How many times have we eaten that burger and fries (and a candy bar 45 minutes later) because it’s “just one meal”?

Over the years I’ve become the connoisseur grandmaster of justifying my bad habits. 

It’s just one meal.

I’ll start back tomorrow. 

We have to celebrate. With food.

My foot kind of hurts. 

Just one more hand of blackjack.

But here’s the thing: It’s not ever just one. 

And even worse than the calories or the missed training opportunity? The psychological path of destruction we go down when we start convincing ourselves what we’re saying makes sense. 

The toxic thinking perpetuates itself into everything we do.

I know personally if I start letting myself slip in one area, everything inevitably comes tumbling down beside it until I’m sitting at the computer at 11:30 p.m. refreshing Twitter wondering how I let the day become such a waste. 

When things go bad, they go real bad; we know that. 

But when they’re good—and they will go good—you know just how good it can be. 

The thinking game goes both ways. 

My dad said it best: “Act your way into right thinking.”

Just keep going if for no other reason than you know you should. And when you do? Things get good again. And we relish the moments.

We look for excuses to run.

We do pushups in the middle of the day for no good reason. Just because we like the dead arm feeling that accompanies it.

We pump our fists in victory when, instead of going to the kitchen at 11 p.m., we head for the bed because we know nothing good happens in the kitchen after 7. 

Consider this nothing more than a simple reminder.

The mindgames can be good. Make them happen.