Is Self-Inflicted Pain The Key To A Vibrant Retirement?

Exercise, good nutrition, meaningful relationships…why do the experts keep telling us the keys to a vibrant and healthy life include so much effort? Can’t we just not exercise, eat whatever we want, and expect people to do stuff for us without exerting any effort ourselves? That sounds pretty great; what could go wrong?

Truth be told, I struggle with all of these things. I prefer to sleep in and not exercise, eat pepperoni pizza at every meal, and lean into my introverted nature by hiding behind email rather than going out and interacting with people. It’s all a struggle, and I suspect you’re not much different than me. So often it seems that doing the right thing goes against our natural tendency.

So what can we do to create the life we want without inflicting too much pain on ourselves in the process? I think the secret lies in our habits. By creating a sustainable system for doing beneficial things without much further thought, we can become victims of our habits, but in the most positive sense. In other words, we endure great pain to setup the new habit, but we receive the benefits without having to think much more about the pain once the system is up and running. The key is to first identify the habit we want to create and do whatever is necessary to make it an actual habit.

Books have been written about such financial habits. One in particular is Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. In it he describes ways to setup your financial life on autopilot, using systematic investing programs, electronic bill pay, and other automated means to get you to your desired outcome by only suffering the pain once, when you set it up. Fitness experts suggest hiring a trainer or becoming part of an exercise community like Crossfit, to ensure that you’re building accountability into the process. Once you start showing up, it’s almost as painful to quit as it was to get started in the first place.

I suppose building deep and meaningful relationships is no different. Planning regular lunches and hangouts may be painful in the beginning, but how often have you looked back at an experience with a friend and thought, “That was great; we should do that more often!”

Life can become very busy for all of us. That said, I’ve seen the benefits of setting up and sticking with some basic and healthy habits. You have too, but I wonder if we couldn’t think of some other ways to live more fruitful and vibrant lives, if only we leaned into the pain of starting so that we could see the vast benefits of sticking with it. What’s that thing you’d like to improve upon someday that can only happen if you get started right now?

A vibrant life may require pain; that’s unavoidable. But what if we made more decisions to inflict more beneficial pain upon ourselves so that we experience the joy that results from improved health, wealth, and personal connections? Set it, and you won’t regret it.