It’s unfortunate that when what we’ve intelligently decided we should do is at odds with what we FEEL like doing, what we FEEL like doing often wins.
Clearly, if we humans were designed as logically as we’d like to think we were, what we intend to do would always triumph over what we feel like doing, and there would be no such thing as poor follow through.
Make lemonade out of lemons
Fortunately, there’s a way to make lemonade out of lemons. If you’re clever enough, you can use the power of what you feel to get yourself to do what you intend to do. In other words, you can use what causes poor follow through to eliminate it! Seriously. How cool is that?
It may sound impossible, but it’s actually pretty simple. If you can figure out how to make yourself FEEL like doing the same thing you intend to do, by golly, you’ll do it. That’s right, you’ll follow through.
For Example…
Allow me to use a far-fetched example to illustrate what I mean.
Suppose you’ve intelligently decided that you should stop eating an unhealthy food that you absolutely love. There’s a big bowlful of it on the table and it’s calling your name. You feel so much like eating it, you can’t resist. But then someone comes along and generously saturates the food you love with a spice you absolutely hate.
Yuck. Suddenly, you FEEL LIKE not eating it. In other words, now you FEEL LIKE doing exactly what you intend to do. It now FEELS NECESSARY to follow through!
Feel it in your gut
With a little bit of creativity and some practice, you can get really good at deliberately designing practical situations that make following through FEEL necessary. Remember, the key is to FEEL in your gut — not just think in your head — that you MUST do exactly what you intend to do.