| Immediate
satisfaction VS. long-term costs
The only reason you give in to a negative habit
is that at that moment, the immediate
satisfaction you get from giving in to your habit is more obvious
and persuading to you than the long-term cost you'll pay by
continuing your habit. When a person is
in their youth they feel good. They feel indestructible. Problems
like cancer, heart disease, sexually transmitted diseases, emphysema,
etc. may all seem very far away and thus may not seem threatening.
One cigarette isn't going to hurt. One candy bar isn't going
to make me fat. One sniff won't kill me (It could). The truth
that everybody needs to know is that habits are strengthened with
one candy bar, one smoke, one sniff... When you do things
as a teenager you are severely more likely to continue them as an
adult. Your best chance to stop a negative habit is to stop yourself
right now from taking that cigarette, candy, etc. From this moment
on it will get increasingly more difficult to stop with time.
Without being aware of it, our minds may tend to focus
on the immediate costs or benefits for a given choice. However,
if we make a conscious effort to focus on the long term costs or
benefits of that choice, we have the power to choose differently
and possibly more wisely.
When you are presented with a decision and need the
will power to refuse a bad choice, focus on the long term costs
of that choice. For instance when driving by a frozen custard shop,
force yourself to think of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
When offered a drug, force yourself to think of addiction, the financial
costs, and harmful side effects whether its cancer, brain damage
heart disease or death. If you do this on a regular basis, you will
automatically start associating that choice with the long term costs
instead of the immediate satisfaction. A frozen treat will no longer
represent pleasure to you. It will represent obesity, heart disease
and diabetes. A drug will no longer represent a pleasurable escape.
It will represent an increase in your problems and a lifetime of
addiction and harmful side effects. As a result these temptations
may even become disgusting turn-offs for you.
Remember, will power does not have to depend on your
emotional strength to resist temptation. Will power depends on your
ability to focus your thought - to focus on the long term consequences.
The more you do this, the stronger your will power will become.
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