Most people strive to do good things instead of bad things.
Sometimes, straightforwardly convincing yourself, “I am going to do a good, hard, rewarding thing x instead of a bad, easy, fun thing y,” is hard. The delta between polar actions is too large to consistently overcome with a single bound. I’ve found more success with the following line of reasoning:
1. I want to do bad thing x (e.g., eating a yummy cookie against my diet)
2. I will offset x by first doing good thing y (e.g., going on a run)
3. After y, I will wish to preserve the results of my good efforts and will therefore not do x
Bonus: after doing y, I am more likely to do good things of less effort because they are easier than y
This thought process occurred to me when I almost disrespected my calorie deficit by DoorDash-ing some tomato soup, garlic fries, and limeade at 10:30 PM. Instead, I went on a torturous run up the Berkeley campus. I hope this helps.
