About a year ago, I wrote about learning to love my future self. Now it's time to expand on that idea.

We all know we should go to bed on time, eat right, and exercise. There's no magic pill: just follow these simple rules and you'll feel great.

"Simple," right?

In practice, following these rules is much harder than knowing them. And in my case, rationalization doesn't work at all.

I won't go to bed early because "scientific studies say so." And I won't exercise because it's "the right thing to do."

But I think I've found a key that works: take care of your future self.

For example, today you go to bed at 10 PM not because you "have to," but so that tomorrow's you gets enough sleep and feels good. And then tomorrow, you thank yesterday's you for treating yourself with love. And in turn, you also decide to take care of tomorrow's you. And you also go to bed early.

It works the other way too. If today you decide to relax and binge-watch YouTube, causing you to go to bed later, you'll likely not get enough sleep and will blame and scold yesterday's you tomorrow.

And the situation will repeat over and over.

But one day you can break this pattern and say to yourself in the evening: "I choose to take care of myself tomorrow; tomorrow's me will definitely appreciate it and be grateful to today's me."

And thereby start a new relationship with yourself, where you don't live for the day without regard for tomorrow. And you know that yesterday you took care of today's you, and today you'll take care of tomorrow's you.