Word for something that is not actually hard to do, but doing it goes against your instincts?

Question

Example actions: working out, taking an ice bath, cleaning your house, admitting when you are wrong.
These things are not difficult to actually do, but are often described as hard, when in reality they are things that go against your instincts, so your brain tries to convince you to not do them due to instincts like conservation of energy, ego protection, etc.
The best word I have for this is just “a thing that requires mental discipline”. I am looking for something like non-instinctive, but with an additional clause of not actually being difficult to do. Or when the only barrier to doing a simple task is your own instincts. Does this word exist?
Example usage: “I need to go work out, but I am reluctant to do so because it is really ____.”
Thank you!

LPH · Answer

Since you are focusing your analysis of this behaviour on the instinctual drive that you seem to recognize in it, why not use the very term "instinct" in a somewhat novel construction such a "counter-instinctual" or "counter-instinctive"? The prefix "counter" is freely productive and "instinctual" or 'instinctive" seems also like the sort of adjective that can enter into such a combination with the prefix "counter".

(SOED) counter A freely productive prefix forming vbs, n. and adj. […] forming adjs. from ns. and adjs. w. the sense 'contrary to, in opposition to' as counternatural

You find the already current forms "counter-intuitive" and "counter-productive".

I need to go work out, but I am reluctant to do so because it is really counter-instinctive.

user405662 · Answer

I suggest the idiom go against someone's grain:

to not seem right or natural to someone.

It goes against his grain to question the boss's judgment.
[Merriam-Webster]

On a side note, are you sure working out is the sort of thing that goes aainst your instincts? Everyone does "work out" every once in a while if I may say so, right? Apart from that, the suggested idiom seems to cover your question very well.

Word for something that is not actually hard to do, but doing it goes against your instincts?

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