Over the last few days it seems that I have had to try very hard to stay focused and on task. It seems like there is temptation everywhere – the temptation to eat less healthy food, the temptation to not return emails, the temptation to sleep in and not exercise – it feels like almost everything is a conscious chore to make sure I am doing what I think is the right thing to do. Will the world end if I eat poorly, ignore emails, and skip exercise? Of course not, but these are important items to me that also potentially have long term gains and consequences. While I may not feel like doing many of them lately, I know that deep down these are things I want to do.
I guess I could give myself credit for pretty much doing these things this week despite feeling the temptation not to do so. Some days, that is more than enough. But how do I ultimately overcome some of these temptations with automatically doing the right thing and not having to wrestle with the temptation itself? Is that even possible? Is temptation just a part of life? I tend to think so, but unfortunately I do not have the answer to this one.
However, there are things I know I can do to make the temptations less of a presence in my day. I can go to bed early enough that getting up early to exercise isn’t a big deal. I can wear some or all of my workout clothes to bed so I can just get up and go. I can keep unhealthy food out of our house. Sure, all these things are easier said than done, but the nice part is I can plan for some temptations, because for me I know they will come my way. How about you? Can you anticipate some temptations that come your way? Can you think of ways to help avoid them (assuming you want to avoid them)? Temptations will probably be around most of the time, but there are ways to make it easier.