Why can't I keep exercising to lose weight? So this is where the problem lies!

Monday evening. At the end of the first workday of the week, you overcome yourself and go to the gym to work out, and you feel proud of yourself. You plan to go again on Thursday, and then go to the gym two days a week. Your goal is to lose five kilograms in six months. Nice plan! You're off to a good start. But by Thursday night, something clicked. Lacking perseverance, you are unable to persevere, and your mood therefore hits rock bottom. The sofa wins again! However, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Condensing the entire world into a few square centimeters

Focus is the key to willpower. If you want to achieve many goals and complete many tasks at the same time, what is ultimately "dealt with" is often not the work but willpower. If your attention is divided, your willpower to pursue individual endeavors will weaken. When conflicting intentions act at the same time, willpower will be overloaded. When we are doing something, just thinking about something else reduces our focus.

Rock climbers have vivid descriptions of this. When asked what they think about while climbing, climbers answer: "Once I'm on the cliff, my whole world is concentrated in the few square centimeters of the next step. I can't think about anything else on the cliff."

Learn from rock climbers! If you want to learn English well, just concentrate on learning English and don't learn other things at the same time. Human sensory and cognitive equipment (cortex and subcortical structures) can only focus on one intention at a time. If you focus on two intentions at the same time, the required attention will be divided and insufficient, resulting in stagnation. How can we focus on one intention without being distracted by external or internal influences and focus our willpower on one point?

In a hedonistic society full of temptations, it is not easy to concentrate. Influenced by the two major defocusing mechanisms of our time (the Internet and television), we are easily tempted by all kinds of things that can bring us happiness without any effort.

However, external temptations are often just helpers that cause internal loss of focus. If we don't understand our needs (motivations) or have the wrong vision of our goals, we can easily become seriously distracted by all kinds of temptations.

Ignore or eliminate temptation

With the right strategies in place, it can be easy to stay focused even when you’re surrounded by temptation. The art of concentration lies in ignoring, which means ignoring or eliminating distractions.

If you want to eat less chocolate and your fridge is full of it, you either have to ignore the chocolate or remove it. If you want to learn English well, and you know that learning a language is not an easy thing, then you should not keep the TV remote control next to you when you are studying, because the temptation to turn on the TV is much greater than opening an English textbook.

If you have to overcome yourself to do something you want to do but finds it difficult to achieve, strategies to eliminate temptations are absolutely necessary. The principle is: it is often better if they do not exist at all. Because if those temptations are right in front of you, you have to expend a lot of extra willpower to overcome them.

Self-experimentation: Focus

Focus on one goal at a time. If you can eliminate or ignore distractions, you'll find it easier to focus. Test yourself: How easy (or difficult) is it for you to focus on a task when you are repeatedly interrupted by phone calls, emails, the doorbell, or other external distractions? Conversely, how easy (or difficult) would it be for you to focus on a task if you kept your phone and doorbell silent and turned off your internet for at least a few hours?

This article is from "Willpower" published by Business Weekly