Let’s start with a few examples . . .

🎬Scenario – You’ve smoked for as long as you remember and want to quit. Someone offers you a cigarette.

😏Response 1: – No thanks, I’m trying to quit.

✋Response 2: – No thanks, I’m not a smoker.

🎬Scenario – You’re new to being more active, and finding it challenging to get started, often procrastinating to the point where it’s too late in the day.

😏Thought 1: It’s ok, I’ll get to it tomorrow.

✋Thought 2: I’m one of those fit people that exercises every day

🎬Scenario – Your social life includes lots of dinner parties and evening events with food. You’re invited for 8pm. 

😏Option 1: Decline the event because you practice time restricted feeding for health (intermittent fasting).

✋Option 2: You attend in order to be sociable and see friends, but eat before you go. When asked, you explain that you don’t eat after 5pm as it supports your health journey.

Beyond discipline

Your state of mind on any given day and the life pressures upon you strongly influence the interplay between motivation and discipline. What comes first, discipline or motivation – and does it even matter?

One trick that can really help steer the course of your journey, and affect whether you find it arduous and punishing or a privilege and inspiring is the person you identify yourself as. 

Once you commit to optimising your health and make the decision to start the process, by relating to yourself as the person that you aim to be rather than the one that you currently are, you immediately eliminate many of the obstacles and excuses that the old you would use to hinder your development and progress.

Therapists and coaches often talk about using self affirmations as a way to build confidence and overcome anxiety. This can be a useful tool but also runs the risk of people accepting and accommodating an inferior version of themselves. Self acceptance is important, but shouldn’t be used at the expense of your health and happiness in the long term. 

Using the ‘Self Declaration‘ tool instead of self affirmations is in most cases going to be more effective for building confidence, providing a framework for progress and for self generating motivation.

What would ‘X’ person do?

Even with the craziness going on in the western world with denial of biological facts, crises of masculinity, political correctness and identity politics, positive role models do exist and there’s also no harm in admiring characters from a previous era. 

Despite any self declarations you make, it’s normal that you’ll still have moments of feeling demotivated. When those emotions inevitably come around, use a role model as a back-up mechanism to keep you on track and simply ask ‘What would ‘X’ do?’ – and do that.