How many times have you observed yourself go astray in your pursuit of any goal or habit?
It’s common.
We deviate every now and then because tempting to slide back into our old routine. The journey of personal growth is hard. To develop a new habit you must defeat your biggest enemy, i.e you.
The ghost of our old self is always lurking behind a corner, ready to pounce if we let our guard down even for a second.
What gives this apparition its biggest chance is the reward of instant gratification.
What happens is when things get hard which they eventually will we tend to reach out to our comfort zones for solace. We think,” It would just be a minute”. That just gives an opening to our old lazy self.
It never is a minute. The minutes become hours, hours days and soon we realize we are back where we started.
This reward that we get after indulging in the temptation becomes a poison for us. When we give in too much we destroy our self-esteem. As our self-esteem keeps chipping away, we tend to lose confidence too. Eventually, this becomes a feedback loop and we give up on ourselves.
All this just because we said “It would just be a minute”, or “It would just be a little bite”
When we go on our personal transformation journey there are bound to be problems that we need to overcome. The road of self-improvement is paved with numerous tests. No unworthy human crossed it ever. To weed out the weak ones nature puts up these temptations in our path.
Most give up. Those who don’t enjoy the sweet fruit of their labor at the end.
Why do most give up?
Because it is easy.
It is easy to eat that cake.
It is easy to not go to the gym.
It is easy to not follow a routine to build your habit. You tend to get bored.
It is easy to binge-watch a movie or a series. The time flies. We sit there passively. On the contrary, try to read a book and you will count each second on the clock at the beginning.
It is easy not to write daily. You might feel out of ideas. You might feel you are not in the mood. You might be mentally disturbed due to some personal or family issue. Try to write anyhow. The act of doing something because you know it needs to be done builds your self-respect.
If you are trying to achieve something you need to stop believing your brain.
Our brain has evolved to secure us from any harm. When we deny ourselves that delicious chocolate pastry, our brain thinks we are harming ourselves as that sugar which is a store of energy might be needed later on. But the world has evolved faster than our brain. It does not know that we don’t need sugar now as we got lot of alternative foods in plenty.
Thus we need to endure the feeling and continue on our path to weight loss, or achieving our goal.
If you even for a second try to argue with your mind you will lose the battle. Our mind is so clever it will generate some excuse and it will be perfectly valid.
In the beginning, you need to revolt against your brain.
Make the difficult choice and reap the rewards later.
Avoid instant gratification and become worthy of success.
I write daily here on my blog. There is no limit to the word count. I am not focusing on any topic here. I want to build a daily writing habit. This is Day 23 of the Daily Writing Challenge in 2022.