Just like you can make a horse move by using both the carrot and the stick, humans are motivated by both pain and pleasure. Which one of those two that acts as your primary motivator will have a dramatic impact on the results you achieve and the quality of your life?

     For the most part, humans respond more readily to the stick than they do to carrots. Most people would do more to prevent money being stolen from them than they would to earn the same sum. What moves you more? Carrots or sticks?

     The reality is that life will always give you both carrots and sticks. Tasty pleasures to pursue and painful sticks that will leave bruises and scars. We can, however set up our lives in a way that provides us with MORE carrots (which are also healthy) and as a result reduce how often we need to be hit by sticks.

     Let’s use health as an example. The predominant approach most people take to their health is that they only respond to sticks. When they have pain, symptoms, or a disease they seek a diagnosis and the appropriate treatment to manage the bruises from the stick. The bigger the stick, typically the more extensive the treatment. If the treatment is successful and the blow from the stick is no longer hurting, they go back to normal and wait for the next stick.

     This is how the vast majority of our health care and health insurance system is set up also. Have a problem, get fixed, repeat. While ‘Prevention’ is a wiser approach and definitely a step up, it is still about avoiding the stick and not about earning carrots (getting healthier).

     The healthiest people I know typically don’t spend much time or energy worrying about sticks. They enjoy carrots and focus their efforts on their tasty goodness. Sure, some sticks show up from time to time and they deal with the bruises, but because they are so healthy, they are few and far between and can deal with them much faster when they must.

     Being hit with sticks is not a fun way to live our lives, and as the hits accumulate, we become battered and bloodied. Eating carrots, on the other hand make us stronger, fitter, happier, more energetic, more fun and to some extent immune to stick attacks!

     Ask yourself what it is that you focus on in life? Do you wait for pain in order to act or do you get after the good things in life? Do you move from one health problem to the next, or do you see your level of health improve each year? How about in your finances? How about in your relationships?

     The care we provide at Nexus Chiropractic – believe it or not – is based on getting you carrots. Yes, most people come in bloodied by sticks and some of that must be corrected. Most of our results though, come from IMPROVING the health of the spine and nervous system and helping them to become more AWARE and ADAPTABLE, so that not only are they more functional – they are more able to navigate around the sticks.

     Eat more carrots – they are healthy and taste so good.

When I sat down and started the car to drive my kids to school this morning I was a little stressed out. There had been a disagreement with one of my sons, we were running late and just as I was about to pull out of the driveway I realized that my windshield was covered in ice.

My initial instinct was to just start driving and hope that I would be able to see well enough until the defroster did its job – after all, I was in a hurry. Of course I did NOT do that. I got out of the car, retrieved the scraper from the trunk and proceeded to clean the windshield.

What would have happened had I not taken the time and due diligence to clean my windshield before departing? Certainly a series of less than desirable outcomes could have occurred. Minor consequences such as getting a ticket from the police or perhaps bumping into something and damaging my car would certainly be possible. Hitting a person or other vehicle and hurting either my children or someone else would have had much more severe consequences for all involved.

Obviously, the smart thing to do and the only REAL choice was to stop and clean the windshield BEFORE leaving my driveway. Convenient? No. Necessary? Yes.

I see several parallels between my windshield and your health. Very often the bumps and bruises, aches and pains, diseases and challenges we end up with are secondary to dirty windshields.

Regardless of how careful we are, life throws a lot of mud, and crap – and in Canada, ice in April – at us. Things can get pretty dirty over time and it makes navigating difficult at first, dangerous after a while and then next to impossible if it goes too far.

Trouble happens when we focus on what usually begins as bumps and dents in our car. Like aches and pains these small secondary effects are quick and easy to handle. A little paint or a new signal light will do the trick just like an aspirin, massage or good ‘crack’ will.

What will happen if the windshield stays dirty and then continues to accumulate filth? The bumps get bigger until someone really gets hurt.

At Nexus Chiropractic we know that to really get healthy the first thing that needs to happen is that the windshield needs to be cleaned. In fact, most of the people we work with have already spent years treating secondary conditions (symptoms) and know they need a different approach.

Our Initial Phase of Care (IPC) is focused on normalizing a primary condition known as a Neurospinal Shift (cleaning the windshield) that commonly underlies the secondary conditions people suffer from.

As your windshield clears up suddenly there are less bumps, bruises, aches and pains. And…because your body is not made out of steel and plastic it has the opportunity to heal old wounds.

Once the windshield is clean some people choose regular, less frequent care to make sure it stays that way. Others love their clear view so much that they continue more frequently in order to navigate towards the best life possible.

Click HERE to read another article I wrote about addressing the primary cause.

If you would like to know more we have an introductory presentation at our office on Tuesday, April 21^th at 7pm. We will also be having our Level 2 – Transform workshop on Tuesday, April 28^th at 7pm, which I encourage all current patients to attend. Both workshops are at no cost and you can reserve a seat by calling the office.