Maybe not the healthiest, but just being stern with myself. Inner shame or consequences of not doing it are good motivators for me.
Find a way to make it easier to do. I wanted to eat healthier, I started ordering meal kits so I can cook healthy meals more easily. I wanted to exercise more, I bought an exercise bike and use it while watching TV and movies
this is great advice and I try to follow it too, but it’s worth noting that all the examples you gave cost a fair amount of money
I got the bike cheap through Facebook marketplace. Even if you do spend a lot of money on it, at least you only have to spend it once. In the long run, if you use it long enough, it’s cheaper than a gym membership.
Buying meal kits is an ongoing expense but so is any type of food
fair enough, I do agree that depending on what you’re solving the cost can very much be worth it
I don’t like purposeless exercise. So all my exercise has a purpose. I garden, do yard work, bike to work, paddle for pleasure. Life doest have to be suffering, just need to find what motivates you.
Basically a three step process.
1.) Ingest caffeine.
2.) Put on Highway Star by Deep Purple. Big headphones to drown out distractions.
3.) Take a couple breaths to focus, then buckle in for the ride
I tell myself that nothing will get done or be achieved if I don’t start
I don’t. I tell my wife that I’ll do X by this day. Once there’s a deadline involved, even if it’s the last minute, I will do it to avoid disappointing my wife.
I usually forget and the nagging is what gets me to do it.
This man loves
This describes me too well and I don’t like it xD
Once you figure it out, report back
Be kind to your future self. You know them better than anyone, and you know they work hard enough already. Do them a favor every once in a while and see how good it feels to help them out.
This is my answer. I love making future me happy. When I dump the laundry on the bed in the morning with the intention of coming home and putting it away after work, I think of how happy future me will be with current me if I just take the 10 minutes now to get 'er done. Crazy how often it works…
I don’t necessarily recommend you use my method. I use a lot of negative self talk until I’m doing the thing (working out, work on rough days, farm chores on tough days, meal prepping healthy stuff etcetera). It’s probably not the most healthy but it usually works. It also creeps in any time I make a mistake, which is likely not great…
I will often incentivize myself. Give myself a little treat afterward.
Sometimes it’s the other way around. Sometimes I’ll let myself have a treat if I do something I don’t really wanna do.
Oh, but that would be a bribe. Now you’re stuck mulling over this new ethical conundrum of accepting the bribe or not.
For my part, I did the good things for a year and felt really really good. Then I stopped doing them during COVID and felt really really bad.
It’s much easier now to do the good thing because I know what’s at the end of the tunnel.
Most of the time the activity doesn’t actually take much time. The older I get, the faster time seems to pass and I have awareness of this fast-time-passing. So instead of avoiding the thing for hours, I just do it instead and am actually fully done with the activity in usually less than an hour. After that you can pat yourself on the back saying that you’re an adult and you took care of an adult responsibility, but truly you are self-aware enough to know you were one tiny breath away from skipping it to do something time-wasting or irresponsible instead. For one more day you get to live the illusion you’re and adult and you can take care of your adult responsibilities.
If you do this more often than not, you actually are an adult and actually do take care of your adult responsibilities on regular basis.
Stop self-talking, that’s the basis of so much anxiety and all dread, which is always worse than just doing the thing, more suffering by trying to avoid the original suffering. Stupid brain.
Let your body get up and go do the thing without your mind fucking it up. It’s called “behavioral activation” and it even works.
Dumb as hell but I tell myself “nothin’ to it but to do it”, and then I do the thing. Like ripping it off like a bandaid.
Yup. Very similar. I quiet the voice in my head saying “I’m too tired” or whatever with “ignore it and just get to it”.
I’ve got a similar mantra - “it’s not hard, I just have to do it”. And then when it’s done I follow up with a “see, not hard, just had to actually do it”
Convince yourself you will be skinned alive if you do not do them
I dont - I need to be pushed. My wife is really supportive and great for that. For health, just visiting a doctor is enough to scare me straight
