Impact of forethought, planning, and preparation

Think about it, make a plan, and prepare yourself to act on the plan. I bang on and on about this in my articles and probably in this blog. Here is an every day example. Like many, I am amongst the group of people who tend to have a glass or two of wine to relax in an evening. Also like many, I know that drinking every day is not good for my health. Every so often, I have applied a bit of will power and given it up for a few weeks. I feel better and by and by slip back into the same habit. My experience of applying will power to break the habit has been an uncomfortable one. I don’t like denying myself the pleasure I have associated with drinking the wine.

Stop. That doesn’t make sense. How can I live with the conflict? How can I get pleasure from drinking something that I know is killing me?

I have to break this association. It is, after all, just that - an association that I have formed at some unconscious level. There is nothing intrinsically pleasurable about drinking old juice that is well past it’s ‘sell by’ date. Imagine eating eggs that were twelve months old, or more.

That’s it, the solution is to use forethought, planning, and preparation to break the erroneous mental association. It is well worth taking twenty minutes to use introspection and tease out the buried associations. Then when you study them in the light of day, they evaporate. It is that easy to eliminate the pain of withdrawal. Will power works but it’s hard to inflict pain on yourself, especially after a tough day or some other crisis or intrusion. Taking the time to destroy the useless associations that accidentally form in ones head destroys the pain of giving up an unworthy habit.

Try it. What have you got to lose?