When we want to make a change, like losing weight, exercising more, eating more healthy, we often make the change way harder than it needs to be by re-examining our decision every day. Again and again, we wake up and force ourselves to recontemplate the decision—”Do I still want what I wanted yesterday? Am I deciding to stick by that decision today?”

Two weeks after our original decision, what was originally one decision has turned into fourteen decisions.

Making any decision repetitively is tiring, and decision fatigue is a real thing. If we take this route, we inevitably hit a threshold from all the mental and emotional effort, and we give in to the easier, more immediately gratifying options. We eat the greasy burger. We stay in and veg out on the couch. We wind up back at square one.

Make the decision once, instead.

Catch yourself before you try and make that decision each day. Realise that you already made this decision yesterday, or last week, or last month. Unless new information comes to light (whether that’s external changes, or new insights from within your own head) that indicates there might be a compelling reason to make a new decision, you’re better off taking your first decision as a given, and spending your daily decision fatigue budget on making other, more impactful decisions (once).