New science shows that how you think regarding self-control has a significant effect on the amount of it you have.
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| Research shows This Mindset can give you all the Willpower you need |
Wouldn't it be great if you could make yourself do anything? You could breeze through boring things on your to-do list, always say no to that cookie, never skip a workout, and keep your resolutions to improve yourself. But unfortunately, most of us feel like we need more willpower to do the job.
We sneak late-night snacks, click "next episode" on Netflix, and let unfinished tasks pile up until the list seems impossible. Is the problem that most people are just broken and don't have as much willpower as our modern world requires?
Nope, says the most recent research. According to a new study, the problem isn't that we need more willpower but that we have the wrong ideas about will.
The analogy of self-control as if it were a muscle
So, what do the vast majority of people believe about self-control? If you give this subject some thought, you'll discover that you consider self-control analogous to a muscle. This is a common misconception. We can refrain from engaging in harmful behaviours that provide us pleasure if we have the strength of will to do so. And much like a muscle, it wastes away if it isn't used. If you spend all day fighting the need to eat those enticing cookies in the kitchen, you are likelier to cave in the evening and watch an endless amount of worthless Netflix.
According to this line of reasoning, we only have a certain amount of self-control inside us, and most of us have a supply that is less than what life requires. There is never just enough self-control to maintain oneself complete compliance with expectations.
This story is straightforward to understand. This is how many people describe the sensation of having strong willpower. However, the analogy of will to a muscle has at least two significant shortcomings. When one thinks about will in this manner, one often end up feeling guilty and self-condemning. And two, that's not the case at all.
If you change the way you think about willpower, you'll find that you have more of it
I've discussed the complex and ever-evolving research on willpower. Previously, but a recent piece that David Robson wrote for BBC Worklife does an outstanding job of summarising the present state of the science. His major takeaway? The majority of us approach the concept of willpower in a manner that, in reality, causes us to have less of it.
"The prevailing school of psychology at the time proposed that willpower was comparable to a kind of battery. You could begin the day with full strength, but whenever you have to exert control over your thoughts, emotions, or actions, you lose the energy stored in that battery. If you don't give yourself the opportunity to relax and revitalise, your reserves will get dangerously low, making it much more difficult to keep your patience and concentration, as well as to avoid giving in to temptation "In his article, Robson provides a concise summary of the "willpower as muscle" (or "battery") metaphor.
On the other hand, he continues, Veronika Job, a psychologist, authored research in 2010 that called into doubt the fundamental premises of this hypothesis. Job demonstrated that a person's level of self-control decreased in proportion to the degree to which they thought willpower to be a finite resource. He did this by first having research participants answer questionnaires about their opinions on willpower and then assessing their self-control.
On the other side, if you agreed with statements such as "If you have just overcome a severe temptation, you feel strengthened, and you can fight new temptations," and "Your mental stamina feeds itself." You had, in fact, almost an unlimited amount of willpower.
The individuals' ideas about their capacity for self-control seemed to be self-fulfilling prophecies. If they believed that their willpower could be easily depleted, then their ability to resist temptation and distraction quickly dissolved; however, if they believed that "mental stamina fuels itself," then that is what occurred, and they were able to maintain their ability to resist temptation and distraction for much longer "To summarise, Robson says. Since 2010, further studies conducted in the real world looking at topics such as procrastination and fitness have bolstered the argument that one's thinking significantly influences one's willpower.
To increase your ability to control your impulses, rewrite the story in your head
This is one of those beautiful occasions when recent scientific discoveries lead directly to practical advice that is easy to implement and has a significant effect. Realizing that your views about your capacity for self-control substantially impact that capacity may help you become psychologically more robust. Reading this article has probably already given you a little increase in your level of self-control.
Robson writes, "It seems that knowledge is power." He also indicates a couple of simple exercises that will assist you in having more self-control. First, you can recall a time when you worked on a mentally challenging task just for fun." A recent study found that this remembering naturally shifts people's beliefs to the "non-limited" mindset because they see evidence of their mental stamina.
Second, to show yourself that you have more self-control than you believe, give yourself a series of tiny tests of self-control, such as going for a brief period without snacking or turning off social media for a specific amount of time. "Once you have shown to yourself that your willpower can develop, you may find that it is easier to subsequently resist other sorts of temptation or distraction," writes Robson. "Once you have proven to yourself that your willpower can expand, you may discover that your willpower can increase" (at least one Stanford neuroscientist agrees).
The positive conclusion from this situation is that you have unknowingly restricted your self-control capacity. A simple adjustment in perspective may provide one with almost unfathomable reserves of self-control.
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