Learn to make the distinction between real reward and false reward, and recruit dopamine to motivate yourself to make the right call.įeeling bad leads to giving in (the “What-the-hell” effect), and dropping guilt makes you stronger. Be aware that marketers and retailers try to manipulate your dopamine neurons (smells, pictures, sounds, etc.) to influence your decisions and behavior. Be careful when you feel your dopamine neurons (brain motivator) firing to chase something (food, shopping, facebook, email, etc.). This is how bad habits and addictions build up.
Our brains mistake the promise of reward for a guarantee of happiness, so we chase satisfaction from things that do not deliver.
For better self-control, forget virtue, and focus on goals and values. Even worse, sometimes the intention to do something good (helping someone, or making a “to do” list) can give us permission to do something bad (cheating something/somebody). When we turn willpower challenges into measures of moral worth, being good gives us permission to be bad (license to sin). This includes sleeping well and eating well. Similarly, don’t get yourself into exhaustion before moments of big decisions. When you come back from a hard day of work, exhausted, you are less likely to exercise, and more likely to overeat. Try to accomplish your most important tasks early in the morning. Self-control is highest in the morning and deteriorates over the course of the day. When your are too tired, you are most likely to give in to temptations. It gets tired from use, but regular exercise makes it stronger. It helps us to be a better version of ourselves. Willpower is a biological instinct, like stress, that evolved to help us protect ourselves from ourselves. The intelligent want self-control children want candy. One of the best interesting ideas that I find helpful is to mind the gap between your “Present self”, that is yourself, and your “Future self”, that super-human that can stick to any plan or budget.
The book is written in a “coaching” style, and is full of research-based tips and practices that help you understand better the self-control mechanisms and employ them to gain more willpower. Title: The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.
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