Now or Then?

(via)

I was reading this article last night and it talked about how we tend to focus on long term goals instead of short term ones.  They talked about how health or any goals we have can fail based on a concept called "delay discounting" and the further off the reward the more we tend to discount it.  Or sometimes it seems so unattainable that it ends up losing its value.  But if you make the reward more immediate it might be easier to make choices that ultimately end up getting us toward our goals.

Like instead of skipping workouts you have to remind yourself why doing them makes you feel good today.  Does it give you stress relief?  Start your day off right?  Make you feel like a beast to conquer that hard exercise or give your all?  Does it give you that much deserved 'me time?'

I read this at a point I felt like I was at the bottom of a pit with Nate Fisher shoveling dirt on my grave.  I have an avalanche of crap that needs to be done with various timelines, some negotiable and some not.  It's the same avalanche I find myself in this time every year.  I know it's coming and I do nothing to get myself out from under it but always keep my eye on the future reward whether that be a vacation, reaching more people, reaching weight loss goals that seem like they will never come and all that jazz.

I have to focus on what will relieve the stress off of me today!  (This post being one of them.  Sometimes I stare at the screen and say "yeah...I got nothin'.")  Then I begin to worry that I'm not an inspiration anymore and why the heck would you stick around here when there are so many other people who are actually moving forward.  Basically totally discounting the success I touted yesterday about how we rocked it food and movement wise on a mini vacay because I know we live in a very "what have you done for me lately, Miss Jackson?" kind of world.  I'm not saying that to fish for compliments or petty crap like that, I'm just trying to relay the thought process.  It tends to be that way when I go through an episode.  My current episode is one that just has me completely sh*tting on myself for a lot of things I have failed at.  Some of it has to do with comparisons...everyone else is better and I suck.  It's an episode that is coming at the worst possible time because again, I have nothing but this Jenga skyscraper wobbling over me and any second it's going to crash down and bury me.

Why the eff I don't I do a to do list??  I know how good it feels to physically cross something off of that list yet here I sit.  It would go a long way to help me prioritize what needs to get done most urgently that will eventually benefit me long term.  I need to make that a priority this morning so I can see what I can do today to eventually make for a better tomorrow.

Do you only plan for the long term and avoid planning for the short term?

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