I sometimes find it difficult to convince students to maintain proper alignment as they are coming into a pose. They would rather misalign to get the satisfaction of "achieving" the pose pose than to patiently wait for their body to be strong enough and flexible enough to get into the pose safely.
I could never verbalize this in a powerful way.
Then I stumbled upon an old notebook. where I had written the following:
The consequences of bad habits are delayed while the rewards are immediate.
With bad habits the immediate outcome feels good, but the ultimate outcome feels bad.
With good habits the immediate outcome feels unenjoyable but the ultimate outcome feels good.
This sums it up perfectly. You know how this feels if you ever tried to create a good habit. It takes effort and commitment to restrain yourself from falling into your old habits. But the moment you go for the immediate satisfaction instead of the restraint, you may feel guilt and remorse, not to mention that the goal you intended to reach with your good habit is now further away.
In yoga poses this translates into how good it feels for the ego to have achieved the posture, but misalignment repeated over time can cause pain and injury.
It’s hard to restrain ourselves. We often chafe against restraints. But energy restrained can be channeled into something finer. Remember: the ultimate outcome feels good!