Like many other people, I've fallen into a lifestyle of poor habits and degeneration in recent years. There's a number of reasons for this, but after I realized the exact causes and understood what led me to mindlessly venture down a fruitless path, it became far easier to accept full responsibility and get back on track.
It wasn't all a period of total inactivity; work was still a part of my life, but as the years passed, I began to fear myself becoming overly complacent and self-negligent. It tends to happen when one finds themselves wrapped up in pressing matters, such as work and being able to pay for basic necessities. If one wants to improve themselves however, at least some time has to be made in the day for better habits.
On Instant Gratification
If you've had a stressful, busy day, chances are health and fitness will be the last thing on your mind, unless you're the sort who's able to maintain enthusiastic interest on it at all times. Observing the world around you will cause you to see that most people do not possess such a mindset, opting instead towards detrimental vices which, in the moment, seem highly beneficial, until enough time passes to where you find yourself run down and exhausted.
Poor habits tend to sneak up on you, which make them particularly ruinous. Whether it's binge drinking, drowning your mind in pornography, eating unhealthy food all day or anything else that's not good in the long-term, eventually you'll meet the consequences and wonder how you allowed yourself to spiral out of control. It happens all too often and ridding of those habits only gets more difficult with age.
But it's not too late to change course. If even the slightest thought in your mind comes up that a lifestyle change is needed, then consider yourself fortunate: you have enough self-awareness to realize that what you're doing now will yield you no benefit in the grand scheme.
The Snowball Effect
Having inattentive ADHD, I've always found myself falling victim to hyper-focus, particularly mindless web surfing. The internet is a fine tool; without it, I would not have the ability to share this article and I'd know far less about things that have served to help me over the years. As with any habit though, it's easy to get pulled into it for longer than you had intended. For this reason, you'll want to strive to regain enough control to attain full mastery of the habits that you've deemed as worth your time.
Consider the snowball effect for a moment. A quick read through self-improvement forums will have you come across users suggesting habits such as making your bed in the morning, doing pushups, crafting a healthy, fulfilling morning routine, among other suggestions. For the purpose of this post, let's shift our attention toward the fairly quick habits such as doing sets of pushups. Performing them in sets should evoke some sense of inner fulfillment, in terms of realizing that you did a set of ten or twenty pushups and are therefore "in motion," now in a frame of mind where doing more is easier.
That set of ten pushups you did may turn to fifteen, twenty, thirty...you get the idea. Initially you did something small and quick, and that reframed your mind toward being in a fairly effortless state of doing more (provided you still have several hours left in the day and are not succumbing to sleep). That's the beauty of the snowball effect.
Merging Instant Gratification and The Snowball Effect
Now that both components have been explained, it's time to get into the point of this post, which is merging the two. Let's say that you've found yourself caught up in mindless web surfing for hours. Rationally, you know that this is a poor choice, yet the side of yourself that wants to stay in that state of instant gratification may hold more power.
There's a way to outsmart that side of yourself, and ultimately it involves giving yourself instant gratification through exercises that you can do while in a sedentary state. What's worked for me so far have been doing sets of abdominal flexing, but you can try any others that could range from kegels, toe raises, or whatever else comes to mind. Doing a set of ten, for example, will have me feeling as though I'm now working out, and will as a result feel spurred to do more.
It's far easier to convince yourself to do an exercise while in your chair than it is for you to get out of your chair, throw on clothes, drive to the gym, so on. Working out while in your chair involves far less effort and is instant in comparison. What you need to do afterwards, though, is harness that psychological sense of fulfillment you received and snowball that into other activities that seem to require more effort, but feel easier now due to placing yourself in an "I'm exercising right now" mindset.
Come to think of it, I don't think I'd have bothered writing this post had I not discovered what has so far been a psychological gamechanger for me.
Give it a try, and let me know if you think it's an effective strategy.