The Science of Willpower

I have in recent weeks listened several times, to the following podcast:



It was a most interesting debate about willpower, habits, behavior change, self control, achieving set goals and more. In addition to listening above, you can download the audio (MP3, 24MB) here.

Following are some of the highlights in The Science of Willpower podcast:

12 Ways to Improve Your Willpower and Achieve Your Goals

• Reflect on What's Important to You
• Focus on One Resolution at a Time
• Start Your Day Thinking About Your Big Picture Goals
• Move From Habit to Conscious Action
• Embrace Rewards, Eschew Punishment
• Practice Your Willpower Muscle
• Stop the Negative Self Talk
• Lose the Time Expectations
• Try Meditating
• Take Your Whole Self, Cravings and All, Along for the Ride
• Delay Gratification, If Only for 15 Minutes
• Believe That Change is Possible

Read the above highlights in detail and check out comments on the program's web page on the KQED site.

As January 2014 comes to a close in just over a week's time, I hope the above will help in enhancing your self control, dispensing with entrenched habits and ultimately, achieving your goals.

Overcoming Bad Habits

We need a resolution
To some people, this post might be more appropriate at the end or beginning of a year when they are making new resolutions.
However, it is imperative that character defects be addressed as soon as it becomes necessary, the time of the year notwithstanding.

Peter Bregman, in a blog on the Harvard Business Review, recommends the use of fear, incentive and reward to effect behavioral change.

In the song Breaking the Habit by Linkin Park, the following words characterize what many people feel and go through as they battle bad habits every day:

I don't want to be the one
The battles always choose
'Cause inside I realize
That I'm the one confused
And say what I don't mean.
I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not alright.
So I'm breaking the habit,
I'm breaking the habit
Tonight.

 What to do

As previously observed, we are creatures of habit. We are both progressive and regressive. It is therefore instructive that a habit be used to overcome another habit.
A very effective way is to start new habits. To overcome oversleeping, simply make it a habit to wake up an hour earlier. While it may be difficult to fine-tune your body to the new hours in the beginning, you will get used in a matter of weeks.

Speaking of new habits, it is worth noting that persistence and determination are needed to attain one's stated objectives.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
The challenge
Do you have some habits you need to drop? The most effective way to do so is to pick up new ones to replace them.

Back to the Basics, Even as we Forge Ahead

"He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building."

- Niccolo Machaivelli (The Prince)

We still need to leverage on our past in our quest to shape our lives.

Now that 2010 is finally taking its place in the annals of history, everyone is keen to see how long they can last before New Year resolutions are abandoned and old habits are embraced once again. Actually, the resolutions will not be forgotten that fast, what is most likely to happen is that many will be leading busy lives in the stead of disciplined lives.

That said, we often entirely lose sight of our past and thereby forget the good in it that brought us to where we are. In forgetting past encounters, we fail to realize that the people involved may have added value at some point. In forcefully erasing past activities from our routines, we fail to see that only by doing them then did would we learn that they are damaging, and thereby learn to avoid bigger mistakes and loss in the future.

Much has been written and sung in an attempt to address what was. In Larnelle Harris's song 'I miss my time with you', God asks,

it hurt's me when you say

you're too busy

busy trying to serve me

but how can you serve me

when your spirit's empty

Likewise, Nelly Furtado sings about an abandoned, forgotten love:

We forgot about love

We forgot about faith

We forgot about trust

We forgot about us

Now our love's floating out the window

Our love's floating out the back door

Our love's floating up in the sky in heaven

Where it began back in God's hands

In trying to shape an uncertain destiny, we need to go back to the basics, and carry on with those worthwhile things that brought us this far.



What things in your past, no matter how much you want to let go of it, do you give credit for getting you to where you currently are?