I am going to start exercising. I am going to start eating healthier. I am going to stop procrastinating. I am going to change.
Right now I’ve got that thing and that other thing, so I can’t change right now, but definitely tomorrow. I might as well finish that half-gallon of ice cream in the freezer. I don’t want it to go to waste, and tomorrow I am going to start losing weight. Today isn’t a good day to start, but definitely tomorrow.
These are the lies we all tell ourselves, and this is why we fail to change.
We are going to make all sorts of changes, but sometime in the near future, which means that it is really okay if we don’t change today. I mean, what’s another day in the grand scheme of things, right? The problem is that tomorrow you will still think that waiting another day won’t matter much, so the days will continue to add up to weeks, months, and years.
You WILL change, but not in the way you think.
We couldn’t get ourselves to change today, or yesterday, or the day before that, but we think that tomorrow will somehow be different. That’s because we think of our future selves as if they are completely different people.
We all have an unreasonable belief that our future selves will somehow be more disciplined than our present selves, even when we have done nothing to discipline ourselves TODAY. The result is that we delay making changes until the future.
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older;
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
– Time by Pink Floyd
The truth is if you don’t take action today, you will be even less disciplined tomorrow. You will have another day of training yourself not to change. It will be even harder to change tomorrow than it is today.
Practice discipline TODAY, not tomorrow.
What we do in life, echoes in eternity.
– Maximus (Gladiator)
What you do today is a great predictor of what you will do tomorrow. Never forget that when you are thinking about changing tomorrow and doing nothing to change today.
If you really want to change, ask yourself, what can I do TODAY to make myself stronger and more disciplined TOMORROW?
