Determined to exercise and lose weight, but still succumb to the sofa and TV? Here is the key reason!

Monday evening. The first workday of the week is over and you plan to go to the gym to work out. You have a strong will, but your flesh is weak. The attempt to "do exercise" was defeated by the spontaneous impulse to "avoid hard work". You cannot overcome yourself and turn your intentions into actual actions. The sofa wins!

How to overcome yourself?

If you want to do something that conflicts with what you subconsciously and spontaneously get a lot of pleasure from, you have to overcome yourself. "Overcoming oneself" is like sitting on a bicycle and wanting to pedal it. You must first overcome inertia (laziness). Once the bicycle starts moving slowly, it becomes much easier to keep moving.

How to put a bicycle into motion? How do we get ourselves off the couch? Why should we put in the effort to make a bicycle move? Because you have a goal.

Human behavior is always directed toward a specific goal. Goals can be high value (e.g., you’re going to meet a good friend) or urgent (e.g., you need to buy some food before the grocery store closes), or they can be (initially) low value (e.g., you want to burn calories). The more valuable your goal, the less you need to overcome yourself. Because in this case, it is not easy for alternative targets to influence your intentions.

Use strategies to find high-value targets

If the goal meets your needs, it has a higher value to you. For example, basic needs for affection or food can make a goal like “meeting up with a good friend” or “going shopping” extremely valuable. In contrast, “burning calories” initially has little value because it is often based on the idea of ​​weight loss spread by the media.

If a goal does not seem valuable to you at first, or even if there are many alternative goals, you will need some strategies to keep yourself focused on the goal so that you can suppress other desires and goals and easily overcome yourself. This strategy, like riding a bicycle, can be learned.

Start by observing yourself. Behavioral control must be accompanied by observing one's own behavior. Think back to the goal you have set, and then consciously observe your behaviors and yourself related to this goal. Before you go to bed, take five minutes to think about what you did during the day toward this goal.

Self-experimentation: Observing your own behavior

Let's say your goal is to lose five kilograms in six months, so you want to exercise more and eat less chocolate. From today on, think about it every night before going to bed: whether you take the stairs instead of the elevator, whether you walk or take a car, whether you eat chocolate cake or cereal for breakfast, whether you pay attention to the nutritional balance of lunch, whether you have snacks or fruits for afternoon snacks, and when and how much exercise you do during the day. Through self-observation, you can shift your attention to your goal and automatically shift your behavior in the direction you want.

This article is from "Willpower" published by Business Weekly