“Discipline equals Freedom”
“How you do one thing is how you do anything”
These are 2 quotes that are often used as motivators in helping us become the people we desire to be.
We’ve previously discussed our believe that it isn’t necessary “discipline” that is what is required forever, rather our habits. With that said, some discipline is required in the initial phases of habit building. Today, we are going to discuss how some acts of discipline in various areas of your life can help you build character and confidence into other areas of your life.
We can then say “Conquering one thing can help you muster the confidence to conquer another”.
Especially when it comes to procrastination.
Many of us a serial procrastinators.
Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something.
We usually think of this in a work or study sense but how often do we procrastinate with our health and fitness? Putting something off like cooking, prepping, shopping, training, journalling, even waking up.
So why do we procrastinate?
One reason is that when we are faced with an uncomfortable task, our mind generates a negative emotion or tension build up. We want to achieve or maintain a level of comfort, so we put off a task. But the truth is, the task is going to cause the same tension when it comes along later on. We just delay the inevitable and sometimes add more pressure to the situation by adding a time constraint.
When you think about it, the criteria of the task remains constant. We are going to have to cook our meals eventually. We are going to have to wake up eventually. We are going to have to do that report eventually. It sounds bizarre that we would intensify the situation by reducing the time variable on that. If you’ve ever had to do your grocery shopping on a Sunday night, you almost immediately regret your decision to put it off and not get it done earlier on.
Another is that we tend to care too much about our present selves and not about our future selves. Most of us know what things we “should” be doing like: saving money, eating protein and plants, sleeping 7-9 hours, meal prepping, studying.
So why don’t we do it even when we know something is good for us?
We’d rather enjoy the immediate benefits of the present especially if the costs or consequences don’t show up until the distant future. We also search for instant gratification rather than delayed gratification.
Eg. Ordering uber eats and watching netflix has an immediate reward but the delayed cost of skipping the gym and a higher calorie meal won’t show up until a few months later when you don’t quite have the lean and healthy body you’re after.
Spending money on a new pair of jeans and shoes you don’t really need has an immediate rewards but a delayed cost when you don’t have enough money to go on that holiday you were hoping to have saved for.
We tend to over value the immediate benefits of unproductive behaviours such as scrolling social media, snoozing our alarms, uber eats, drive through take-away, taking the escalator.
What we can do is start to consider our future self and consider how our choices impact our distant future. In 6 months time would you rather be lean and healthy OR out of shape and out of netflix shows to watch? Would you rather be on a holiday or have 5 pairs of jeans you’ve worn once?
Future You knows you should do things that lead to the highest benefit in the long-term, but Present You tends to overvalue things that lead to immediate benefit right now.
Ideally we want to get our present self to act in the best interest of our future self.
We can do this in 3 ways.
Make the rewards of long-term behavior more immediate.
Make the costs of procrastination more immediate.
Remove procrastination triggers from your environment.
1. Make the rewards of long-term behaviour more immediate.
Our mind wants an immediate benefit, a reward. How do we bring forward our long term benefits even when they’ll take a while to achieve. Visualisation. Imagine the benefits of your future self. Imagine how you’ll look and feel in 6 months time if you prepare your own meals consistently, sleep 7-9 hours a night, train regularly, walk a bit more. OR give yourself a visual reward like in the chain method Jerry Seinfeld used to practice by ticking off a day on the calendar whenever you complete a desired behaviour.
2. Make the costs of procrastination more immediate.
Create an immediate consequence for your procrastination. When we are only accountable to ourselves, the consequences are only applied to our future self. Skipping the gym, snoozing, getting takeaway, not studying, etc. They consequences only show up in 6 months time when you don’t quite have the lean and healthy body you’re after. When you aren’t as prepared for the exam as you thought. You could either get an accountability partner so you are immediately letting someone else down if you don’t practice certain behaviours. OR you can give yourself a light hearted punishment. Miss a workout, that’s 3 less beers you can have on the weekend. Don’t make the bed, that’s 50 burpees. Snooze your alarm, eat your most hated foods (more on that one later). I even once heard of an athlete who had to pay his coach $100 for not doing a daily check in. Hmmm, I might keep that one in mind.
3. Remove procrastination triggers from your environment.
Yup, we’ve said it again. It’s your environment. One of the best ways to value your future self is to remove procrastination triggers, to remove the temptation. Don’t give your present self an option that doesn’t favour your future self. Remove distraction. If you don’t want to snooze anymore, then put your phone/alarm in another room or out of arm’s reach. If you don’t want to face the temptation of indulgence items, don’t buy them or bring them in the house. If you want to prepare your own meals and not order uber eats, delete the app. Become a choice architect!
Every day we have a choice, actually hundreds of choices, to either give in to instant gratification for our present self OR commit to our future selves and seek delayed gratification.
This is not to say never satisfy your present self, just in the scorecard let is show that your future self is winning most of the time.
Whenever faced with a difficult choice or a battle between the present and future selves;
ask yourself:
How will I feel about this choice in an hour?
How will I feel about this choice in a day?
How will I feel about this choice in a month?
How will I feel about this choice in 6 months?
Things to things about:
The Pain is in the Anticipation. Things are never as painful as they seem. We delay doing things because they make us feel uncomfortable. Instead of dwelling on doing something and letting the tension build up, just do it. Rip it off like a bandaid. Once we’ve overcome the start, the pain dissipates and we then realise it was never as bad as we thought.
*Personal experience. Josh has put off doing the cold shower thing for years. Finally decided to give it a crack, and it really wasn’t as bad as the story he told himself in his head.
There is no perfect time and you will not feel more like doing it tomorrow. Get started or do the thing sooner rather than later. Once started, let the good times roll and the benefits build up for your future self.
Getting started is magic. Not only does it relieve the pain built up in the anticipation, it changes your perception of the task and of yourself. You become more confident, motivated and optimistic. You did this, so you can easily do the next thing. Confidence breeds confidence.
Focus on the next step, not the next 100 steps. Break the goal into smaller achievable tasks.
Try the 2 minute rule. If it takes less than 2 minutes to do, do it straight away.
Try the other 2 minute rule. Do something for 2 minutes. Walking, cooking, exercising, reading, meditating. Once you’ve started you’ll probably do it for longer than 2 minutes anyway. Just commit to 2 minutes to start.
Talk to yourself. Tell yourself the story in simple terms. If you want to meal prep: “I’m just going to cook some chicken in the oven and fry up some vegetables, easy. If you want to go to the gym: “I’m just going to go to the gym on the way home from work and do the class workout”. If you want to read: “I’m just going to read my book after I have my morning shower”.
List your obstacles and work out a strategy to overcome them.
This self control thing. This avoiding procrastination and valuing your future self over your present self is like a muscle. The more you do it, the stronger it gets. The easier it will then become. Then “How you do one thing is how you do anything”
And what is the one thing most of us can do to start our day valuing our future self over our present self?
Stop Snoozing!!!
Last year, we kind of created No Snooze November. (only to find out that is was also somewhere else in the insta hashtags, but we will still claim it).
How does No Snooze November work?
Simple. You commit to not press the snooze button on your alarm for the month of November.
As mentioned above we are going to make the consequences of procrastination more immediate.
If you do press the snooze alarm, you’ll have to eat “insert least favourite food” here.
Josh’s is peas (close to pea-phobic). So if he pressed the snooze alarm, he will eat a bowl of peas.
If you don’t have any food you cannot bear the thought of eating, pick an activity that you absolutely dream and make that your consequence. Cold shower, half marathon, 50 burpees, signing up for 1 on 1 nutrition coaching. Whatever it is, that’s your thing.
You may find after a month, you’ll continue the habit and just get up first go. Win the morning win the day and start your day with the confidence to value your future self over your present self.
To learn how to make choices for your future self that help you become the person you want to be, contact us today for 1 on 1 nutrition coaching.