Monday, January 17

Kings and Queens of Reasoning

It’s Sunday afternoon, and you’re still in your pajamas.  It occurs to you that you should head to the gym at some point in the day.  But you still have the house to tidy up and some laundry to throw in.  Oh, and you were hoping to run to the grocery store, too.  By the time you did that errand, it would be dinner time.  And you had been pretty good with your eating so far in the day, so it was no big deal if you didn’t make it to the gym.
It’s so easy to reason away those things you’ve committed yourself to!  I find reasoning far better than just making excuses.  With excuses, at least you feel a little guilty for your decision.  When you reason your way to a decision, there’s no guilt because you had perfectly good reasons!
But the scary thing is—I reasoned away my need to get to the gym for the entire month of December.
You can reason away your need to eat fewer calories.  You can reason away your need to drink plenty of water.  Saving your money.  Working reasonable hours.  Staying active.  Our commitments and resolutions float away on a river of reasons.
The best way I have found to help fight the urge to reason is to make sure I have rules and routine in place.  Every Monday I attend Body Attack and Fridays are Zumba nights.  As a rule, I try to get to the gym at least four nights a week.  On principle, I never schedule myself off days (because they seem to happen all on their own without me scheduling them).  When you have a rule that can stop you in your reasoning tracks, or a sense of routine that prevents you from even getting to that point where you’re reasoning away your need.
How to you keep yourself on track?  Do you find that once you start making reasons that it gets harder to get back on track?  What do you do to not give yourself room for reasons?

1 comments:

Becky said...

My friend Rae over at "Diminishing Returns" posted a great pic that is pretty relevant!

http://lockthefridge.blogspot.com/2011/01/today.html

Love it!



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