Episode Transcript

Hey everybody, what’s up? What’s up? What’s up? What’s up, guys? Welcome back to THE a.m. Welcome back to five minute rants. I’m your host, Michael Abernathy. And welcome to the show predicated on the journey of life and business. So everybody, I actually just want to jump straight into this.

Today, we are going to talk about the path of least resistance. Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard about this or not, I don’t know if you’ve heard about the path of least resistance. But What that is basically, in a nutshell, is that as human beings, we are wired to normally take the easy way out or the easy route. So let me give you an example. And this is What sparked my thought. The other night, I went into the cabinet to get a glass to grab a drink. And I had two choices, I could grab a glass that I had to wash my hand, or I could grab the glass that I could throw straight in the dishwasher. I chose the glass that I could throw straight in the dishwasher. And as soon as I did it, I was like, wow, that’s the path of least resistance. Now, in that situation, the path of least resistance does not hurt me. But more often than not, when we choose the path of least resistance, it actually destroys us. And the reason why is because we have a tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain. And as a result, you actually find the path of least resistance develops really bad habits that are very harmful to us.

So for instance, like food, like I’ve talked about that personally, before eating food, cool, I’m just gonna eat food, well, that’s the path of least resistance, versus you know What I really have to watch What I eat, I’ve got to count my calories, I got to work out, those all have resistance in them a lot more resistance than cool. I’m just gonna eat whatever I want and not think about it. And the other side to this is too is oftentimes I found this personally, laziness can look like productivity, but it’s really not because I’m actually doing the path of least resistance, I’m avoiding the work that I actually need to do, and need to accomplish. And I’m avoiding it by doing work that I don’t think is as hard. And this is one of the reasons why working out is important. This is one of the reasons why doing hard things is important. One of my goals every day is to do something at least one time that sucks, whatever it is, whether it’s a cold shower, whether it’s working out, I get to a point to I want to quit and then it sucks and I make myself go past it, or whatever it is.

And the reason for is because the more that I remove myself from taking the path of least resistance, the better my life seems to get, because I start doing the things that I need to do. And so going back to that productivity, laziness can look like productivity, because I’m working, I’m doing things that need to be done, I’m air quoting, but not necessarily at the time. And the laziness is really occurring. Because I’m doing work that’s just a little bit less painful than the actual work I need to do. And so as a result, I found myself staying busy. And, and then, and then What I want to accomplish isn’t actually happening. And I’m sure this has happened to a lot of y’all y’all set goals, are you all set tasks and all these things, and then you spend all this time Avoiding, right. So it’s like, it’s as simple as like, cool, I don’t want to go work out. But you know What, I’ll do the dishes, I will go and make my bed, I’ll go fold my laundry and you do all this other work simply to avoid the hard work and avoid the path of resistance.

And the path of resistance is so important because it directly ties into delayed gratification. The other thing too, is let me if you guys don’t know, and I’m just going to sidestep for a moment, if you don’t know how to find out What work you should be doing. Take a step outside of your shoes, and talk to yourself like you’re in third person, and coach yourself, like how you would somebody in your shoes, coach yourself and tell them What they need to be doing and how they should do it. And that’s normally how you can find your work. So again, it’s like stepping out and like talking to yourself like a stranger. They just kind of told you your life story where they’re at. And then you tell them What they need to do to fix their problems. And most likely, that’s What you need to do. Hey, you need to focus on What really matters also What really matters to you. And then you answer your own questions and you have that conversation. And that is how you can find the work that you’re avoiding if you don’t know offhand. But I do think that it’s very important to be able to identify where you’re choosing the path of least resistance, and then how it is hurting you and then really choosing to move forward past that or really choosing to face that to face the opposite of that.

And I normally call that desire difficulty I’m looking for something that’s difficult and that’s normally the work that needs to be done. And if you notice value in life comes from doing hard things right comes to do In difficult things value and difficulty normally tied hand in hand, and I’m just saying that for you to be able to tie value back to your hard work, right?

So anyways guys, I’m out of time and I’ll catch y’all later peace