Don't Wait for Monday

“The days will go by whether you choose to do something with them or not.” So why do we wait until Monday to start that diet, or training program or to change any long-standing habits in our lives? Typically most of us wait until Monday to begin a task, however, Monday comes and goes and we are no closer to our goals than we were the Sunday night before and in the process we have treated the days leading up to Monday as a proverbial bachelor party, taking our habits to the heights of excess. Then we browbeat ourselves and feel downright crummy for the remainder of the week. To feel better, we go out for an ice cream just to feel crummy about that. We are our own worst enemies. We procrastinate, make excuses, lose passion, and then get depressed that nothing in our lives has changed. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Easting states that to “change your mindless eating you must change your environment.” It’s not good enough to just say that you’re going to stop drinking that double frappuccino with whip cream on your way to work you must change the route you drive to work so that you break the visual cues that create the desires for the drink. This seems to follow along with the research of Dr. Jeffrey Schaler who states in the book Addiction is a Choice "The view that addiction is a treatable disease is a lie, addiction is a behaviour.” The key to Schaler’s research is that choice dictates behaviour, not chemicals. He doesn’t argue the science behind what chemically happens in the body he argues that all addictions are behavioural choices. The choice is ours to start, continue, and therefore to stop. So why do we wait until Monday? Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? I would suggest that Monday symbolizes a fresh start, the beginning of a new week, a looking forward. So how do you stop the cycle? When you make the decision to change a habit, start a diet, add more exercise...do it today, now. Put down the cookie, put on your shoes, park farther from the door. Make today Monday, regardless of what day of the week it is.