Invest a portion of your disposable income automatically, and make “paying yourself” the first bill you pay. But make sure a portion of your disposable income is also fun money. That is what you can impulse spend, no questions asked. But when it’s gone, it’s gone. This whole process is just budgeting. You’re an adult and make reasonable money. You can be an adult with this too. You don’t have to trick yourself.
You’re right. I think my biggest hangup is I spent most of my life, adult or otherwise, scraping by. So up until now my concept of budgeting would only include paying bills by nature. I guess I do need to just advance my approach to budgeting.