Relinquishing Control - 14

When trying to enforce (upon myself) new habits and behaviors, I've always acted as though I have a choice in doing them. That's natural, since I do: I am able to make the decision to do or not to do something. This results often in me making the wrong choice.

I want to try a little experiment. What if, instead of the mentality of I am making a choice to do this, I tell myself that I am not in control? It seems a little weird, of course. It would be interesting, though, to see how I react mentally to this idea. If, when I have a thought that goes against my desired outcome, I simply say, "This is not a choice," how will I react mentally?

I'm unsure as to whether this is a unique idea, or if it's just resurfaced in my mind. Now that I think about it, I recall listening to a podcast over the summer from CGP Grey in which he mentions his idea that "exercise is non-optional" (I'd link it but I don't remember the episode - here's the show at least), even under shelter-in-place orders. This is pretty much in that same vein - preventing oneself from even considering alternatives - so maybe that idea just resurfaced in a slightly different form after it had some time to marinate.

Now, I've been lucky enough to live most of my life with relative freedom. My upbringing, schooling, and social environment in general have pushed me to think freely and make informed decisions about my own life. I've followed rules when I've thought they're reasonable (and broken them when I haven't) but it's always been my decision. Thus, my brain isn't really used to dealing in absolutes like "I will not do ___ " or "I cannot ___ " (in their archaic-ish, formal command tense like "you will clean the floor"). Whether this will be beneficial to my cause.

If this makes a splash whatsoever in my life, I'll make an update post.

(also, we're at two weeks! only... uh, ~13.3 left to go. Great.)