Activation

I was inspired today by an anonymous quote I heard from Dr. Lindsey Doe on her youtube channel sexplanations:

You can only act your way into better thinking. You cannot think your way into better acting.

This is a really difficult concept for me because I am a logical person and I like to do things such as look at my life and evaluate my actions to decide how I need to improve my behavior. But it very, very rarely works. Actually I can't really think of a single time that has worked.

For example: I’ve been trying to eat healthier for years now. And I’m not talking about becoming a vegetarian or going on a juice cleanse or anything—my problem is that I always overeat. I don’t stop when I’m full—I keep going until I’m about to explode. All I need to do is learn portion control. That’s it. I have a really logical argument for why doing so would improve my life in dozens of ways, the best of which being that I have a weird stomach thing which makes me unable to burp so instead I just have stomach pains and my stomach makes weird gurgling noises. But none of that logic has been able to persuade me to change.

The truth is you can’t reason your way into new habits; you just have to force yourself to do it against your will until your actions rewire your brain.

Some advice that can help you change your behavior:

·         Tell other people you are doing it—people you are around regularly, so that they can hold you accountable.

·         Focus on one goal at a time—don’t try to change everything at once. If you try to make drastic changes in every aspect of your life you will almost always fail in all cases.  But if you focus on one goal specifically you will find that the increased will power and mindfulness afforded to you will begin to impact other facets of your life in a positive way.

·         Find a measurable aspect of your intended change, set goals, and reward yourself when you reach them. Try to reward yourself in a way that reinforces the positive behavior; like if your goal is to exercise more regularly you could reward yourself by doing something fun and physical that you couldn’t do if you weren’t in good shape.