Alexander’s struggles 3 – Why is it so difficult to commit to doing regular good things?

Why is consistency so hard? At least in the beginning it´s extremely difficult to do something regularly. You all know this. For example when setting the goal to work out more regularly. The first times you are extremely pumped but then after some days or weeks you feel sore, tired, or something else is about to stop you.

Then, you need a gigantic amount of energy to still do it. Hopefully, you remember why you started this new thing and you can get yourself to do it although your excuses sound now so tempting. Of course, this doesn´t work always but we try.

I think that we all know which things are good for us and which not. Those things are, especially today with the internet, easy to find and probably we all know also intuitively which things are good. Partly because we can feel it. Let´s look at some examples:

When we eat a good, tasty, and healthy meal we feel afterward really good. However, when we eat a tasty but rather unhealthy meal we feel as if a stone was sitting in our gut.

When we sit the whole day around, just consume (information and food) and we don´t do anything important for our future we feel bad about ourselves and often not half as rested as we should be after a calm day. However, when we focus on a relaxing day to also create some small things for us and our future then we feel way better about our day and we can enjoy resting. Those things can be really small things like cleaning a corner, making a nice dinner, planning your week, having a walk, etc.

As the last example, when you sit the whole day in front of the TV the chance is quite high that you are afterward really tired. However, if you learn something new on this day the chance is already way higher that you will feel good about your day. The amazing thing is that you don´t have to do something incredible. Just doing something for your brain, like chess, for example, can be beneficial. Or you play an instrument, or you start to learn the language you wanted to learn for many years, or you start an online course for creating something, or a course to become better at your work or do something faster.

You see that we know many things if we listen to our bodies. That´s why I think we all (yes, I included) should listen more to our intuition. Some time alone with your thoughts. For me, a walk in nature helps. And then some commitment.

 “Commitment leads to action. Action brings your dream closer.”

Marcia Wieder

And a thing that I try to remember is that there is no “best” decision in anything. We can only try our best to decide well for ourselves and then go all-in on it. Before, we can ask ourselves if we think that we would regret not trying this in 20 years, if so then we should try it.

Next, we follow this commitment, and every now and then we try our best to re-evaluate if we should adjust something.

Here, our circle closes. When we want to implement a new habit in our life we need consistency. That means that we got to remind ourselves why it´s so important to us and then follow our commitment. And to me, it feels like a daily skirmish in a great battle that´s called life.

So, let´s fight to win. Or live so that we will look back at our lives and say: “Hell, what a great life you lived”.

All the best,

Alexander

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be One.” 

Marcus Aurelius

P.S. Hmm, actually the goal was to write shorter posts ^^
Tell me if you liked this one or if I should´ve adjusted something.