A lot of the work we do on ourselves revolves around actions and results. We want different results, and experts and guidance point us to the actions we can take to achieve them.
If you want to get fitter, exercise.
If a situation upsets you, avoid it.
If you want to write a book, write.
If someone said something that hurt you, don’t spend time with them.
In other words, if you want a particular domino to move a different way, push the preceding domino differently.
The problem is, however, that the preceding domino is at the effect of all the dominos before it—and their force works against you.
This is why we often fail to achieve what we want to achieve. If someone wants to lose weight, they focus on eating less food. But there are likely a bunch of forces that are pushing them to eat more food: stress, depression, health issues.
Rather than focus on the actions that generate the outcomes, a deeper and more transformative approach is to look at why our current actions are what they are and what makes this a problem for us.
In the cause/effect chain that culminates in results, what comes before actions are thoughts and feelings. And what comes before thoughts and feelings is who we are for ourselves. The further back this chain we can look into and work on, the more impactful our efforts will be.
The further we can go from the domino we’re trying to move, the more long-lasting and powerful our move will be. If we have a recurring problem, it helps to know what we can do to transcend it. But we likely already know this. The real value is in understanding why we keep on not doing it and what makes the problem a problem on the first place.