This morning I was thinking about why we often feel an internal resistance to keep doing the things that we know will work. To give a bit of context, let’s say that you are taking a diet, or a new sport regime where you have to train every day. You keep doing it but after a week there’s a tough day at work and you feel like you could use a day off. Eventually one day becomes two, and you slowly forget about your duties and revert back to your previous habits.
Sounds familiar? Why does this happen? Perhaps you enjoy doing some physical activity and you can see results, so why do you eventually stop? The answer is probably related to habits. When you start a new physical program you are at all effects starting a new habit, which also means that you’re killing an old one. Eventually your body gets confused because it expects you do to things in one way but you do the opposite. This is temporary, and if you keep doing your stuff every day you’ll eventually get into the new habit’s mindset, and it’ll feel unnatural to switch back.
So all you have to do is to keep doing a new habit long enough for it to become part of your person. How long depends on the habit but one month is usually long enough. During this period you should never cheat and get a day off, otherwise your body will think that what you’re doing is temporary, and you still prefer the old way. Oh, and also make sure you don’t forget about your new habit, use sticky notes if necessary or anything else that works for you.