Find a way to prove to yourself that you can do the exercise thing. For me, I managed to exercise about 6 days each week for about three months. At that point, I felt that it wasn’t hard anymore, and freely chose to let exercise fall to the background to focus on sleep instead, as per the previous bullet point. This was basically when my brain shifted, and when I “won exercise”. Getting there is the hard part.
This caught my attention. My dentist told me to get my act together and floss daily. So I’ve been putting special effort not to miss a single day. Intuitively, it felt important, and now I have a way to articulate it. I’m still working on seeing myself as “the kind of person who flosses.” I haven’t gotten there yet. If I stop, it feels like I’ll lose a certain motivation, or accumulating identity, that can’t simply be restored by picking up with flossing the next day.
Part of me says that this mentality is irrational, and that I should work to fix it. But maybe this is one of those times where the rational thing to do is identify how your irrational brain works, and then learn to work with it rather than against it.
Fwiw my dentist told me to floss as well. I tried and noticed obvious improvements on the next appt (so about 3 months). I did it for a year and it was good. Then I stopped and sure enough next appt the gums were sore and bleeding during the test. I didn’t floss for a year. As soon as I started again, the improvement came back.
I guess now for me this is one of those things that has been so thoroughly proven and validated by my own experience that it’s easy to do.
Oh and also I hate all floss devices except this: Listerine UltraClean Access Flosser WITH Refill Pack (Pack Of 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSNP80U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_797DS9JJAS3VJJJ55E8X?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Part of me says that this mentality is irrational, and that I should work to fix it. But maybe this is one of those times where the rational thing to do is identify how your irrational brain works, and then learn to work with it rather than against it.
I also see this as one of those things where “you shouldn’t stop yourself from doing the small good just because the big good wasn’t available”. Sure, it’d be better to just have a rational mentality, but if you can’t have that, then it’s better to just be rational about how your irrationality works. (And in the best case, we’ll find that it’s a stepping stone to a rational mentality.)
Oh yeah. This reminds me about a ‘habit-building-trick’ I’ve read somewhere else, basically: “You don’t just want to do it, you want to become a person who does it, and then you can focus on something else”.
So yeah, rapidly adapting your identity might be a superpower after all. With all the downsides it entails.
This caught my attention. My dentist told me to get my act together and floss daily. So I’ve been putting special effort not to miss a single day. Intuitively, it felt important, and now I have a way to articulate it. I’m still working on seeing myself as “the kind of person who flosses.” I haven’t gotten there yet. If I stop, it feels like I’ll lose a certain motivation, or accumulating identity, that can’t simply be restored by picking up with flossing the next day.
Part of me says that this mentality is irrational, and that I should work to fix it. But maybe this is one of those times where the rational thing to do is identify how your irrational brain works, and then learn to work with it rather than against it.
Fwiw my dentist told me to floss as well. I tried and noticed obvious improvements on the next appt (so about 3 months). I did it for a year and it was good. Then I stopped and sure enough next appt the gums were sore and bleeding during the test. I didn’t floss for a year. As soon as I started again, the improvement came back. I guess now for me this is one of those things that has been so thoroughly proven and validated by my own experience that it’s easy to do. Oh and also I hate all floss devices except this: Listerine UltraClean Access Flosser WITH Refill Pack (Pack Of 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSNP80U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_797DS9JJAS3VJJJ55E8X?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I also see this as one of those things where “you shouldn’t stop yourself from doing the small good just because the big good wasn’t available”. Sure, it’d be better to just have a rational mentality, but if you can’t have that, then it’s better to just be rational about how your irrationality works. (And in the best case, we’ll find that it’s a stepping stone to a rational mentality.)
Oh yeah. This reminds me about a ‘habit-building-trick’ I’ve read somewhere else, basically: “You don’t just want to do it, you want to become a person who does it, and then you can focus on something else”.
So yeah, rapidly adapting your identity might be a superpower after all. With all the downsides it entails.