Originally published in South Coast Today.

It’s the season of peace on earth, good will toward men, eggnog and fudge.

And who amongst us has the discipline to refuse a delicious piece of fruitcake sent through the mail? The empty calories are inescapable, beckoning us around every corner and at an endless string of social gatherings.

And after the spiral ham hangovers come the feelings of remorse, bloating, condemnation, and the prospect of atonement. Fortunately, New Year’s is right around the corner, offering a clean slate and new beginnings.

The road to exercise disappointment is paved with good intentions and New Year’s resolutions. The lure of a new calendar year to turn over a new leaf is a perfectly timed siren song coming off a season of overindulgence, overspending, and the side effects thereof. But just because we have a seemingly fitting time to reform doesn’t mean that we’re any better at exercising self-discipline.

Studies have shown that you can only exert self-discipline for so long. Trying to fight hardwired behaviors through sheer will has a very poor track record.

Being overly ambitious with self-improvement is a one-way ticket to sedentary recidivism. Trying to quit smoking, start exercising, eat clean, drink more water, meditate, reduce your carbon footprint … all on a Monday, is too tall an order. Too much too soon usually ends in failure. But when our lifestyle changes are reasonably incremental and sustainable we have a realistic shot at success.

It doesn’t require great discipline to do what we enjoy doing. People who are regimented about exercise and those who successfully lose weight are often credited with being exceptionally disciplined. But their accomplishments aren’t necessarily a function of self-discipline.

When healthy lifestyle choices are hobbies and preferences, managing fitness is much easier. Nobody ever says “I wish that I had the will to play Fortnite for 10 hours straight like you,” or “I applaud the determination that it takes to eat 3 bags of chips a day.”

We do what we like to do. When it’s something that society approves of we’re praised, and when it’s something that society frowns upon we’re criticized.

A triathlete and a frumpy video-game enthusiast may be similar people in how they both satisfy their instinctual drives.

First and foremost, find something that you enjoy when it comes to choice of exercise. If you love running and hate biking, you should run. You have to actually do the exercise to reap its benefits.

My neighbor claims that the best piece of exercise equipment is his dog. He walks the dog several times a day and actually confesses that it’s the dog that walks him. Guilt prevents him from skipping this daily ritual, which doubles as exercise.

We all feel a certain degree of guilt about not using the exercise equipment that we bought with such good intentions. It’s one thing to ignore the inanimate dust collectors from our abandoned fitness pursuits, but it’s quite another to neglect a cute little doggie.

Motivation is what really counts when looking at who quits and who sticks.

Extrinsic motivation is the kind of motivation attributed to outside sources of reward or punishment: for example, getting good grades so that your parents will buy you an iPhone xs or cleaning your room so that your parents don’t take away your iPhone xs.

Intrinsic motivation is the stuff that comes from within, doing something because it’s personally rewarding. That person who loves to work out because of the sense of accomplishment and the feeling of empowerment.

Extrinsic motivation is more transient in nature than intrinsic motivation.

You lose 10 pounds for a wedding and then the wedding is done, and guess what?

The 10 pounds really didn’t change your life. The problem is that we’re motivated in the wrong ways. We use a lot of these fleeting incentives that don’t continue to motivate us in a lasting way.

We are also driven to exercise for payoffs that never come. It’s not a quick fix for health matters and it’s far less reliable, yet counted on, to help with stuff like popularity, delusive beauty expectations, and libidinous pursuits.

When you’re training like a champ and your Instagram followers don’t go up is what’s known as diminishing returns. When exercise doesn’t deliver what is fallaciously promised, we quit.

Those people who have some good intrinsic motivations are more successful at sustaining fitness as a lifestyle component. Liking the feeling of being fit and working hard, how exercise focuses the mind and opens up possibilities.

These are the kind of positives that can be there for you whether you bench 40 pounds or 400 pounds. It’s the kind of satisfaction that can be enjoyed throughout life, even as we age and fade in certain areas.

When we respond to exercise in a healthy physical way and a healthy emotional way, and it fills a need, and it continues to be gratifying, and it feels right … we can stick with it!