You Can Either Live With The Pain of Discipline or the Pain of Regret

It Is Hard To Do New Things And Follow Through, But The Pain Of Doing Nothing Is Far Worse

This gem came from Karen28, a member of the PEERtrainer community. Instead of lamenting about how hard something is and using that as an excuse of not doing it, change your thinking around. "You live with the pain of discipline or the pain of regret." Exercise isn't always fun and you're not always psyched to go do it but many things you have to do on a weekly basis aren't fun. Who likes paying bills? Who likes changing diapers? We don't necessarily like it, but we do it anyway because we know the benefits. Sometimes you just have to the workout, even if you don't want to do it and sometimes that means working through the pain of it. It's a lot easier to look back on discipline than regret. Instead of saying, "I wish I did that but I don't feel like it", say to yourself, "I really don't like doing this but I love the way I feel afterwards and I'll love the way I'll look and feel in my clothes this weekend" and just go to the gym.

The human mind is known for its desire to avoid pain and discomfort. The mind is generally shortsighted though, because the pleasure and benefits of doing something hard, something that takes sustained and long term effort is great. How often have we labored hard at something worthwhile and then said "that was not worth it?" It happens sometimes but usually you are so glad you took the effort. But the mind is thinking about avoiding the pain of the effort. The trick is to really focus on how you are going to feel if you are not going to do follow through. Do you really want to have no energy to play with your kids? Do you really want to continue looking a certain way? Most importantly, do you suspect that there are ways of improving your own outlook and interactions with others that will give you great pleasure?

http://www.peertrainer.com/diet/choose_between_discipline_and_regret.aspx