The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

by Kelly McGonigal

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I will challenge - work out daily - what would you like to do more of, stop putting off because you know doing it would be benefecial. I won’t challenge - - what will your stop doing I want - successful career - what long term goal do you want to focus your energy on - what is most likely to distract you to meeting this challenge - fear of getting out of your comfort zone

This week, commit to watching how the process of giving in to your impulses happens. You don’t even need to set a goal to improve your self-control yet. See if you can catch yourself earlier and earlier in the process, noticing what thoughts, feelings, and situations are most likely to prompt the impulse. What do you think or say to yourself that makes it more likely that you will give in?

Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness.

One study found that just three hours of meditation practice led to improved attention and self-control. After eleven hours, researchers could see those changes in the brain. The new meditators had increased neural connections between regions of the brain important for staying focused, ignoring distractions, and controlling impulses. Another study found that eight weeks of daily meditation practice led to increased self-awareness in everyday life, as well as increased gray matter in corresponding areas of the brain.

WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT:A FIVE-MINUTE BRAIN-TRAINING MEDITATION Breath focus is a simple but powerful meditation technique for training your brain and increasing willpower. It reduces stress and teaches the mind how to handle both inner distractions (cravings, worries, desires) and outer temptations (sounds, sights, and smells). New research shows that regular meditation practice helps people quit smoking, lose weight, kick a drug habit, and stay sober. Whatever your “I will” and “I won’t” challenges are, this five-minute meditation is a powerful brain-training exercise for boosting your willpower. Here’s how to get started: 1. Sit still and stay put . Sit in a chair with your feet flat on the ground, or sit cross-legged on a cushion. Sit up straight and rest your hands in your lap. It’s important not to fidget when you meditate—that’s the physical foundation of self-control. If you notice the instinct to scratch an itch, adjust your arms, or cross and uncross your legs, see if you can feel the urge but not follow it. This simple act of staying still is part of what makes meditation willpower training effective. You’re learning not to automatically follow every single impulse that your brain and body produce. 2. Turn your attention to the breath. Close your eyes or, if you are worried about falling asleep, focus your gaze at a single spot (like a blank wall, not the Home Shopping Network). Begin to notice your breathing. Silently say in your mind “inhale” as you breathe in an...

Meditation is not about getting rid of all your thoughts; it’s learning not to get so lost in them that you forget what your goal is. Don’t worry if your focus isn’t perfect when meditating. Just practice coming back to the breath, again and again.

CHAPTER SUMMARY The Idea: Willpower is actually three powers—I will, I won’t, and I want—that help us to be a better version of ourselves. Under the Microscope • What is the harder thing? Imagine yourself facing your willpower challenge, and doing the harder thing. What makes it hard? • Meet your two minds. For your willpower challenge, describe your two competing selves. What does the impulsive version of you want? What does the wiser version of you want? Willpower Experiments • Track your willpower choices. For at least one day, try to notice every decision you make related to your willpower challenge. • Five-minute brain-training meditation. Focus on your breath using the words “inhale” and “exhale” in your mind. When your mind wanders, notice, and bring it back to the breath.

Exercise turns out to be the closest thing to a wonder drug that self-control scientists have discovered. For starters, the willpower benefits of exercise are immediate. Fifteen minutes on a treadmill reduces cravings, as seen when researchers try to tempt dieters with chocolate and smokers with cigarettes. The long-term effects of exercise are even more impressive. It not only relieves ordinary, everyday stress, but it’s as powerful an antidepressant as Prozac. Working out also enhances the biology of self-control by increasing baseline heart rate variability and training the brain. When neuroscientists have peered inside the brains of new exercisers, they have seen increases in both gray matter—brain cells—and white matter, the insulation on brain cells that helps them communicate quickly and efficiently with each other. Physical exercise—like meditation—makes your brain bigger and faster, and the prefrontal cortex shows the largest training effect.

If you want a quick willpower fill-up, your best bet may be to head outdoors. Just five minutes of what scientists call “green exercise” decreases stress, improves mood, enhances focus, and boosts self-control. Green exercise is any physical activity that gets you outdoors and in the presence of Mama Nature. The best news is that when it comes to green exercise, a quick fix really is enough. Shorter bursts have a more powerful effect on your mood than longer workouts.

If you are surviving on less than six hours of sleep a night, there’s a good chance you don’t even remember what it’s like to have your full willpower. Being mildly but chronically sleep deprived makes you more susceptible to stress, cravings, and temptation. It also makes it more difficult to control your emotions, focus your attention, or find the energy to tackle the big “I will” power challenges.

One of the best ways to recover from stress and the daily self-control demands of your life is relaxation. Relaxing—even for just a few minutes—increases heart rate variability by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and quieting the sympathetic nervous system. It also shifts the body into a state of repair and healing, enhancing your immune function and lowering stress hormones. Studies show that taking time for relaxation every day can protect your health while also increasing your willpower reserve.

CHAPTER SUMMARY The Idea: Willpower is a biological instinct, like stress, that evolved to help us protect ourselves from ourselves. Under the Microscope • What is the threat? For your willpower challenge, identify the inner impulse that needs to be restrained. • Stress and self-control. Notice when stress strikes throughout the day or week, and watch what happens to your self-control. Do you experience cravings? Lose your temper? Put off things you know you should do? Willpower Experiments • Breathe your way to self-control. Slow down your breathing to four to six breaths per minute to shift into the physiological state of self-control. • The five-minute green willpower fill-up. Get active outdoors—even just a walk around the block—to reduce stress, improve your mood, and boost motivation. • Zzzzzzzzzz. Undo the effects of sleep deprivation with a nap or one good night’s sleep. • Relax to restore your willpower reserve. Lie down, breathe deeply, and let the physiological relaxation response help you recover from the demands of self-control and daily stress.

Other studies have found that committing to any small, consistent act of self-control—improving your posture, squeezing a handgrip every day to exhaustion, cutting back on sweets, and keeping track of your spending—can increase overall willpower.

Important summary on building willpower

WILLPOWER EXPERIMENT: A WILLPOWER WORKOUT If you want to put yourself through your own willpower-training regime, test the muscle model of self-control with one of the following willpower workouts: • Strengthen “I Won’t” Power: Commit to not swearing (or refraining from any habit of speech), not crossing your legs when you sit, or using your nondominant hand for a daily task like eating or opening doors. • Strengthen “I Will” Power: Commit to doing something every day (not something you already do) just for the practice of building a habit and not making excuses. It could be calling your mother, meditating for five minutes, or finding one thing in your house that needs to be thrown out or recycled. • Strengthen Self-Monitoring: Formally keep track of something you don’t usually pay close attention to. This could be your spending, what you eat, or how much time you spend online or watching TV. You don’t need fancy technology—pencil and paper will do. But if you need some inspiration, the Quantified Self movement (www.quantifiedself.com) has turned self-tracking into an art and science.

A CANDY ADDICT CONQUERS HIS SWEET TOOTH Jim, a thirty-eight-year-old freelance graphic designer, had what he called a lifelong addiction to sweets—he never met a jelly bean he didn’t like. He was intrigued by a study I mentioned in class that found that leaving candy out in a visible place can increase people’s general self-control (if they routinely resist the temptation). Jim worked from home, and often moved between his office and other rooms in his house. He decided to put a glass jar of jelly beans in the hallway that he would have to pass every time he left or returned to his office. He didn’t ban all sweets, but did institute a “no candy from the candy jar” rule to challenge his self-control muscle. The first day, the instinct to pop a few jelly beans in his mouth was automatic and difficult to stop. But over the week, saying no got easier. Seeing the candy reminded Jim of his goal to exercise his won’t power. Surprised by his success, he started stepping away from his desk more often just to get some extra “exercise” in. Though Jim had initially worried that the visible temptation would exhaust his willpower, he found the process energizing. When he returned to his office after resisting the candy jar, he felt motivated. Jim was astonished that something he thought was completely out of his control could change so quickly when he set a small challenge for himself and committed to it.

Most of us interpret exhaustion as an objective indicator that we cannot continue. This theory says it is just a feeling generated by the brain to motivate us to stop, in much the same way that the feeling of anxiety can stop us from doing something dangerous, and the feeling of disgust can stop us from eating something that will make us sick. But because fatigue is only an early warning system, extreme athletes can routinely push past what seems to the rest of us like the natural physical limits of the body. These athletes recognize that the first wave of fatigue is never a real limit, and with sufficient motivation, they can transcend it.

Our beliefs about what we are capable of may determine whether we give up or soldier on.

But you may have more willpower than the first impulse to give in would suggest. The next time you find yourself “too tired” to exert self-control, challenge yourself to go beyond that first feeling of fatigue.

WHAT’S YOUR “WANT” POWER? When your willpower is running low, find renewed strength by tapping into your want power. For your biggest willpower challenge, consider the following motivations: 1. How will you benefit from succeeding at this challenge? What is the payoff for you personally? Greater health, happiness, freedom, financial security, or success? 2. Who else will benefit if you succeed at this challenge? Surely there are others who depend on you and are affected by your choices. How does your behavior influence your family, friends, coworkers, employees or employer, and community? How would your success help them? 3. Imagine that this challenge will get easier for you over time if you are willing to do what is difficult now. Can you imagine what your life will be like, and how you will feel about yourself, as you make progress on this challenge? Is some discomfort now worth it if you know it is only a temporary part of your progress?

The Idea: Self-control is like a muscle. It gets tired from use, but regular exercise makes it stronger. Under the Microscope • The highs and lows of willpower. Keep track of your self-control strength this week, with special interest in when you have the most willpower, and when you are most likely to give in or give up. • Is your exhaustion real? The next time you find yourself “too tired” to exert self-control, examine whether you can go beyond that first feeling of fatigue to take one more step. Willpower Experiments • The willpower diet. Make sure that your body is well fueled with food that gives you lasting energy. • A willpower workout. Exercise your self-control muscle by picking one thing to do (I will power) or not do (I won’t power) this week, or keeping track of something you aren’t used to paying close attention to. • Find your “want” power. When you find your biggest want power—the motivation that gives you strength when you feel weak—bring it to mind whenever you find yourself most tempted to give in or give up.

Don’t mistake a goal-supportive action for the goal itself. You aren’t off the hook just because you did one thing consistent with your goal. Notice if giving yourself credit for positive action makes you forget what your actual goal is.

Maybe we should think twice before we hand ourselves the gold star. While most of us believe that making progress on our goals spurs us on to greater success, psychologists know we are all too quick to use progress as an excuse for taking it easy.

making progress on a goal motivates people to engage in goal-sabotaging behavior.

When you make progress toward your long-term goal, your brain—with its mental checklist of many goals—turns off the mental processes that were driving you to pursue your long-term goal. It will then turn its attention to the goal that has not yet been satisfied—the voice of self-indulgence. Psychologists call this goal liberation. The goal you’ve been suppressing with your self-control is going to become stronger, and any temptation will become more tempting.

instead of studying, or buy something expensive. In contrast, people who are asked, “How committed do you feel to your goal?” are not tempted by the conflicting behavior. A simple shift in focus leads to a very different interpretation of their own actions—“I did that because I wanted to,” not “I did that, great, now I can do what I really want!”

Like magic, the researchers had discovered a simple way to boost self-control and help the students make a choice consistent with their overall goals. Remembering the “why” works because it changes how you feel about the reward of self-indulgence. That so-called treat will start to look more like the threat to your goals that it is, and giving in won’t look so good. Remembering the why will also help you recognize and act on other opportunities to accomplish your goal. The next time you find yourself using past good behavior to justify indulging, pause and remember the why.

This illustrates a fundamental mistake we make when thinking about our future choices. We wrongly but persistently expect to make different decisions tomorrow than we do today.

Our optimism about the future extends not just to our own choices, but to how easy it will be to do what we say we will do. Psychologists have shown that we wrongly predict we will have much more free time in the future than we do today.

Such optimism is understandable—if we expected to fail at every goal we set, we’d give up before we got started. But if we use our positive expectations to justify present inaction, we might as well not have even set the goal in the first place.

CHAPTER SUMMARY The Idea: When we turn willpower challenges into measures of moral worth, being good gives us permission to be bad. For better self-control, forget virtue, and focus on goals and values. Under the Microscope • Virtue and vice. Do you tell yourself you’ve been “good” when you succeed at a willpower challenge, then give yourself permission to do something “bad”? • Are you borrowing credit from tomorrow? Do you tell yourself you will make up for today’s behavior tomorrow—and if so, do you follow through? • Halo effects. Do you justify a vice because of one virtuous aspect (e.g., discount savings, fat-free, protects the environment)? • Who do you think you are? When you think about your willpower challenge, which part of you feels like the “real” you—the part of you who wants to pursue the goal, or the part of you who needs to be controlled? Willpower Experiments • To revoke your license, remember the why. The next time you find yourself using past good behavior to justify indulging, pause and think about why you were “good,” not whether you deserve a reward. • A tomorrow just like today. For your willpower challenge, aim to reduce the variability of your behavior day to day.