Sometimes I hate training and eating healthy.

But the days I least want to stay on track are the most important.

Despite the lure of instant gratification around every corner, the tough decisions we make are the most crucial in determining how successful we’ll be.

This is the paradox of tough decisions.

If you accept the tough decisions like…

• Eating healthy when everyone is binging on chips, salsa, and margaritas.
• Training when you’re not motivated.
• Going to bed at the right time (so you can get up at the right time) instead of binging on Netflix

Then you’re making the tough decisions that’ll lead to you accomplishing your goals.

On the flip side if you…

• Lay in bed when you’re not feeling motivated.
• Fold like a lawn chair and eat what everyone else eats just to fit in.
• Stay up at night scrolling social media and watching TV vs. sticking to your routine…

Then you’re making the easy decision and walking down the path to failure. This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself and eat your favorite foods.

But the point is clear: The choice you make leads to feelings of accomplishment and happiness or regret and disappointment.

The beautiful thing is you get to choose.

Making tough decisions even when you’re not motivated separates those who stay the course and ultimately succeed from those who continuously feel “stuck” and not making progress. The reason being, difficult decisions lead to self-respect.

And self-respect creates the foundation for the decisions you make, how you view yourself, and by extension, how others treat you.

Remember easy decisions, tough life. Tough decisions, easy life.

Everything you want, including happiness, lies on the other side of accepting making difficult decisions.

You can do this.

You can build the body and life you want.

But it takes choices each day to move forward in the face of adversity, social pressure, and heck, friends, and family. But, should you accept the challenge, your best body, however, you define it, and happiness can be yours.