Lose the compensating
Ξ January 12th, 2008 | → | ∇ Dicipline |
One of the most common excuses that I hear where people have failed to keep to a discipline they have set, is the use of compensating their behavior’s. Many people, when deciding to make life changes, will often do this at one point, for instance new year, This isn’t a problem, and for some people is very successful.
Take, for example someone who’s new year resolutions were to stop smoking, diet, and go to the gym every day, they almost certainly would achieve this on the first day, or maybe more. A few weeks down the line, and its snowing outside, or perhaps a stressful day at work, a habit starts to develop.
I haven’t smoked all month, so giving the gym a miss wouldn’t be that bad..
Compensating for one discipline, by excelling at another, which inevitably leads to
Ive been to the gym EVERY day for 2 weeks now, I deserve a cigarette
I’m sure you can already see where this can lead to, and before long, every action and decision you make, is compensated by another decision. In fact, your whole decision making process, could be overtaken by compensation.
I suppose a lot of this behaviour could be driven by taking too many life changes on at once, and rather than suceed at just one, we fail at both. It may be that after a month we are not seeing any major benefits from either, and that a cigarette, and a night in as opposed to the cold snowy walk to the gym would make us feel a lot better.
We are motivated by what makes us feel good, immediately. Eating healthy, Exercising, and working hard all give a long term benefit, that will certainly make us feel better long term, but the over riding issue is that a Pizza, and a cigarette, whilst slobbed out on the sofa will make us feel better in the short term.
Changing our mindset and philosophy, to work towards delaying our gratification is becoming harder and harder in the modern world, and disciplines are becoming easier to break.
The key to sticking to a discipline is to ‘Program’ ourselves to carry out the task in question, for instance, going to the gym. Its just something that I must do, Every day.. As opposed to seeing this as a decision every day. The decision was made right at the beginning, when you decided to do what ever you did. To continue to do it is no longer a decision, its what you must do.
We are all capable of sticking to disciplines, just as we get out of bed every day, we wash every day (If not, you may need to start more basic!)
The best way to program ourselves to these disciplines, is to practise them, every day. Remove the emotion from the discipline, and treat this not as a decision every day, but an necessity, just as breathing and blinking is.
Technorati Tags: discipline, goals, gym, smoking, compensate, compensation, compensating
