraud, do we feel having active contribution or delaying things… It is vital to always make decisions associated with feelings and emotions that are meaningful, creative, authentic, purposeful, weightless, easy, inspiring, attractive, wholehearted, peaceful, fulfilling, uplifting, exciting, etc.
However not all positive emotion leads to gratification. Some can lead to pleasures and thus to a very different routes to happiness. As we have already said the pleasures are momentary, and they are defined by felt emotion. They can be increased by defeating the numbing effect of habituation, by savoring, and by mindfulness. The pleasant life successfully pursues positive emotions about the present, past, and future. The gratifications are more abiding. They are characterized by absorption, engagement, and flow. Importantly, the absence—not the presence— of any felt positive emotion (or any self-consciousness at all) defines the gratifications. This distinction is important and it serves as a reminder and a reality check whether or not we are heading the right path and getting desired results in life.
Is whatever I am doing right now, what I really want or love to be doing right now, today, and tomorrow, in 10 years or yesterday? What is that I feel about doing it right now? How do I feel about it? Where in the body I feel it? Do I feel lightness, serenity, invigorated? What do I need to change, to change the feelings or emotions to the better one? Am I in a trap of a downward spiral? How would I know I am not trapped in a downward spiral? Am I exercising kindness enough? Have I been kind today? What am I grateful for? What is my greatest passion? What is that I love to do when I have nothing else to do? What is the one thing I have the power to change right now that will make the difference?
There is no positive emotion on the list of essential components of gratification[8]. In fact, it is the absence of emotion, of any kind of consciousness, which is at the heart of flow. In contrast to getting in touch with feelings, the defining criterion of gratification is the absence of feeling, loss of self-consciousness, and total engagement. This is an amazing notion and vital remark on our transformational path. Consciousness and emotion are there to correct your trajectory.[9]
Coaching application
Pleasure marks the achievement of biological satiation, whereas gratification marks the achievement of psychological growth Martin E. P. Seligman
The aim of the power tool is to identify security beliefs and pleasures resulting in everlasting comfort zones, identifying fears, distractions all that might equally prevent a client to awake, move forward and then to reframe these beliefs, behaviors and sometime even to address core values. The power tool facilitates to invoke an individual into contemplation and discernment, to think, speak and act aligned with his/her ideal, The Purposeful Authentic Life – PAL. Creating a Doorway Spark is essential first step for the person to become consciously aware of the possibilities and potentialities of and for Purposeful Authentic Life – PAL. Secondly it is a tool to assist clients in awakening into higher awareness; wanting a change; exploring possibilities; make a plan; create structures (acquire skills, advice); exercise the plan; maintain the desired outcome, to want again and again without emotional attachments to it.
Becoming honest to our self about underlying beliefs gives us the power to make a conscious choice. The unexamined life is not worth living. (Socrates) Instead we would live as victims of life (or your lies). Coach’s roll is to assist the client to align client’s beliefs with their pathway forward in the present. After the Doorway Spark[10] is achieved, it is about developing their plan a new with supporting structures, appropriate supporting behaviors, actions.
In order for this power tool to work precisely in the coaching process, the life coach guide the client to become conscious of where the client want to be; the desirable present. We want to do that first in order to inspire the client first and not to contaminate the client’s dreams with current state of play. While client is already inspired, the coach starts eliciting clients Purposeful Authentic Life – PAL. It can be very useful for future work and success to attach elicited PAL to a single phrase. A short sentence that will positively personify, identify and hold the anchor of the client’s PAL. Next stage is eliciting the present state of play followed by the process addressing the gap between the present and wanted or desired present. In this process, the coach pays attention that client’s goals, desires, wants are fully aligned with PAL, by addressing possible obstacles, fears, underlying beliefs, unsupported re-learnable behaviors, etc. If not, it is less likely that the client is going to achieve gratification states while working on achieving their wants and might instead retreat into pleasures, comfort zone or false security. If alignment with PAL is not achieved, the client will feel alienated from the goals or goals might seams too hard to achieve and will instead look for excuses. This process can be utilized equally in a process eliciting the PAL or the big WHY as for any other individual events, goals and wants. The Pal Phrase after it is well anchored, can and it is beneficial if it is utilized as a supportive structure. It worth considering some clients might not feel comfortable in using it.
In continuation we are presenting disempowering and empowering perspectives that demotes or promotes the clients alignment with Purposeful Authentic Life and questions to invoke or promote necessary thinking to achieve the desired outcome. This is in addition to the questions we have already asked so far. Our aim is to make clients aware if such thing exists, that they are to comfortable or in a false security or in a trap of pleasures and to assist them to move out from there, desiring to live their Purposeful Authentic Life instead, by enjoying the states of gratification, that are long lasting feelings of fulfilment and satisfaction. Provided list is just an example to give an idea. The reader is invited to expand this list.