The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
MM EP 22: Feel Good Avoidance
We challenge the “I’ll start Monday” loop and show how delay feels good while keeping us stuck. Practical micro-steps replace excuses so we can build momentum with tiny, honest actions today.
• the Monday reset trap and weekend guilt
• how delaying creates false comfort
• repeating patterns with fitness, food and reading
• why micro-commitments build self-trust
• simple fallback plans for busy days
• friction and ease design for habits
• measuring success by kept promises
Thank you for joining me on this week's Mindful Moment. I look forward to seeing you right here next week on Mindful Moments
Welcome back to Mindful Moment. How many times have we said, on Monday, I'm going to get back to exercising? I'm going to get back to eating right. That's after the weekend when we felt all cruddy. We couldn't fit in any clothes. We just ate all kinds of junk. We felt our belly pooching out. We just felt miserable. So on Saturday, after we get done all that, because we did it on Friday, we did on Saturday, we say, come Monday. I'm going to get my act together. I'm going to start exercising. I'm going to eat better. And then Sunday we just eat like junk and lay around. Don't do anything. Because Monday is when we're really going to hit it. Monday rolls around. You kind of had a busy evening on Sunday. You kind of wake up tired, like, I don't really feel like going to the gym. And you kind of planned your lunch on Monday, but not really. And something came up. So you just went through the drive-thru and that afternoon go, oh man, I was going to start today. But tomorrow, tomorrow I'm really going to start. I'm going to get started. And then Tuesday rolls around, and same thing happens. We get busy, we get up late. We don't have time to go to the gym. We don't have time to go for a walk, a run. We really had to work through lunch and then really starving. So just went through, got a snack in the fast food restaurant on the way home. Okay, on Wednesday, I'm really going to get started. And we keep this pattern up. And we keep avoiding the thing we need to do. But we feel good about it because we say, now tomorrow, okay, I'm really going to get on track. You know, I tend to do this every year when it comes to reading. I really want to read so many books in a year. So I tell myself, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that. The year rolls around. I start pretty strong. And then halfway through the first month, I'm like, oh, I'm behind. But next month I'm really going to do it. And then I read less the next month and less the next month. And I find myself for the third year in a row going, this is the year I'm really going to do it. But I think we're all guilty of telling ourselves, okay, it's okay. You're all right. You're going to start when, and we set a date. Because then that makes us feel better about ourselves for not doing that thing. And then we just perpetuate it and it keeps happening. And it keeps happening because we avoid that thing we're going to start. And the way we make ourselves feel good about it is by saying, okay, I'm going to do it this time. And we all know that time rolls around and we don't. And we do it again. We make ourselves feel good by avoiding it because we say, okay, Monday, okay, on Sunday, okay, next year, okay, the first of next month. We give ourselves, okay, we're going to do it. Knowing all the while, just to make ourselves feel good, to not have to do it now. We keep avoiding it by making ourselves feel good. And that becomes a pattern. So we have to break that cycle of, okay, tomorrow. And we have to start taking out the excuses. The excuses is what causes us to keep it going, to keep it till next week, till two days from now, till two weeks from now, till next month. We make the excuses when all the while we know we're not going to do it. So we have to stop with the excuses and say, look, self, you've you've it's it's enough. Start now. You didn't get lunch, so don't go through the drive-thru. Wait till supper. You're gonna make it. Sit down and read 10 minutes a day. Get that book read. Now speaking myself as much as I am you. You didn't you didn't get up in time for a full 45-minute workout, but can you get 20 minutes in? Can you put on your shoes, put on your gym shorts, put on your gym clothes, can you get 15 minutes in? Those acts of keeping the promise to yourself and saying, you said you're gonna do it and do it, they start to build. And we start to get rid of that avoidance and making ourselves feel good, avoiding it because we say we're gonna do it. So stop the feel good avoidance cycle and just start doing it now. It may not be all you want, it may be two minutes of reading, it may be five minutes of exercise, it may be one small healthy meal, it may be skipping a meal if that meant going through a drive thru. Start those things now and stop the feel good avoidance cycle. Thank you for joining me on this week's Mindful Moment. I look forward to seeing you right here next week on Mindful Moments.