Maybe you’ve had the experience–I know I have–of doing something that at the time seems overwhelmingly important or irresistable but that later just seems … stupid. Or at least unnecessary and a bad idea. It doesn’t matter whether it’s spending a whole afternoon at work searching for an e-mail that will prove a point you’re trying to make, or heading out to the couch with a spoon and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s that will never be seen or heard from again, or staying up all night watching the Gilligan’s Island marathon instead of studying: our judgment of what to do in the moment often doesn’t agreewith what we’ll later decide we would like to have done.

So if we want to try to bring those two perspectives closer–that is, to be more comfortable doing things we’ll still approve of later–one key skill is getting a little distance. I’ll be more specific: when I say “distance,” I’m talking about three separate things: awareness, perspective, and mental separation.

Awareness
Being aware of–mindful of–what’s going on in our own brains is not automatic. It’s entirely possible–even easy–to think about something without paying much attention to the fact that we’re thinking about it. Thinking about thinking (“metacognition”) is a conscious process that we do more of when we encourage the habit and less of if we don’t make an effort.

Without noticing what we’re thinking about, we’re fairly powerless to change our thoughts. But when we pay attention to what our minds are doing, we have options: we can refocus attention elsewhere, think through consequences, distract ourselves, surrender ourselves, or take other steps to be more practical, consistent, serene, constructive, or however else we want to be in those moments.

Perspective
Perspective is the difference between “I’m going to die if I don’t get those shoes” and “I’d enjoy those shoes, but I’d rather spend the $200 on groceries.” Lack of perspective makes things that will detract from our happiness more attractive and makes things that will make us happier down the road seem dull and un-hip.

One way to get perspective is to think about all of the consequences of an action, not just the appealing ones. Another one, which helps me sometimes, is self-mockery. Mentally (or even out loud, if you can’t be heard or don’t mind) saying “Oh yes, I’m going to be in absolute torture every moment of my life if I don’t get an iPad!” (for instance) wakes up our critical thinking and often yields a “wait–I really don’t want that” effect.

Mental separation
Mental separation is the process of changing focus to another subject or another aspect of the current subject. If I’m being tempted to procrastinate on important work by reading a novel instead, mental separation means leaving off thinking about the novel for the moment and instead focusing on something more constructive, like what it will be like to present the project I’m working on to an appreciative audience, or how much I love my paycheck. As long as our focus remains unchanged, it’s difficult to change our minds about what we want to do, although perspective can help. When we let go of a slightly obsessive line of thought in favor of some other subject, the dangerous line of thought ceases to have nearly as much sway over us, and in fact it would take work to get back into that same way of thinking. (See “How to Multitask, and When Not To” for information about how changing what we’re thinking about requires us to reorganize our brains.)

Getting a little distance from overly eager thoughts about underly good things is an important component of being able to exercise willpower. Willpower is making good choices, and our choices are driven in large part by how we feel about the options. Switching to a healthier kind of thinking makes healthier options seem more appealing, and with no more effort than that move, we can improve our chances of going down the paths we really want to follow.

Photo by loungerie

A little over a year ago I posted “Going a Year Without Coffee,” in which I talk about how much worse that most people my body reacts to caffeine even though I really enjoy the stuff. So while I had largely steered away from coffee for some time, it wasn’t until two years ago that I stopped drinking it at all (and stopped having chocolate, tea, and other sources of caffeine along with it).

And while I’m sure I’ll have coffee again from time to time in the future, last week marked two years without, and I thought it might be worth sharing the tactics I use to steer clear, because they’re the same kind of tactics a person can use to avoid other kinds of temptation.

Changing What We Desire
The ideal thing would be to simply not want whatever it is we’re trying to avoid. Surprisingly, this turns out to be a practical approach. Many of us are used to thinking of our desires as being out of our control, that if we’re being drawn to some french fries or to someone who’s a bad influence or to an irresponsible drink, we have the choice of fighting or giving in (or often, both). Yet there’s a different, much more powerful choice available to us: using thinking to redirect our desires.

The Wrong Kind of Attention
When I start thinking about having a cup of coffee, I’m generally thinking about one of two things: how enjoyable the coffee itself is or how I would like to feel more energy. In both cases, my conscious mental processes are directed toward things that will make the idea of having coffee more appealing. On reflection, it seems obvious that if I’m thinking about how much I like the taste of coffee or how energetic I might feel if I had some that I’d be much more likely to actually have some.

It’s easy to imagine that everything we know about a choice feeds into how we make that choice, but in reality, the things we consciously focus on play a much bigger role than everything else, which is one reason we might know exactly the same things from one day to the next but choose to work hard or eat smart the first day yet procrastinate or eat junk the second.

Thinking That Makes Good Choices More Appealing
So my usual habit when I start thinking about a cup of coffee is to jot down a few thoughts about what will happen if I do have some. One of the first things I usually think of is the grinding, day-long headache I’ll get sooner or later from the caffeine. While this isn’t my body’s only negative reaction to the stuff, and while it’s always delayed at least a couple of days, it’s a miserable time.

Not surprisingly, the more I think “coffee=terrible, day-long headache,” the less appealing that cup of coffee gets. This effect builds as I remember that while coffee gives me energy, it also makes it easier to feel jumpy or anxious. Having energy isn’t much good if I’m not in a good enough mood to use it well. As I carefully think over what the real results of my actions will be, the temptation looks progressively more shabby and unappealing.

Having a Little Time Makes All the Difference
The problem with this approach is that it takes time and attention. However, it doesn’t take a lot of time and attention, and if we have enough time and attention to be tempted by something, we probably have enough time and attention to reflect on what will happen if we let ourselves be sucked in by that temptation. It only takes a few minutes, and while it works best if you can write or talk about the things that will make you less attracted to that choice, even just careful thought can bring you there. The worst thing is to be tied up so thoroughly with something else that it’s difficult or unworkable to focus on good choices for a few minutes instead, although planning can help get us through these times (see “How Preparation Enables Stronger Willpower“).

Ultimately, not making a bad choice is easiest if we help ourselves dislike that choice. Focusing on the reasons the choice is bad in the first place help change our perspective so that we stop wanting things we don’t really want for more than momentary pleasure (see “The difference between pleasure and happiness“). To put it another way, the best way to resist temptation is to let ourselves be tempted instead by the things that will truly make us happy.

Photo by Beatriz AG

Social circles of influence

In previous articles in this series, we took a look at Dealing With Problems That Can’t Be Fixed, asking When Is It Time to Make a Change?, and when it is that the best solution is Fixing a Problem By Leaving. In today’s article, we’ll look at the kinds of power we have to make changes happen.

Control
When we are able to make changes, it’s important to understand how much impact we can personally have. The most direct situation is control, when we can change something by acting alone. Most of the articles on this site are about situations where we can have some control, like organization, fitness, building new habits, and how we relate to other people. This category includes things that feel out of control, but where the real choices are within us. For instance, I was overweight for many years and didn’t feel in control of that situation. As I learned how to manage my own body better, though, I began to lose weight, and eventually lost more than 60 pounds. Although I wasn’t willing or able to take charge of the situation for a long time, the control still lay entirely with me.

Influence
Many of the situations we tend to worry about aren’t directly under our control, however, for instance how our friends and partners treat us, whether or not we receive promotions or contracts, or how much help we get from others. Problems with situations like this can often come up in our minds as should statements, such as “I shouldn’t have to do this without help!” or “I deserved that raise!” or “It’s not fair that it’s raining the weekend we were supposed to go camping!” (A note: “should statements” don’t necessarily contain the word “should”. A should statement is any thought or declaration declaring a need for someone or something else to do or not do something.) Should statements are a common example of a broken idea, a type of thinking that creates unnecessary trouble. To regard situations where we have influence only and not control in a healthy and constructive way, it’s important to come to terms with the possibility that things may not turn out the way we want them to.

Direct influence
Situations where we have influence come in two flavors: direct influence and indirect influence. Direct influence means that we can take specific steps to try to get the thing done. For instance, a person who wants a raise can usually go to his or her boss and request one, and someone who wants to be treated better by another person can confront that person.

Indirect influence
Indirect influence means that we can only take actions that encourage the results we want, but can’t control them or even push for a decision. Some examples of indirect influence are practicing more in order to have a better chance of winning a talent contest or writing letters to a representative to encourage a particular vote.

Social influence diagram by Bruce Dupree, via Anne Adrian.

This is the eleventh in a series of articles that draw on the field of schema therapy, an approach to addressing negative thinking patterns that was devised by Dr. Jeffrey Young. You can find an introduction to schemas and schema therapy, a list of schemas, and links to other schema articles on The Willpower Engine here.

A person with the Lack of Self-Control Schema has trouble with facing anything difficult or holding back impulses. Such a person might tend to avoid difficulty, pain, or responsibility even when the consequences are much worse than what’s being avoided. They might act out, choose rashly, react without thinking, or follow any desire that takes hold. Another common expression of this schema is having trouble putting up with boredom or frustration long enough to get something done.

To put it another way, the burden of the Lack of Self-Control Schema is that it prevents a person from working toward lasting happiness by sometimes keeping their focus on immediate gratification.

People with this schema generally don’t feel like they’re acting the way they want to: the impulsive actions feel (not surprisingly) out of their control.

Often, a person with a Lack of Self-Control Schema grew up in an environment where parents weren’t around enough or didn’t put enough effort into helping the child learn self-control. This schema can also arise when parents themselves have self-control issues, leaving a child with no ideal of self-control to follow.

Overcoming a Lack of Self-Control Schema
Unlike other schemas, Lack of Self-Control isn’t closely linked with specific broken ideas, but the approach to overcoming it is similar: the important skill to learn here is to recognize when the schema is kicking in and insert conscious thought between the impulse and the action. The key understanding to have along with that skill is that lasting happiness is different from immediate gratification–that doing exactly what we want whenever we want can actually be pretty miserable sometimes. That’s not to say that there isn’t a place for light-heartedness and spontaneity in life, only that longer-term thinking often pays off much better.

So if you have this schema, you might have a habit of reacting immediately. To overcome it, the new habit to create is to notice when the schema might be kicking in, stop yourself, think for a moment about your real goals and priorities, and focus on the things you want long-term instead of immediately.

For example, you might be in a conversation with someone you care about when that person says something thoughtless that is painful for you. A Lack of Self-Control schema might tell you to lash out, to insult or embarrass that person. Someone overcoming the self-control schema might still feel the urge to do that, but would stop and think something along the lines of “Wait: I care about my friendship with this person. If I start a fight over this, that could make ongoing problems for me and deprive me of my friend. Even though I’m angry right now, I feel better imagining the two of us getting along instead of imagining us fighting. Why don’t I try to just let go feeling offended about this, as a contribution to the friendship, or else tell my friend how I felt about what was just said and have a constructive conversation about it?”

The Lack of Self-Control schema is sometimes paired with another schema. For example, the Subjugation Schema, which we’ll talk about in the next article in this series, can lead a person to suppress emotions for a long time, after which they burst out uncontrolled. In these cases, while work on self-control will also help, progress on the other schema will relieve the pressure and intensity of the self-control problems.

Photo courtesy of MIT Open Courseware

Another way to look at willpower is to think of it as focusing on lasting happiness over short-term pleasure. It’s tempting to think of pleasure and happiness as the same thing, but happiness, which comes from living in a way that satisfies our real needs, is not the same thing as gratifying a momentary urge (for more on this, see “The difference between pleasure and happiness“).

So for instance, willpower to clean up a junk room at home means caring more about how we’ll feel once that room is reclaimed–or even how we’ll feel once we’ve gotten over the initial hump and are making exciting progress–than about the potential discomfort or annoyance of getting started. Willpower to stop smoking means caring more about having good health than about quelling a momentary urge or giving in to a craving to smoke. Willpower to work harder on schoolwork or at a job means caring more about the satisfaction of getting the most out of our daily efforts than about the great number of whims and distractions we’re presented with from moment to moment that sometimes seem more appealing than working.

Looking at willpower in this way doesn’t mean postponing the benefits for months or years: lasting happiness can start surprisingly soon. For instance, with the junk room example, within ten minutes we can start to experience pride and elation at finally making progress on a long-postponed job. The nagging concern about getting that work done also lifts, providing almost immediate relief.

It’s strange that things like a doughnut, which will be gone and maybe regretted in just five minutes, or avoiding a task, which skips the trouble of getting involved in the work but often ignores the fact that the work can be interesting and satisfying once we’re in the groove, can tempt us. After all, temptations and indulgences offer an obvious but very limited kind of enjoyment not at the time that we think of them, but a short time in the future, typically, while focusing on longer-term happiness often offers a less flamboyant but still meaningful kind enjoyment in only a slightly longer period of time. Why do we sometimes fall for satisfying the imbalanced needs of ourselves a few minutes in the future instead of taking care of the versions of ourselves that will exist only a few minutes after that? Why do we so often go for pleasure in five minutes when it’s going to lead to regret in ten?

Regardless, thinking about willpower in this way gives us a simple practice we can use to improve our self-motivation: when faced with a short-term choice that we know we’d like to make a certain way, whether it’s a temptation we want to avoid or a task we want to face, focusing our attention on lasting happiness and how we’ll feel about a good choice will make us more likely to choose the option we really want, while focusing on short-term pleasure will make us more likely to follow paths we won’t be glad we took.

Photo by h.koppdelaney

Mirror neurons are a surprising, fairly recent neurological discovery: cells in the brain that fire both when an action is done and when we see someone else performing the action. In other words, part of what goes on in our brains when we throw a frisbee, for instance, also goes on when we see someone else throw a frisbee.

I’ve mentioned before how imagining doing a thing activates many of the same parts of a person’s brain as actually doing the thing, and that visualizing ourselves in an activity is a good way to move ourselves towards doing it. The existence of mirror neurons suggests that just seeing someone else do something can make us more disposed and able to do that thing ourselves.

If that’s true, then it would seem that one of the ways we can encourage ourselves to make progress on something we want to accomplish is to simply watch someone else doing it. If we want to exercise, presumably it may help to watch other people exercise. If we want to become good at approaching other people in social situations, there may be benefit in watching other people be outgoing.

There are other reasons in addition to mirror neurons that this kind of approach may be particularly useful. One is that watching someone do a thing increases the amount of attention we’re paying to that thing, and the more attention we pay to something, the more likely we are to do it. Another is that watching others do something helps prove that the thing can be done, as when we see a friend clean up an area quickly and efficiently that we might otherwise have guessed would be difficult and time-consuming to clean. Yet another reason to watch others do things we want to do is that we can learn practical information about the tasks involved. Talking with people who are losing weight, for instance, can provide helpful information about nutrition and available exercise options.

So if you’re having trouble getting together willpower for a particular goal, consider whether there might be a practical way for you to seek out and watch other people who are actually accomplishing that goal … then go find them and soak it in.

Photo by ljcybergal

The first article in this series talks about the difference between distraction and lack of focus or enthusiasm as well as the problem of not believing your goal can be achieved. The second article touches on how much the goal matters and whether or not it’s possible to track progress. This article will tackle another essential of being committed to a goal: willingness.

The question of willingness came up as a side note in my article the other day about whether our willpower gets used up on a daily basis. The idea was that people seem to usually be less willing to keep doing things that require self-control the more of them they’re asked to do. Repeated demands are one reason a person might find she or he isn’t willing to exercise willpower. Others include

• Feeling anger or resentment about having to do the thing in the first place, or being unhappy about some expected result–for instance if a person avoided cleaning an area up because they didn’t make the mess (even if they knew the mess-maker wasn’t going to clean it up), or if they were to hold off on doing certain work because they strongly suspected someone else would be getting the credit.
• Being uncomfortable with success, for instance when a person is scared of the life changes a new job would cause.
• Having a broken idea that someone else should be doing whatever it is, that whatever it is shouldn’t be necessary, etc.
• Focusing on short-term discomfort or interruption of pleasure, like not wanting to pull a splinter out due to anticipating that being painful.
• Feeling as though you don’t deserve to achieve your goal, for instance because of impostor syndrome.

Those are a few samples. The key point is that even when we have a desire to do something and recognize that it would be a good thing to do, we often still have conflicting feelings about moving ahead. To say that we simply want something or don’t want it is to imagine our minds being much simpler than they are. For instance, a person might desperately want to lose weight for reasons of both health and appearance, but also might want to feel free to indulge in eating as they like, might be worried about the discomfort of regular exercise, might feel protected in some ways by being overweight, etc.

Feeling conflicted is a natural result of being a complex human being, but when these kinds of conflicts prevent us from committing whole-heartedly to our goals, it’s time to address them and move past them. Broken ideas (including ideas about what should happen or what a person deserves) can be repaired, conflicting needs can be compared so that the highest-priority need can take precedence, discomfort can be faced in light of the greater happiness it will lead to, and so on. In the end, most barriers to willingness can be sorted out–and starting that process only takes asking ourselves this question:

“Am I really willing to succeed?”

Photo by Gavatron

Kelly McGonigal mentioned recently on her Science of Willpower blog and her Twitter feed this interesting study about consumption of glucose in the brain. In case I started losing you at “consumption of glucose,” let me promise you that there is a great tussel forming up here! Here’s how it goes, although I’m oversimplifying it in order to be able to summarize the whole thing.

Some reputable researchers, including highly-regarded willpower researcher Dr. Roy Baumeister: Willpower is like a muscle. You use up energy when you use willpower, so you tend to get tired out and have less willpower for later. A little bit of sugar can help sometimes help keep willpower perky, though.

The New York Times blog: Willpower is like a muscle, say famous scientists. A little bit of sugar will give you a willpower boost, but don’t tire out your willpower.

Me: Hey, the New York Times and some reputable scientists are saying that willpower uses up energy in the brain and can get used up.

Me, later: Having done a lot more research and thinking, I’m not so sure about the “like a muscle” argument. An alternative hypothesis: maybe people just get annoyed at being asked to do things and get fed up. (Dr. McGonigal added via Twitter, ”What gets exhausted in not the physical willpower energy but what I call ‘willingness.’”)

Dr. Robert Kurzban, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania (not responding to my post, but to the original studies): Actually, it doesn’t look as though the brain really does use much extra glucose when we’re exerting a lot of self-control.  “That is, if one were to use this aggressive estimate … the brains of subjects categorized as ‘depleted’ in this literature, have, relative to controls, used an additional amount of glucose equal to about 10% of a single Tic-Tac.” (Less than 1/5 of one calorie.)

There’s more to the discussion. For instance, more stressful mental situations can increase heart rate, which can lead to the rest of the body consuming more glucose. And I know that if I spend a long time working hard at mental tasks, I feel worn out afterward in the same way I do after exercise–although all that might well be from that heart rate effect, or some other effect. Based on Kurzban’s information, it’s very unlikely that I get tired out because my brain is using a lot of extra glucose.

Even if we don’t count the useful lesson that science is a series of attempts to explain things people have observed and that those attempts aren’t always right, this whole debate can be useful to us. For instance, we might observe that even if the glucose argument doesn’t hold, there are still ways in which self-control can be “used up.” For instance, in order to exert self-control that goes against our habits, we have to have attention and effort to spare, and those are limited resources. We also probably need some kind of willingness to tackle the challenge, and in some cases that might be something that we can’t use over and over without consequences.

However, there are other factors that make it easier to exert self-control again after exerting it once. One is a sense of accomplishment or control, a belief in the self. Another is encouragement from others, if we happen to get it. Another is that exerting self-control helps build a habit of self-control, although admittedly that habit is likely to pay off more in the long-term than the short. Another is that by exerting self-control in one area, we prove to ourselves that self-control is possible. Yet another is that having self-control often leaves us in better physical and mental condition than not having self-control, in that the kinds of things we tend to do when we don’t have self-control (like eating junk food, being inactive, and bottling up emotions) tend to wear us out or reduce our mental clarity, ability to focus, or physical strength for a while.

My conclusion from all this is that we don’t need to worry too much about using up our willpower: it makes more sense to be concerned about learning as many willpower-related skills as possible, practicing those skills, and focusing our attention and effort where it will do the most good.

Graphic by labguest

As an extreme example, consider a heroin addict: taking heroin will make this person feel really good–for a little while. Then, when the drug wears off, the addict is left to face whatever problems the heroin was meant to be an escape from, plus whatever problems shooting up has caused–like getting arrested or using the rent to buy drugs, for instance. The bad choice of taking the drug causes bad situations that make the addict unhappy, so that taking more of the drug is that much more appealing, as a way to escape the unhappiness.

I most often use the phrase “feedback loop” to refer to the helpful kind of feedback, like journaling several times a week while working toward a goal. This kind of feedback loop provides a way to look at progress and trouble over the past few days and try out corrections that themselves will be looked at during the next feedback loop (which is what makes it a loop). But there are different kinds of feedback loops that can work against us, like the addict, his troubles, and his needle.

All which is to say that bad choices and unhappiness work together to cause more bad choices and unhappiness. Weirdly enough, this is good news, because it means that if either the behavior or the unhappiness is interrupted, both the behavior and the unhappiness can be lessened.

Getting back to our drug addict (who in a very general sense is in the same kind of bad feedback loop as someone who overeats or doesn’t do the dishes regularly or avoids calling back clients when something goes wrong), this means that anything that makes life a little more bearable can make it a little easier to think about getting off the drug, and that getting off the drug (after withdrawal is over and the consequences are faced) automatically starts making life a little more bearable in some ways.

Most of us have it much easier than the drug addict: if I start doing a better job of sorting my mail as it comes in, for instance, I’ll immediately start feeling a little better about my organization, unless the problem had gotten so bad that I needed to go through the shock of finding out what was in my mail first. And if I start feeling a little better about things, it will be easier to try organizing the mail more reliably.

In the end, both parts of the cycle usually need work. After all, addictions don’t usually go away by themselves, nor do addicts tend to stay out of trouble long if staying out of trouble means they’re miserable all the time. But by attacking either of the parts alone to begin with–whichever is the easiest to affect–we can get an initial boost that will make following through that much easier.

Photo by nicolas

One of the books I’m reading at the moment is  Tom Rath and Jim Harter’s Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, which summarizes the findings of ongoing research by Gallup over a number of years on the subject of wellbeing and happiness. In the section on social wellbeing, Rath and Harter point out an important influence on our lives that’s often ignored: our friends’ habits.

Habits of friends have a profound effect on us, often even more than habits of parents or spouses. For example, when I was much younger (and more foolish), I smoked, though not heavily. When I moved to a new town where I’d be spending time constantly with friends who didn’t smoke–and who didn’t like smoking–I stopped. I literally smoked right up until the day I moved, then quit cold turkey and never picked up the habit again.

There are some useful ideas that emerge from understanding the power of friends’ habits, ones that impact our own self-motivation and give us more tools to help people who are close to us.

1. Buddying up makes habit change easier
Working together with a friend who wants to make some of the same improvements you do helps encourage habit change in at least three ways: first, any kind of social support makes us more likely to follow through with the changes we want to make in our lives. Second, any gains our friends makes help encourage and influence our own improvements. And third, changing habits together with someone whose company is enjoyable makes the change and the new habits more attractive, which makes it easier for the new behavior to become permanent.

2. Improvements in your life can help improve your friends’ lives
If you want to help make your friends’ lives happier, more successful, healthier, or more fulfilling, one of the best possible things you can do is acquire a good habit yourself. The change in you has a good chance of being noticed and admired by your friends, and it’s possible some of them will make improvements in their own lives inspired by your example. Additionally, making a positive change in part for the benefit of friends offers you an additional, very meaningful kind of inspiration to succeed.

3. Pick your friends carefully
If you spend time with people who are stuck and unhappy with their lives or who have bad habits you don’t want to pick up, your own quality of life is more likely to worsen unless you have so much support from other parts of your life that you’re a much stronger influence on your friends than they are on you.

Simply being aware of the impact friends can have on our habits and wellbeing can help bring out problems that were hidden and offer new possibilities for making things better.

Photo provided by freeparking