It’s National Eat Your Vegetables Day
We all know we should eat our vegetables, among other things. Yet, how many times do we grab for the brownie and skip the vegetables?
There are other things we know we should do – but we don’t.
Why not?
The answers vary. Perhaps fear, perfectionist tendency, comparing ourselves to others, stuck in a routine or the most common reason, the benefits can’t be seen for a long time.
How can we get ourselves to do something that will benefit us?
I teach a model called easy/hard, hard/easy.
Basically, we default to easy. Whatever will cause us less friction or pain, we default to. Who wants to choose pain when you can have pleasure?
Yet, we know that choosing easy now can lead to harder things down the road.
And, choosing harder things now can lead to easier things down the road.
Easy – Live a sedentary lifestyle. Don’t exercise, eat processed, high-fat food and don’t get enough sleep.
Hard – Later in life experience diabetes, heart disease and other health problems that require medical intervention.
-or-
Hard – Exercise now and experience muscle pain, eat a balanced healthy diet and have less time to watch TV.
Easy – Enjoy the benefits of better health as we age with less physical problems and better cognitive health.
When we see our choices like this it makes it easier to motivate ourselves to do the hard thing now.
Reframe your thinking to allow you to make the hard decisions now and experience the benefits later.
You got this! Now Go And Do.
Dr. Paul