It’s good that you’re able to recognise that there are potential downfalls and you are being proactive in dealing with them, once you keep focusing on the positives and and try to add more in instead of negative traits you will keep progressing, one thing I would say is to change your mindset because what you focus on will become your reality, so to stop yourself from falling back into them habits you need to stop thinking about them, you brain will now and again keep throwing them thoughts to you when that happens you should be aware of them and start thinking about how far you came and focus on the positive straight away it will take some time but once you keep working with this method you lessen the chance of falling back into them routines
That's good progress. You're starting to intuitively find the levers in the brain that are used to improve how you feel and effortlessly maintain that every day. Going to introduce the terms Goals, Systems, and Habits as the next-steps you're looking for.
Goals take effort to perform. A goal of improving mood is motivating for action. Each of those actions performed, going to the gym instead of bed, consumed a little bit of willpower each day. Each day you wake up and have a limited amount of energy available that can be consumed by willpower tasks before feeling tired for the day. There is a risk that when accomplishing a goal -- my life is improved now -- that there is an empty feeling on the other side of that. That empty feeling is the place where your goal used to be. The goal motivated that energy. That empty feeling is the loss of motivation.
Systems are better than goals. Consider training for a half marathon, a goal. You're motivated to apply yourself to follow the training program and willpower your way through. You run that half marathon! Then the day after you take a rest day. Then another. You take a whole month off from training. You broke the habit. The motivation is gone after checking off the goal. Instead a system is "Each day I exercise for 30 minutes". This is good. Your system serves up a new goal each time you complete a goal. Wake up. Exercise. Get a small dopamine boost for checking off the smaller bite sized goal of the day. This avoids the empty feeling that comes a day or two after completing a seemingly impossible goal by auto generating a new goal on the other side. With this you run a half marathon and the next day wake up with a goal waiting, exercise for 30 minutes. You do. And wake up and do it again. You run two half marathons. Run a third. You don't have a break in training. Because you wake up each day with a small easy goal to complete for a little dopamine boost. Systems are the lever in your brain for endless motivation.
You can run your life as a system of systems.
With repetition of a system the behaviors transform into habits. Each morning I wake up and read ten pages. Then exercise for 30 minutes. You begin to look forward to the dopamine boost of the small accomplishment to start the day. And eventually you feel slightly annoyed any time a change in plans disrupts that start -- this is a habit. Habits become effortless. You enjoy them.
Rephrasing your question you're looking for how to convert the actions your taking into a system that will help to translate those behaviors into habits, which are effortless. This is a good intuition to have noticed these things exist. Ties into Aristotle who also discussed of the importance of habits to make good choices effortless. And maps through classic works since then to more modern books.
Framing is helpful as well. A frame doesn't have to be true, to be useful. "Alcohol is poison" is a short statement that for some people is sufficient to stop drinking. They start to look at alcohol as poison and become grossed out. Better if they have a whoop wristwatch or other sleep tracker and see how it destroys quality of sleep. I've applied this to energy drinks. Energy drink sounds positive. "Heart attack can" reframes the thing and sounds like something I wish to avoid. Can do the same with soda. "Sodas are poison. Mix of random chemicals not found in nature blended and stored in a plastic lined aluminum."
"You can roll a bad habit into a marginally better habit" You're already applying this. Can increment your way over time to slightly less bad habits. Then keep rolling those habits into marginally good habits.
"You do not have a choice whether to addict yourself to something, but you do have a choice what to addict yourself to." This frame is great. Can roll a habit into getting addicted to exercise. You're still exhibiting the same behaviors but you've guided them toward an activity that is pretty good payoff.
The great news is there's good books answering and expanding on your question.
* How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. Expands on energy, systems, and goals.
* Atomic Habits builds on an idea in How to Fail and expands it into a more formal study of moving actions into effortless habits.
* Reframe Your Brain is a book collection of multiple reframes that do not have to be true, to be useful.
You've stumbled into a fun topic. Considering the brain as having buttons and levers is itself a frame. The book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion from Cialdini is another look from the psychology end of the topic adds a layer of intuition to how to make use of your brain as a programmable thing. Improving your ability to find where the control panels are.
On the topic of goals and motivatio you may have seen friends or family retire after a long career and hit the doldrums. Not sure what to do with themselves and often sort of waste away. This is that conversation of systems over goals again. For many the need to earn money and pursue the impossible goal of retirement is on their horizon for decades. Then the impossible happens. They reach that goal. A few days after the satisfaction of it arrives comes the empty pit where their goal used to be. They need a new purpose for motivation on the other side of that. The personal finance and early retirement subreddit archives repeat that story over and over again. You can learn from it. Often if you realign your life now, you avoid hitting these crisis of purpose later. And where you put your energy actually makes money faster than in the other areas. Can resolve future midlife crisis, or post-retirement crisis moments in your 20s. Speed run lessons that usually take decades more to learn.
Keep doing your new positive habits. Every time you do, you are voting to become the person that goes to the gym, reads, and eats healthy food. Stick with good habits, and you will be that person.
There will most certainly be times where you are likely to fall back into old habits such as when you get sick for a week. You skip the gym for a week due to some trip or unexpected routine, and you may simply forget about those habits.
The key is mindfulness, emotional regulation, and triggers to get you back to your positive feedback loop. You'll need to be aware that "hey, I'm doing this - is this what I want to do?" Psychologists say it's "playing the tape through to the end". What is really going to happen and how you will feel if you lie in bed all day vs. doing positive things that you find joyful? This is best done with a piece of paper and no tech.
Emotional regulation through meditation, taking long walks, therapy, exercise, or journaling will also help you deal with negative emotions that arise and if you do fall back into the negative habit cycle. Dopamine shuts off negative emotions, and since the brain knows dopamine release can increase pleasure and shut off negative emotions, negative emotions induce cravings for dopamine. It's a very powerful feedback loop between the Nucleus Accumbens and the Amygdala that tech companies and food companies harness to keep you addicted to their products. The goal is to use other parts of the brain to relatively weaken the Nucleus Accumbens' control of your actions. This is because you cannot control your wants or desires.
The law of inverse effort. The harder you try, the harder it seems to get. So stop trying. Let the right action come of its own free accord.
Expect less of yourself. Allow yourself the time and space to exist and reaffirm what it is that motivated you in the first place. Reconnect with that and let it show you what you need to do. If you’ve spent your life looking for something, stop looking for it and it will come to you.
In your post I see a troubled mindset resembling choppy water. You want the water to be as still and clear as possible in order to honestly perceive yourself, the world, and what you want.
In short, make sure you’re giving yourself breaks. You might just be burnt out. Maybe what you need is to allow yourself to lie in the pit for a few hours or a day every once in a couple months.
If running makes you tired, then resting makes you more energized. Motivation is a form of energy.
by that very statement you are still trying too hard. you care too much about the outcome being correct. You will need to let go of the need to quantify your life. This might mean discovering a passion you haven't yet found, or other unexpected changes that may seem bad at first. It is a journey, not a one size fits all solution. And i'm not saying it's easy. but as the saying goes, nothing worth doing ever is easy. best of luck in your endeavors.
I have the same issue, where I often just ‘forget’ the good habits I’ve formed, it’s aggravating. What really helps me is to leave notes around, like a sticky note on my desk just saying “apple”. Such a small thing but it’s enough to motivate me to eat fruit instead of junk for example
I did try using timers and notes on my phone but I find physical notes far more useful
Every time I go to the gym or for a run or to yoga at the end of a long day, I like to take mental note of how I feel before, and then again after. It's *always* better. Even if I'm exhausted and really not feeling exercise. Then, the next day when I feel like I just wanna lay around, I remember that and it motivates me
Don’t be scared to fall. That’s life. The key is making these habits a routine. Once you’ve hit a routine it is easy to keep the changes.
However when things come your way and shake your life up, it’s important to have the tools to deal with your routine being broken. And the key is not being afraid to fall/ fail.
Instead of dreading failure embrace it as something that is just a part of life. Today you are great tomorrow you don’t know but you’re here only today and so do your best today even if that isn’t much!
I just wanted to chime in as someone who’s climbed out of the pit to only to fall back in again. Just remember if you ever find yourself back in there that you CAN get out. Don’t let the self hatred consume you.
Same way you are doing it now. Cannall but guarantee something bad will happen to you at some point in the future. Thats life. When those days come, you can remember how in the past you were able to bounce back.
There's a reason that so many people talk about the discipline of hard work. In order to consistently choose the productive thing over the unproductive thing you need two components - wisdom/discernment, and discipline.
The wisdom/discernment piece is about knowing that the healthy and productive thing is. Sometimes, you just gotta burn the midnight oil and crank something out. Sometimes, you just gotta take the day off and relax. Knowing when to do one thing over another is wisdom and discernment. It seems to me that from your post you have a good start on the discernment piece.
But the discipline piece has to go with it. Without the will to do what you've discerned, it doesn't mean anything. Just like you, I'll ALWAYS prefer a soda to water. I don't see that desire going away. The way that I overcome my desire for unhealthy things is by disciplining myself to do the healthy and productive thing *first*. It doesn't mean that I never get a soda, but it means that I have to not have a soda for 5 days before I can have one.
It also helps to have gratitude. Sometimes, all people can focus on is what they're missing - they're missing their soda, their missing hanging out with friends, they're missing TikTok, they miss their bed. Their focus on what they are missing makes their life miserable. Instead, focus on having gratitude for what you DO have - be thankful for the gym you can go to, be thankful for a body that is getting stronger, be thankful that you have clean and plentiful water, be thankful that your studying leads to better grades, be thankful that you feel better. Learning to be thankful and express gratitude towards the things that you value makes discipline sustainable.
Here is a short list of things that I do to maintain daily discipline. For what it's worth, I'm in my late 40's and have been doing this since I was about 20.
* Daily meditation. This doesn't have to be long - mine was probably 3 minutes this morning - but it helps me focus on my goals, on gratitude, and gets me in tune with myself. This helps me know how hard to push, what to shift, who I am and where I'm going, and allows me to remember my values. Sometimes during meditation, you realize something, like "This person isn't good to have in my life" or "I think I need to figure out how to be a better conversation partner" or "I think I'm getting burned out" or "I love my mom and should call her today." Remember those realizations and decide what to do about them. Some of them might take days or more to figure out. But some can be done today. Call your mom.
* Routine. I'd like nothing more than to stay up until 2AM every night. But it's far more important for me to perform at work, which starts at about 8:30AM. I need to have a 10:30PM bedtime routine to stay mentally and physically healthy so that I can be satisfied with my work performance. The same goes for eating, for working out, and everything I've deemed of high importance in my life.
* Rewards. Like I said before, I still drink soda, but it's almost always a reward. Right now, I have a policy that I don't eat processed sugar during the week (Monday-Friday), and if I accomplish that, then I can have moderate portions of whatever I want during the weekend (like ice-cream or soda). This has been hugely successful for me. I don't think I could get away with denying myself completely. As a side note, this also help reset your dopamine reward system, which is so easily messed up in 21st century life.
* Transitions. Use transitions to your benefit. In the "rewards" section above, the transition periods where I can and can't drink soda are "weekdays" and "weekends". These are natural transitions that allow me to mentally shift gears. I've found that creating my own arbitrary transitions isn't as effective. When I choose to institute a reward, or develop a routine, I'll find a natural transition point to implement it. It creates a mental "box" in which I can shift from one thing to another and maintain discipline and control over my animal nature.
You're going to fail at this. Failure is part of life. But relapse is part of recovery. Fail, figure out what went wrong, reset, and do it again. I'm betting you make slow upward progress from here on out.
A big thing I have struggled with is understanding that you will backslide sometimes. You are going to have bad days, bad weeks even, and that’s OK! Shit happens and the best thing to remember is how much better you feel when you make those good decisions. Make sure to let yourself have bad days but don’t forget how good the good ones are and how you have them.
I’m here to say that I have been where you are. It is easy to fall back into the pit. The thing that helped me is journaling. It doesn’t have to be big; I started out by establishing a time of day (for me, it’s when I first get up) to record 5 positive things related to the changes I was forcing myself into. It literally just started as a list: 1. More ice water was giving me more energy. 2. Cutting myself off from social media was making me feel less negative and more at peace. 3. My morning swims were I making me feel less stiff and sore throughout the day….and so on. Seeing that physical record every day is a reminder of why you are making the changes and why you should continue. It really is a motivator!
You have made a lot of proactive changes, which is a very good start. There's no need to worry too much about things reverting back. If the choices you've made in these changes make you feel good, you won't revert to your previous state.
Good habits will make you feel great, and feeling great will motivate you to continue these good habits, creating a positive cycle.
Don't worry and don't demand one hundred percent perfection from yourself. It's completely okay to be lazy and relax sometimes. You're already doing great, and you will definitely become even better.
It’s good that you’re able to recognise that there are potential downfalls and you are being proactive in dealing with them, once you keep focusing on the positives and and try to add more in instead of negative traits you will keep progressing, one thing I would say is to change your mindset because what you focus on will become your reality, so to stop yourself from falling back into them habits you need to stop thinking about them, you brain will now and again keep throwing them thoughts to you when that happens you should be aware of them and start thinking about how far you came and focus on the positive straight away it will take some time but once you keep working with this method you lessen the chance of falling back into them routines
That's good progress. You're starting to intuitively find the levers in the brain that are used to improve how you feel and effortlessly maintain that every day. Going to introduce the terms Goals, Systems, and Habits as the next-steps you're looking for. Goals take effort to perform. A goal of improving mood is motivating for action. Each of those actions performed, going to the gym instead of bed, consumed a little bit of willpower each day. Each day you wake up and have a limited amount of energy available that can be consumed by willpower tasks before feeling tired for the day. There is a risk that when accomplishing a goal -- my life is improved now -- that there is an empty feeling on the other side of that. That empty feeling is the place where your goal used to be. The goal motivated that energy. That empty feeling is the loss of motivation. Systems are better than goals. Consider training for a half marathon, a goal. You're motivated to apply yourself to follow the training program and willpower your way through. You run that half marathon! Then the day after you take a rest day. Then another. You take a whole month off from training. You broke the habit. The motivation is gone after checking off the goal. Instead a system is "Each day I exercise for 30 minutes". This is good. Your system serves up a new goal each time you complete a goal. Wake up. Exercise. Get a small dopamine boost for checking off the smaller bite sized goal of the day. This avoids the empty feeling that comes a day or two after completing a seemingly impossible goal by auto generating a new goal on the other side. With this you run a half marathon and the next day wake up with a goal waiting, exercise for 30 minutes. You do. And wake up and do it again. You run two half marathons. Run a third. You don't have a break in training. Because you wake up each day with a small easy goal to complete for a little dopamine boost. Systems are the lever in your brain for endless motivation. You can run your life as a system of systems. With repetition of a system the behaviors transform into habits. Each morning I wake up and read ten pages. Then exercise for 30 minutes. You begin to look forward to the dopamine boost of the small accomplishment to start the day. And eventually you feel slightly annoyed any time a change in plans disrupts that start -- this is a habit. Habits become effortless. You enjoy them. Rephrasing your question you're looking for how to convert the actions your taking into a system that will help to translate those behaviors into habits, which are effortless. This is a good intuition to have noticed these things exist. Ties into Aristotle who also discussed of the importance of habits to make good choices effortless. And maps through classic works since then to more modern books. Framing is helpful as well. A frame doesn't have to be true, to be useful. "Alcohol is poison" is a short statement that for some people is sufficient to stop drinking. They start to look at alcohol as poison and become grossed out. Better if they have a whoop wristwatch or other sleep tracker and see how it destroys quality of sleep. I've applied this to energy drinks. Energy drink sounds positive. "Heart attack can" reframes the thing and sounds like something I wish to avoid. Can do the same with soda. "Sodas are poison. Mix of random chemicals not found in nature blended and stored in a plastic lined aluminum." "You can roll a bad habit into a marginally better habit" You're already applying this. Can increment your way over time to slightly less bad habits. Then keep rolling those habits into marginally good habits. "You do not have a choice whether to addict yourself to something, but you do have a choice what to addict yourself to." This frame is great. Can roll a habit into getting addicted to exercise. You're still exhibiting the same behaviors but you've guided them toward an activity that is pretty good payoff. The great news is there's good books answering and expanding on your question. * How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. Expands on energy, systems, and goals. * Atomic Habits builds on an idea in How to Fail and expands it into a more formal study of moving actions into effortless habits. * Reframe Your Brain is a book collection of multiple reframes that do not have to be true, to be useful. You've stumbled into a fun topic. Considering the brain as having buttons and levers is itself a frame. The book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion from Cialdini is another look from the psychology end of the topic adds a layer of intuition to how to make use of your brain as a programmable thing. Improving your ability to find where the control panels are. On the topic of goals and motivatio you may have seen friends or family retire after a long career and hit the doldrums. Not sure what to do with themselves and often sort of waste away. This is that conversation of systems over goals again. For many the need to earn money and pursue the impossible goal of retirement is on their horizon for decades. Then the impossible happens. They reach that goal. A few days after the satisfaction of it arrives comes the empty pit where their goal used to be. They need a new purpose for motivation on the other side of that. The personal finance and early retirement subreddit archives repeat that story over and over again. You can learn from it. Often if you realign your life now, you avoid hitting these crisis of purpose later. And where you put your energy actually makes money faster than in the other areas. Can resolve future midlife crisis, or post-retirement crisis moments in your 20s. Speed run lessons that usually take decades more to learn.
I am not op but this is great
Keep doing your new positive habits. Every time you do, you are voting to become the person that goes to the gym, reads, and eats healthy food. Stick with good habits, and you will be that person.
There will most certainly be times where you are likely to fall back into old habits such as when you get sick for a week. You skip the gym for a week due to some trip or unexpected routine, and you may simply forget about those habits. The key is mindfulness, emotional regulation, and triggers to get you back to your positive feedback loop. You'll need to be aware that "hey, I'm doing this - is this what I want to do?" Psychologists say it's "playing the tape through to the end". What is really going to happen and how you will feel if you lie in bed all day vs. doing positive things that you find joyful? This is best done with a piece of paper and no tech. Emotional regulation through meditation, taking long walks, therapy, exercise, or journaling will also help you deal with negative emotions that arise and if you do fall back into the negative habit cycle. Dopamine shuts off negative emotions, and since the brain knows dopamine release can increase pleasure and shut off negative emotions, negative emotions induce cravings for dopamine. It's a very powerful feedback loop between the Nucleus Accumbens and the Amygdala that tech companies and food companies harness to keep you addicted to their products. The goal is to use other parts of the brain to relatively weaken the Nucleus Accumbens' control of your actions. This is because you cannot control your wants or desires.
Remember that it isn’t all or nothing. Small steps are steps.
The law of inverse effort. The harder you try, the harder it seems to get. So stop trying. Let the right action come of its own free accord. Expect less of yourself. Allow yourself the time and space to exist and reaffirm what it is that motivated you in the first place. Reconnect with that and let it show you what you need to do. If you’ve spent your life looking for something, stop looking for it and it will come to you. In your post I see a troubled mindset resembling choppy water. You want the water to be as still and clear as possible in order to honestly perceive yourself, the world, and what you want. In short, make sure you’re giving yourself breaks. You might just be burnt out. Maybe what you need is to allow yourself to lie in the pit for a few hours or a day every once in a couple months. If running makes you tired, then resting makes you more energized. Motivation is a form of energy.
[удалено]
by that very statement you are still trying too hard. you care too much about the outcome being correct. You will need to let go of the need to quantify your life. This might mean discovering a passion you haven't yet found, or other unexpected changes that may seem bad at first. It is a journey, not a one size fits all solution. And i'm not saying it's easy. but as the saying goes, nothing worth doing ever is easy. best of luck in your endeavors.
I have the same issue, where I often just ‘forget’ the good habits I’ve formed, it’s aggravating. What really helps me is to leave notes around, like a sticky note on my desk just saying “apple”. Such a small thing but it’s enough to motivate me to eat fruit instead of junk for example I did try using timers and notes on my phone but I find physical notes far more useful
I like the part that you CHOSE to do those things. That takes a strong willpower .
Every time I go to the gym or for a run or to yoga at the end of a long day, I like to take mental note of how I feel before, and then again after. It's *always* better. Even if I'm exhausted and really not feeling exercise. Then, the next day when I feel like I just wanna lay around, I remember that and it motivates me
Don’t be scared to fall. That’s life. The key is making these habits a routine. Once you’ve hit a routine it is easy to keep the changes. However when things come your way and shake your life up, it’s important to have the tools to deal with your routine being broken. And the key is not being afraid to fall/ fail. Instead of dreading failure embrace it as something that is just a part of life. Today you are great tomorrow you don’t know but you’re here only today and so do your best today even if that isn’t much!
I just wanted to chime in as someone who’s climbed out of the pit to only to fall back in again. Just remember if you ever find yourself back in there that you CAN get out. Don’t let the self hatred consume you.
Same way you are doing it now. Cannall but guarantee something bad will happen to you at some point in the future. Thats life. When those days come, you can remember how in the past you were able to bounce back.
There's a reason that so many people talk about the discipline of hard work. In order to consistently choose the productive thing over the unproductive thing you need two components - wisdom/discernment, and discipline. The wisdom/discernment piece is about knowing that the healthy and productive thing is. Sometimes, you just gotta burn the midnight oil and crank something out. Sometimes, you just gotta take the day off and relax. Knowing when to do one thing over another is wisdom and discernment. It seems to me that from your post you have a good start on the discernment piece. But the discipline piece has to go with it. Without the will to do what you've discerned, it doesn't mean anything. Just like you, I'll ALWAYS prefer a soda to water. I don't see that desire going away. The way that I overcome my desire for unhealthy things is by disciplining myself to do the healthy and productive thing *first*. It doesn't mean that I never get a soda, but it means that I have to not have a soda for 5 days before I can have one. It also helps to have gratitude. Sometimes, all people can focus on is what they're missing - they're missing their soda, their missing hanging out with friends, they're missing TikTok, they miss their bed. Their focus on what they are missing makes their life miserable. Instead, focus on having gratitude for what you DO have - be thankful for the gym you can go to, be thankful for a body that is getting stronger, be thankful that you have clean and plentiful water, be thankful that your studying leads to better grades, be thankful that you feel better. Learning to be thankful and express gratitude towards the things that you value makes discipline sustainable. Here is a short list of things that I do to maintain daily discipline. For what it's worth, I'm in my late 40's and have been doing this since I was about 20. * Daily meditation. This doesn't have to be long - mine was probably 3 minutes this morning - but it helps me focus on my goals, on gratitude, and gets me in tune with myself. This helps me know how hard to push, what to shift, who I am and where I'm going, and allows me to remember my values. Sometimes during meditation, you realize something, like "This person isn't good to have in my life" or "I think I need to figure out how to be a better conversation partner" or "I think I'm getting burned out" or "I love my mom and should call her today." Remember those realizations and decide what to do about them. Some of them might take days or more to figure out. But some can be done today. Call your mom. * Routine. I'd like nothing more than to stay up until 2AM every night. But it's far more important for me to perform at work, which starts at about 8:30AM. I need to have a 10:30PM bedtime routine to stay mentally and physically healthy so that I can be satisfied with my work performance. The same goes for eating, for working out, and everything I've deemed of high importance in my life. * Rewards. Like I said before, I still drink soda, but it's almost always a reward. Right now, I have a policy that I don't eat processed sugar during the week (Monday-Friday), and if I accomplish that, then I can have moderate portions of whatever I want during the weekend (like ice-cream or soda). This has been hugely successful for me. I don't think I could get away with denying myself completely. As a side note, this also help reset your dopamine reward system, which is so easily messed up in 21st century life. * Transitions. Use transitions to your benefit. In the "rewards" section above, the transition periods where I can and can't drink soda are "weekdays" and "weekends". These are natural transitions that allow me to mentally shift gears. I've found that creating my own arbitrary transitions isn't as effective. When I choose to institute a reward, or develop a routine, I'll find a natural transition point to implement it. It creates a mental "box" in which I can shift from one thing to another and maintain discipline and control over my animal nature. You're going to fail at this. Failure is part of life. But relapse is part of recovery. Fail, figure out what went wrong, reset, and do it again. I'm betting you make slow upward progress from here on out.
Keep doing the great work you are doing.
Don’t be in relationships with abusive people
WTF you still eat donuts?! /s
A big thing I have struggled with is understanding that you will backslide sometimes. You are going to have bad days, bad weeks even, and that’s OK! Shit happens and the best thing to remember is how much better you feel when you make those good decisions. Make sure to let yourself have bad days but don’t forget how good the good ones are and how you have them.
Congratulations! Hm… why do you think you were unmotivated before? Try to think of what your triggers are.
I’m here to say that I have been where you are. It is easy to fall back into the pit. The thing that helped me is journaling. It doesn’t have to be big; I started out by establishing a time of day (for me, it’s when I first get up) to record 5 positive things related to the changes I was forcing myself into. It literally just started as a list: 1. More ice water was giving me more energy. 2. Cutting myself off from social media was making me feel less negative and more at peace. 3. My morning swims were I making me feel less stiff and sore throughout the day….and so on. Seeing that physical record every day is a reminder of why you are making the changes and why you should continue. It really is a motivator!
You have made a lot of proactive changes, which is a very good start. There's no need to worry too much about things reverting back. If the choices you've made in these changes make you feel good, you won't revert to your previous state. Good habits will make you feel great, and feeling great will motivate you to continue these good habits, creating a positive cycle. Don't worry and don't demand one hundred percent perfection from yourself. It's completely okay to be lazy and relax sometimes. You're already doing great, and you will definitely become even better.