Resistance is one of the most important concepts to improve our lifestyle.
What is Resistance?
Resistance is anything that stops us from the current flow of things.
In Physics, it is defined as — any mechanical force that tends to retard or oppose motion
Those who have studied physics know that it’s a very important concept. But how can we use that in our day to day life?
We humans are lazy. A lot of people won’t accept it but at some level we are all lazy when it comes to certain things. There are certain things we really want us to do and initially we get motivated and start it and as we all know, motivation is short lived and then we stop. This happens with very simple things like eating healthy, going to the gym, checking out phones etc. Even though these things are small (but they do have bigger long term impact if you think about it), these things make up our long term lifestyle.
So what does resistance have to do with all these things you might ask? Let’s set up a small scenario to find that relation:
Bob is a 32 year old male, who has a good job and a decent life. One thing he is missing from his lifestyle is going to the gym 5 days a week. He searches for a gym and finds two affordable gyms. One is 2 miles away and another one is 0.1 mile away. Bob makes a list of pro and cons in order to decide which gym to go to:
Now if bob wants to go to gym 5 days a week which gym should he chose so that he can achieve his goal?
One can say that the right answer depends on person to person but the point I want to mention is, Bob should go where he feels the least resistance to go to the gym. For example, if Bob is lazy for driving a car, choosing GYM 1 would be a mistake as he will start but eventually will stop since he has to take his car out. If he chooses GYM 2, he has less resistance since he can easily walk to the gym.
The beauty of this concept is, it works in both directions. If we want to do something - decrease resistance. If we want to avoid something - increase resistance. Here are few example that could work:
Want to avoid eating unhealthy snacks - Don’t buy them. If there are no unhealthy snacks at home, it would take some effort to get up, go to the grocery store (or order online) and you might stop already thinking about the effort.
Want to use your phone less - Keep it away from your workstation or couch. You will be very lazy to get up all the time to check your phone.
Want to go gym to gym more - Join a gym which is closest to your home.
Want to read daily - Keep some books closer to wherever you spent time sitting (Living room near the couch, bedroom near the bed etc.)
If we accept that humans are lazy and use that to our advantage, resistance is a very important concept we can involve in our daily life to improve our lifestyle. And once we have mastered the concept there are a lot of other things we can do with it in all aspects of our life.
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