What is temptation?

• You are on a diet, and everything you see looks delicious.

• You just got your paycheck, and somehow there’s a voice in your head telling you to spend some time at the mall.

• You are exercising in your house and suddenly that same voice in your head is telling you that all the exercise will not make you healthier.

All of that my friend, are temptation at its best. That feeling of wanting something so much when you are trying your best to avoid it. It is a part of you and thus you will never be able to stop it from haunting you your entire life.

However, not being able to remove it doesn’t mean that you have to surrender to it. You will need to declare a war with your temptation. Of course, not to all your temptation. Just the ones that are holding you back. I personally call this the greatest war of our life simply because it’s very hard to win a war when you yourself wanted to lose the war.

You will have to fight with all your might. If you want to make yourself healthier, you will have to fight that temptation to be a couch potato. And if you want to study, you may have to fight that urge to go out with friends clubbing. This war will never be easy. But it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE either. To actually win this great war, you may want to consider applying these tips.

Again with the diet example, if you are on a diet, remind yourself why you are dieting. If you want a better health, print some articles about people dying of heart disease, or how older people are able to run a marathon when they are healthy. Read the articles a few times a day. Or create a blog specifically for your progress to health. You will be researching a lot of health related issues and that itself will kick the temptation of ruining your diet out of the window.

There’s always “the shame” to help you win that battle with temptation. Publicly announce your diet plan. And if you ever want to break your diet, make it a rule that you will have to do it in front of your friends. This way, that shame will stop temptation from ever winning that round. Other emotion that can be manipulated are of course “Laziness” (Make the process of breaking your diet to be as hard as possible) and “Happiness” (Make every winning day a celebrated day)

I actually got this idea from a tv series about “Black Hole”. According to the show, our body and gravity are in a never ending war. An example is like rock climbing. You are fighting gravity with every step we took. Just imagine halfway up, you decided to let go, you will fall down to where you started. You may get a hold of a rock but you will be terribly injured and there is no way you can climb the rock as efficient as your first time doing it.

Just like the analogy, the fight with temptation is very much the same. If at any point you give in to temptation, you will fall back to our starting point. And most of the time, the journey to return back to our current place will be hundred times harder.

So whenever you are feeling like giving in to temptation, decide whether or not you want to drop back to where you started, and bear in mind that the next time will be so much harder.

The worst way to combat temptation is when you are being defensive. Being defensive means that you start giving excuses. You want to diet, after two weeks, you start craving for chocolate cakes. You will then start giving excuses to avoid chocolate cakes. Excuses like “Chocolate cake is bad for you”, or “There are too much calories in that cake”. These are debatable excuses which means that you will be able to argue with the excuse. You may eventually say that “If chocolate cake is bad, people will stop making them” or “It’s true that there are too much calorie, but what harm can a slice do?”

All these excuses are debatable. And when you start entertaining the conflict in you, you are losing the war by the minute. A good script to put an end to inner conflict are “I’m not discussing this” or “Period”.

What will happen to you if you were in a competition and you were defeated at every round. Your motivation will get weaker no doubt. The same thing happens to temptation. If you keep winning the war, the temptation will eventually be weaker.

Believe in this and you will see the amazing result faster. It is when you are totally in control of your desire and from that time on, only good things will come to you. What ever you strive to do, you will get it done, your focus will be razor sharp. Now, let me be the first to congratulate you on all the success waiting for you your entire life.

– I wonder –
Any other tips on conquering temptation that I may have missed?

————- Personal Note ———-
For my Muslim friends reading, I wish you all the best with Ramadhan (Fasting Month). This is the time when our control on temptation will be tested. I actually wrote a few articles on Things About Ramadhan You May Not Know last year. Hope you will enjoy it.

Photo Credit – Phooey