Every day, I find things that I’d like to in order to live a better life, such as doing a certain exercise every day, drinking enough water, or writing morning pages. These are all things that I know will make me feel better or learn more. So why are they so friggin’ hard to do consistently? My theory as to why these things are hard stems from Isaac Newton’s first law of motion: a body at rest tends to stay at rest. We humans operate kind of like lightening; we naturally want to take the path of least resistance. Most of us live a in a country prosperous enough to afford us a comfortable living in exchange for work that is oftentimes sedentary and mentally easy after the initial learning period. Because we can get along fine doing this kind of work, we’re content to spend the rest of our time diverting attention to TV, video games, and other things that are easy to consume. Still, we all have goals and know we could be doing more to reach them. Maybe it’s being leaner. Maybe it’s learning a new skill. Maybe it’s a big goal like writing a novel. Whatever our goals may be, the steps we need to take to achieve them are usually right in front of our faces. The hard part is getting up off our butts and doing them. Today I’m going to detail a technique I use to make myself do the things I know are necessary for reaching my goals. This technique involves removing the need to internally motivate yourself by setting up conditional events that make doing things necessary, or at least very, very easy.
So, What Are Conditional Events?
The way I think of conditional events is in the context of computer programming. In a computer program, a conditional event describes something that will be done once a certain condition is met. Most programming languages use “if” statements or “while” statements to accomplish this. Here’s a small example that anyone should be able to understand: This is pseudocode, meaning it’s not written in any particular language, but it should still illustrate the concept well. Basically, a conditional statement makes something happen every time something else happens. display welcome message }
How Can I Apply This To My Life?
Applying the logic of conditional events is quite easy, actually. I have a four-step process for incorporating a conditional statement into my own life that you can follow: Building conditional actions into your life in this manner has a very powerful effect: it eliminates much of the preparation involved in doing the desired action, thus removing any reason you could use to justify not doing it. Essentially, it makes working towards your goals a part of your daily routine. This is a really important fact, as something that’s part of your routine will take a lot less of your mental energy to do than something that’s been added on. Now that you know how to build conditional statements into your daily life, as well as why doing so is beneficial, let me provide you with a few examples of conditional statements I use in my own life. I’m sure you’ll be able to use at least one of them!
Goal: Drink at least a gallon of water a day. Conditional: Every time I use the bathroom, I down a 20 ounce bottle of water and refill it. This essentially creates a loop that keeps me well hydrated. Goal: Be able to do at least 15 pullups. Conditional: I put a pullup bar in my dorm room. Every time I come in, I do five pullups. This is a conditional I took from the Army; many basic training camps will make cadets do a few pullups before entering the mess hall for meals. Goal: Write down my thoughts every morning in a journal. Conditional: I made my computer be my alarm. Every morning, it wakes me up and I have to turn on my monitors to disable it. At this point, I’m already at my computer, so I sit down and write.
These are just a few ideas; there are literally endless possibilities for conditional statements you can build into your own life. Come up with some of your own, and start making headway on your goals! If you like, you can also share the ones you create in the comments to give inspiration to others.
