“If you conquer yourself, then
you conquer the world”
Paulo
Coelho
It’s true that you can’t
change other people, but you can change yourself - by taking control.
Better still, self-control is
a proven and significant key to success. Let’s see how you can develop your own
self-control even further, through understanding and using two key ingredients:
willpower and habit – providing an incredible way to free yourself, and be more
successful at the same time.
Many of us are constrained by
our habits and a certain degree of lack of self control.
Whether it’s in the realms of
actively exercising regularly, resisting another chocolate bar, the way we deal
with emails, or high level decision-making, better self-control can boost our
productivity, improve our health, make us more money, and even lengthen our
lives!
Utilising self-control means
realizing and displaying your inner power –
whereas lack of self-control
is a weakness.
If you want to succeed – take
control of your self control!
There is a direct connection
between self-control and success, as extensive long-term research proves, and
using this knowledge to your advantage can
turbocharge your own success.
In the ’60s, Mischel, a
sociologist, conducted an experiment to see if young children could resist
instant gratification. He offered them the choice of having one marshmallow
now, or two marshmallows if they
could wait 15 minutes. Many chose instant gratification rather than exerting
the willpower to wait. Years later, he tracked down some of the children, and
discovered something startling. Those with high self-control – those who had
held out for two marshmallows – grew into healthier, happier and wealthier
adults. Those with low willpower did less well academically (despite having
similar IQs). They were more likely to be in low-paying jobs, have fewer savings, were more
overweight, more likely to have drug or alcohol problems, and had difficulty maintaining
relationships. They were also almost 400% more likely to have a criminal conviction. These
results were confirmed by a similar experiment in New Zealand reported by
psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, who concluded that "Willpower is one of
the most important predictors of success in life."
Where are you good at
exerting self-control?
Where - or when - does your willpower fail you?
Here are 4 ideas to help
boost your understanding and practice of self-control, willpower
and habit - and therefore
take your success to another level:
1.
Treat Willpower Like a Muscle
Willpower - the ability to resist temptation and restrain our impulses - is the
most important factor in achieving a successful and happy life. It is more
significant than money, intelligence, looks, or background. It helps to
consider that willpower is like a muscle that can be trained and strengthened
with practice and improved over time. Even exercising small acts of willpower,
like sitting up straight, can pay off by reinforcing longer-term self-control in other activities. Also
like a muscle, willpower can get tired if you overuse it. Exercising willpower,
making choices or decisions and taking the initiative, all use up the same sort
of energy. The more decisions we make, the weaker our willpower can become. Willpower
is also similar to a muscle, in that when its strength depletes, it can be
revived with glucose - as has been evidenced in research. As we all know, a
sugar rush is not a good option, so it’s best to eat healthy food regularly to
maintain blood sugar levels. Sleeping and eating well - planning for the
slow-release burning of healthy calories - are most important.
The impact of this phenomenon
can have extreme consequences. A famous Israeli study in 2011, discovered that
judges making decisions whether or not to grant parole did so early in the
morning, in roughly 65% of cases after lunch, and hardly ever just before.
Research shows that
self-control has a physical basis and is affected by eating and sleeping - and
that significant decisions you make can vary depending on whether they’re made
in the morning
or evening, and before or
after a snack.
What changes will you make to
develop your willpower muscle?
What changes do you need to make, to prevent your willpower muscle from tiring?
2.
Be Aware of Decision fatigue
Making decisions can actually exhaust your ‘stores’ of willpower. Psychologist
Roy F Baumeister’s practical experiments asked people to make small decisions,
followed by tests of willpower (which proved to be weakened). This demonstrated
that there is a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control. In
essence, making choices saps willpower -
a condition termed ‘decision fatigue’.
Use this knowledge to help
you conserve your own self-control and use it most effectively.
Resistance to making
decisions arises from a fear of reducing options. To those decision-weary
judges in the Israeli research, denying parole is easier - it maintains the
status quo and prevents a potentially risky parolee committing crime again -
but it also leaves more options open: the judge can still release the
prisoner at a future date. This is not necessarily the best option - just the easiest and safest.
Better to make good decisions with a fresh mind, now that we know the effects. Where
there are fewer decisions to be made, there is less decision fatigue. These
days, there are so many choices to make, especially in the working day. It’s
easy to underestimate just how tiring it is to make any kind of decision -
whether big or small, they all add up. Choosing what to have for breakfast,
which task to do first, how much to spend - all deplete willpower. The
cumulative effect can pay its toll. When willpower weakens (or is used up) our
impulses to drink, eat, spend, and say silly things are stronger. And like the
depleted parole judges, we become inclined to take the easiest option, even
though that may not be the best choice.
“The best decision makers,”
Baumeister says, “are the ones who know when not to trust themselves.”
Baumeister’s studies show
that people with the best self-control are those who structure their lives in
order to conserve their willpower. They don’t fill their days with back-to-back
meetings.
They maintain habits that
eliminate too many choices. Zuckerberg, inventor of Facebook, wears the same
outfit every day. President Obama wears either a blue or grey suit. Instead of
making a decision each morning whether or not to exercise, successful people
make ongoing arrangements to exercise with somebody else. Instead of using up
their willpower on trivial choices, they conserve it for important decisions
and emergencies. Planning for all decisions in advance - or eliminating the
need to make any - is a great way to keep things - and yourself - under
control.
So think and plan ahead, and
set up systems that will make things easy for you.
What changes will you make to
reduce decision fatigue? How far can you go in creating a personal system to
eliminate decision making and to automate all aspects of your life?
3. Understand The Power of
Habit
Willpower alone is not enough. It’s hard to maintain, because it can become
exhausted, especially when the pressure is on. Habits, however, are automatic
and come as naturally as breathing.
We need to make changes that
are long-lasting - and establish good habits that become a way
of life. Most choices we make
might feel like the result of thoughtful decision-making, but they're not: they're
habits. In time, each of our decisions - about the food we eat, what we say to
our children each evening, and how frequently we exercise - all have a huge
impact on our health, productivity, wealth, and happiness in the longer term. Establishing good habits in
these areas will help you to operate well in all conditions - dispensing with
the need to resort to willpower, while still succeeding in maintaining
self-control.
If we can lower the barriers
to taking action on positive things, we can begin to form good habits.
If we put up barriers to
negative activities, we can break any bad habits.
At the core of every habit is
a neurological loop with three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward.
Let’s use the example of
developing a habit to go running each morning.
Choose a simple cue (eg -
getting out of bed), establish a routine that is triggered by that cue (lacing
up your trainers or always going for a 3 mile run at 5am) and think of the
reward (endorphin rush).
Apply this principle to other
behaviours and habits in your life, and use them to create better ones. Once
you're aware of how your habit works, and can recognize the cues and rewards, you're on the way to changing
it - for the better.
What good habits will you
establish?
How will you put them into action?
3.
Use The 20 second rule
Because our willpower is limited, lasting change might seem impossible to
achieve. And when it fails, we fall back into old habits and take the path of
least resistance.
Achor lists a very powerful tool in his book
The Happiness Advantage called the 20-second rule. This principle shows how we
can re-route the path of least resistance and replace bad habits with good ones. It is very
easy to use: identify the habits that you want to lose and make it 20 seconds
more difficult to do them.
Addicted to cigarettes? Leave
them upstairs or in the car, where they’re not so easily accessed.
Lock up the alcohol and add
an additional 20 seconds to the task by keeping the keys at the other side of
the house (or don’t buy any, turning it into the 20-minute rule, by the time
you’ve nipped to the off-licence). Want to
escape work in the evening? Leave the smartphone and laptop in the furthest room (or at
the office!).
The 20-second rule also works
in developing new, good habits. If you want to exercise, make it 20 seconds
easier: lay out your clothes the night before. Even better – go to sleep in
your gym clothes! If you want to make a habit of prioritising your to-do list
each day, keep it clearly visible on your desktop, rather than having to pull
it up or look for it. Making things easier reduces the amount of willpower it takes to do
it, thereby increasing your success.
When you make your bad habit
harder to do while making the good habit easier, you are much more likely to
take the easy route. It’s been proven by research that we will even do things
that are less satisfying if it’s easier. Just because we know the right thing
to do, we don’t automatically do it. Plan ahead, anticipating your needs, and
aim to make things accessible and easy to do.
Always make your vice at
least 20 seconds away, while making your virtue immediately available.
So use the 20-Second Rule.
Create barriers to habits you
want to resist, and make it easy for the desired ones.
Where will you use the 20
second rule
To address bad habits?
To develop good habits?
With all this knowledge, you
can use your own self-control to supercharge your ability to succeed.
In brief, some top self
control tips are:
Develop your self-control
system – and systematise your life.
Develop and maintain good habits and routines to take the strain off your
willpower.
Plan in advance, to make things easier.
Exercise your self-control regularly in small ways.
Learn to recognise signs that your willpower may be getting depleted.
Sleep well and eat good food regularly.
Don’t do too much at once.
Since self-control is
essential to your success, it’s too important for it to be out of control.
Mastery is much easier when
you understand how you work – and take action to make yourself even better!
Take control – now.
Further Reading:
Willpower: Why Self-Control
is the Secret of Success by Roy F. Baumeister (Amazon LinkUK, US)
The Power of Habit by Charles
Duhigg (Amazon Link UK, US)
The Happiness Advantage –
Shawn Achor (Amazon Link UK, US)
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140504124125-16911014-how-to-control-self-control?trk=mp-details-rc
Perhaps
you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
To
quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will
know.
The
more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”
