Sometimes it is useful to let go of your habits and principles and rules you came up for yourself. It gives you some kind of balance.
But sometimes it also leads to people becoming lazy and allowing themselves to let go too much until they finally find themselves in a place where they do not know how they got there.
Imagine you create a habit for yourself to exercise daily to work your body, boost your energy and feel fitter and more active. You do it for some weeks and although the workout is hard and stick to it.
After weeks of training you see first results. But not only you see improvements in your appearance, weight and general mood, also others compliment you on it. Now you feel amazing because you see how your daily effort effects your general happiness, social life and all kind of other areas of your life.
Then lets say you come home after a long day of work and you are tired. You know that you should work out today, just like you did the last weeks, but somehow you have to fight the initial resistance that you have to face whenever you start to do something important. Today it seems especially hard for you.
Unlike every other day you worked out in the past couple of weeks you now talk to yourself that “It’s OK!” to let go for just one day. It was a long day, I will recover and do it tomorrow.
Your brain rationalizes in a wrong way. It makes you believe that only because other people and you see your progress, you don’t have to stick to the rules anymore.
It tricks you into believing that you are now this kind of person. A hard-working genius. But you are not. Guess what, when you fall off from your workout habits you start to gain the weight again. You not only skip one day, you also skip another day (and the next time is usually much easier).
You not only skip your training sessions you also do not take care of your diet anymore. You “prove yourself right” that it is OK because you are (usually) working out anyways (you are the fit guy now) and it is OK to eat the burger or the fast food.
Sooner or later you find yourself in the same (or worse) spot you started out at.
Unless you stop this circle as soon as you become conscious of it.
Make yourself realize that it is not like you can simply change yourself into something totally different and expect yourself to stay that way without effort.
The default state is being a failure.
This might sound harsh for some of you guys, but it is quite true. When you stop putting in efforts into your improvements you go back to normal, and normal is some shitty place to be in. Laziness is the fastest and easiest way to mediocrity.
You are what you do the most and therefore, as soon as you skip doing what you know makes you a better and stronger person, you also stop being this kind of person. Depending on how long you followed the right habits and gained momentum, the longer it might take you to go back to being a failure, but it will start dragging you down there as soon as you fall off your good and helpful habits you created for yourself.
Just watch your overall journey and enjoy it. As soon as you find yourself slipping, be happy for that realization and see it as a learning experience. It shows you why you are doing what you are doing and gives you energy to sticking to what you set out to do.
