I wrote a post about how self-improvement is about making one healthy choice at a time. I had someone comment saying that’s obvious and I should dive deeper – so let’s do that.
We all know we could be making healthier choices. We all know what the healthy choices are. So why is it so difficult to choose those things when the time comes?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Everyone acts on their own habits and instincts and makes decisions based on multiple factors. I think the major players are first and foremost, acting on habits and instincts. How can you expect yourself to do anything other than what it’s used to doing? The purpose of habits is to make life easier, so we do things unconsciously and that’s where we get into trouble.
Another factor is our friend Dopamine. The decisions we make stick with us in part because we’ve learned that they release Dopamine in the brain. When the brain learns performing the unhealthy choice produces this chemical, It’s going to want to do it again.
Then we have overthinking. This brings me back to the original self improvement post (HERE). We think of all the shit we have to change in order to be healthier and it overwhelms us. “There’s no way I can do all that!” we tell ourselves. Or, we try to change everything all at once and it completely tears us apart and we revert to old ways.
The last one I’ll bring up is the opposite of the previous one – we don’t think enough. We choose unhealthy habits because we never take the time to consider all the repercussions of our decisions. Humans suck at delayed gratification and considering long-term effects of our choices. This is based on evolution, but that doesn’t mean we can’t overcome it.
I’m going to split each of these into their own separate posts. I want to dive into each in more detail and hopefully come up with practical ways to attack each. That way if one affects you more than the rest, you’ll have a possible stepping stone to working through it.
The next few posts will focus on these, so be on the lookout for those. If you’d like me to send them directly to you, sign up for the newsletter and they’ll arrive as they’re posted.
January 10, 2022
