Hi my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

Pretty much any behavior produces multiple outcomes across time, right? Like if you eat a donut right now it's tasty and sugar. But in the long run you gain weight and so the the immediate outcome is favorable the long-term outcome is unfavorable with good habits to stop on the reverse

Like you go to the gym right now and it takes effort you sweat you have to work hard the immediate outcomes

unfavorable but the ultimate outcome you're in shape and in a year or month or

whatever is favorable and so the challenge for building good habits and breaking bad

ones is often finding a way to pull the long-term

consequences of your bad habits into the immediate moment so you feel a little bit of pain right now

and want to avoid it. And the long-term rewards of your good habits into the immediate moment

so you have a reason to repeat it again in the future.

The ultimate form of immediate gratification

is the reinforcement of your desired identity.

So you go to the gym and you're reinforcing the identity of I'm the type of person who doesn't this workouts.

Or you show up to write and you're reinforcing the identity of I'm someone who writes every day.

And so you get a little bit of immediate satisfaction from being that person and being aligned with your

identity, your values, your principles. But you also get the long-term rewards from showing up every day.

And so what you don't want is some kind of immediate reinforcement like eating a donut at the gym,

where you're casting votes for two different identities.

Right, it's like, I showed up at the gym, I'm casting a vote for being a type person who doesn't just work out, the type of person is healthy.

But then I eat a donut, so now I'm casting a vote for being an unhealthy person.

So I'm kind of like you walkers out.

So you want, you want to reinforce them that align with your principles and values.

I think that your habits are the way that you embody an identity.

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