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I wonder whether the below sentence makes sense.

I'm finding very hard to make it a habit to do things I'm reluctant that are considered good.

What I want to say is 1) I'm finding very hard to make it a habit to do things that are considered good. 2) Those good things are something I'm not very interested or I'm reluctant to work on (e.g. doing regular exercise, eating healthy, reading more books, being more social, etc).

I'd like to say it in a single sentence, without breaking into two sentences. Thank you in advance for your help!

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  • 1
    Your sentence is crowded and that makes it awkward. Replace the 'make it' with 'develop' and drop the 'considered' -- then it can be somewhat simplified as "I am finding it very hard to develop some good habits [that] I am reluctant to work on." 'That' is optional here and is implied even if not written.
    – English Student
    Jul 8, 2017 at 15:44
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    A friendly word of warning here: English has these wonderful things called demonstrative determiners, so you should use them. 😜 Below makes for a poor adjective—notice that “How many below sentences are there?” is ungrammatical. Your use of “the below”, though common in various Asian English dialects, is regularly replaced by other words elsewhere, as it sounds unnaturally stilted. Saying "the below” sounds bad to many and perhaps most native speakers, who never reach for it when “this/these/that/those” would do, nor even when “the following” would do.
    – tchrist ♦
    Jul 8, 2017 at 16:32
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    Just to say the below sentence sounds terrible. Use the sentence below.
    – Arm the good guys in America
    Jul 8, 2017 at 18:06
  • 'I find discipline difficult.' Although this is hardly worth saying.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Jul 8, 2017 at 21:48
  • Thank you @tchrist for enlightening me! I guess I have a tendency to incorrectly use "the below"...
    – Joey
    Jul 9, 2017 at 2:35

3 Answers 3

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Some possibilities include:

  • I’m finding it hard to overcome my reluctance to do things that are good for me.
  • I’m finding it hard to overcome my reluctance to form a habit of doing things that are good for me.

  • I’m finding it hard to overcome my reluctance to do things that are good for me, especially on a frequent basis.
  • I’m finding it hard to overcome my reluctance to do things that are good for me, especially habitually.

  • I’m finding it hard to do things that I don’t like to do, even if they’re good for me.
                        (or “that I don’t enjoy [doing]”)
  • I’m finding it hard to form a habit of doing things that I don’t like to do, even if they’re good for me.

  • I’m finding it hard to do things that are good for me, if I don’t like to do them.
                        (or “if I don’t enjoy [doing] them”)
  • I’m finding it hard to form a habit of doing things that are good for me, if I don’t like to do them.

Replace “good for me” as needed (e.g., with “good for society” or “good for the community”, etc.)

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  • Thank you @scott, I like the first one, short and concise!
    – Joey
    Jul 9, 2017 at 2:30
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The problem with your sentence is that "I'm reluctant" lacks context and needs extrapolation. The reluctance might refer to your habit or to the consideration of goodness, and only your comment made it clear.

How about this: "I'm finding it very hard to make it a habit to do things that are considered good when I only reluctantly agree."

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I'm finding it very hard to make it a habit to do things that are considered good, but I'm reluctant to do.

(This is not most fluent, clear sentence. I wanted to make only minimal changes to your original, not a major editing job.)

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