#5 positive inertia
experience with what helped me build positive momentum towards health goals
“while universe resists change, it always rewards those who dare to overcome that resistance”
this week i came across the above quote and immediately after reading it, i started thinking about last year when i was embarking on my health transformation journey due to some complications. i remember, it felt really daunting and challenging to do things against the status quo. there was always an inclination to choose the path of least resistance — for instance, i would opt to sleep an extra hour instead of going for a morning walk, or i would snack right before bed instead of avoiding food for at least three hours before bedtime.
this got me thinking about the concept of inertia: it is a property of an object to resist change in its state of motion. this means that if an object is at rest, it tends to stay at rest and if an object is in motion, it tends to stay in motion with the same speed and direction, unless acted upon by an external force. when i was starting to improve my health, there was a high resistance to moving in the direction of all things healthy, but over time once things started moving in that direction, it became much easier to keep things in motion — and this is what i call the positive inertia.
my state of default has changed from indulging in unhealthy habits such as eating junk food, not exercising to preferring healthy practices such as eating a low-carb high-protein diet, going for walks/ runs regularly etc. and, now it has come to a point where negotiating with myself to not do healthy stuff makes me feel guilty.
throughout this entire journey, there have been certain learnings that i have had which helped me build this positive inertia. acknowledging them helped me in moving towards my health goals. i feel there is still a long way to go in keeping up with this momentum and becoming my best self. but, i am sharing below 2 learnings (which we often overlook/ forget) that have helped me the most. i think, if consciously remembering them could help me, there is a teeny-tiny possibility it could help readers in moving closer to their goals:
1/ resistance is natural
acknowledging that the resistance is natural and bound to happen helps a lot. when i started, my inner voice used to blame myself for not doing things that i thought were right to move towards my goals. but slowly, i started changing the way i spoke to myself. i acknowledged the negative force.
below excerpt summarizes it really well:
when we are fighting the status quo, we should consciously remind ourselves that physics is at play here — resistance is natural. we need to take consistent efforts to change the direction and build that positive momentum.
2/ optimism and long term view are crucial
in my experience, shorter feedback loops positively influence behavior adoption. for example, eating a dessert makes us feel good instantly, which can lead to a sugar addiction because we anticipate that immediate reward every time. that is why picking up habits that are not good for us is easier as it messes up the reward systems in our brain. whereas, whenever we take any action and if it doesn’t give us the result instantly (generally the good habits), we tend to lose interest in that activity. and, this is exactly what happens when we decide to become healthier versions of ourselves — for example, eating a salad doesn’t make us lose weight instantly, hence our minds tend to think the act of indulging in a healthy activity is not that beneficial and we defer it.
getting started is tough and requires an incredible amount of willpower to change direction. that's why most self-help books suggest breaking down habits into smaller parts. doing so reduces the resistance needed to overcome the status quo. for example, if you want to improve your nutrition, expecting to switch to a ketogenic diet from day one might not be effective. instead, taking small steps — like removing sugar from your diet or reducing how often you eat out — can help you move toward healthy eating.
being totally optimistic, trusting the process and having a long term view that you will see results in the future help a lot. and honestly, i have seen things compound in my health when i have been consistent and pushed through things (i have been able to overcome the health complications i was facing).
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with this, my hope is that consciously remembering the above things helps you move towards your health goals. do share if you have had any similar experiences :)
P.S: current goal that i am chasing is getting into the habit of running regularly (trying to build positive inertia here). it is tough since i have never been into sports since my childhood. but reminding myself the above learnings is helping a lot. today morning i hit my PR for 5K run! will keep you all posted with the progress
how sugar affects your body?
few days back, one of my friends shared this reel on instagram, which in a very visual and creative way explains how sugar affects our body. do watch it. (click on the image)
