Happiness Tip: Abandon Your Self-Control

I'm working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone's project will look different, but it's the rare person who can't benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now.

One challenge about keeping my happiness-project resolutions is that it takes a lot of self-control. "No nagging," "No fake food," "Exercise better," "Sing in the morning"...so many of my resolutions require me to control myself.

Relying on will power is very hard - so whenever possible, I abandon it. Instead of resisting temptation, I avoid it entirely.

Studies indicate that we have a limited amount of self-control, and it can be depleted. If you use a lot of self-control at work to resist the urge to yell at a co-worker, it might be harder to push yourself to go for a run when you get home.

So, because self-control is a precious resource, try to use it as little as possible. Look for ways to engineer situations so they don't test your will power at all.

If you don't want to get into the ice cream, don't buy ice cream. If your family insists on having dessert, buy a dessert you don't like much. If you have to buy ice cream, tie it up in a bag so it's a pain to open and so you don't see the enticing tub when you open the freezer. Maybe you'll even forget it's in there.

If you don't want to spend money, don't go into stores. If you don't want to add to your credit card debt, leave your credit card in your sock drawer. If you have to shop, take a list and go by yourself. If you don't want to get drunk, don't meet your friends in a bar. If you don't want to spend your Sunday morning sleeping, put your alarm clock across the room so you have to get out of bed to turn it off.

Sometimes the easiest way to abandon self-control is to give something up altogether. Like Samuel Johnson, who said, "Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult," I find it much easier to abstain rather than to indulge moderately. When you NEVER do something, it doesn't take self-control; when you do something SOMETIMES, it takes huge self-control.

Examine the occasions for your self-control. Maybe you need to re-think them entirely. For example, my weight-training instructor told me about a client who was trying to lose weight, who said, "Can't I have a single-serving bag of potato chips each day? After all, what am I going to eat when my kids are having their potato chips after school?" Her answer: "Your kids should be eating something else, too!" Instead of trying to resist ordering fries with your burger, maybe you should stop eating at McDonald's.

Another reason to abandon self-control is that - at least in my case - just thinking about self-control tends to weaken it. If I think, "Congratulations, Gretchen, what good self-control with not buying Tasti D-Lite!" the next thing I know, I'm buying three mini Tootsie-Rolls. This happens to a lot of people when they try to economize: they're so pleased with themselves for looking for the best buy on tuna fish that they splurge by buying a DVD. Not an efficient outcome!

Try to avoid situations that test your self-control. Instead of exercising will-power, forget about it.

Have you found any good strategies for maximizing your self-control? Self-discipline, I think, is one of the KEYS to happiness; it shows up in many different ways, and not always in the way that you'd expect.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you'd like to take a look at Gretchen Rubin's personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email her at grubin, then the "at" sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than "Resolutions Chart" in the subject line.

Comments

[Anpan]

I found a quote somewhere and I would love to know who said it because it's everywhere that I can see it. (I even named my LJ pages that so it would be at the top of each one!) It says, "Self-discipline is the art of remembering what you want." I never have to give up anything I "want" because my focus is always on the end result. It's so simple. The more times a day I think, "Is this what I really want my life to look like?" the easier life becomes.

It really helps when escaping old habits and demons that sprout from a difficult childhood and a long illness. I just think, "Is this who I want to be?" I am actually surprised at who I've found out I really want to be. I'm a lot more fierce and ambitious than I ever thought I would be. And, I can do it. That's what's amazing. I can't overhaul my life all at once, but I can control in the moment things like what I eat or say, what I choose to do and what I leave undone.

Self-discipline really isn't about deprivation or willpower. It's just remembering what you want. It's okay if you don't know all at once. Every time you stop to think about it, you'll add to the shape of it, until you know.

[ObjectiveRealist]

Great article.

My best tip is to put goals more in positive terms than negative. Instead of resisting dessert, I set a positive goal in terms of servings of fruits and vegetables, and glasses of water. Then, it turns out that cravings for refined sugars just gradually diminish.

[jigen]

It seems to me, by the number of times food was mentioned in this article, that this is less about self-control and more about one person's poor relationship with food.

Do you suggest we should abandon our self-control whenever we have the urge to have a sexual partner outside our marriages/relationships? Or spending all day playing video games, gambling or wanking?

Self-control is good. Maybe it is only a limited quantity, but surely you can train yourself to have a higher quantity over time.

As far as food goes, why not eat good food? You can eat more good food than bad food, and good food doesn't taste as bad as the fake chemical substitutes served at fine fast-food establishments. Food has nothing to do with self-control, it's more about common sense. If you're hungry, drink a tall glass of iced-water. You'll burn calories and it'll take the edge off your hunger. You don't need to eat rubbish.

[curly2]

I think the answer to the questions about non-food issues would go something like this--

If you don't want to have an extramarital affair outside of marriage, don't meet your gorgeous co-worker alone after work

If you don't want to spend all day playing video games, don't have a video game system in the house...

And onwards. It's not a great solution, though, since none of us live in a vacuum-- maybe I would like to get rid of the TV, but I have a family who watches TV too. I may want to never eat Chex Mix again, but my husband loves it and brought home two bags yesterday. It really does come down to self-control in the end.

[Sxeptomaniac]

Good advice. It's funny how often I have to point out to people that part of the reason I stay relatively thin is that I don't buy sweets (soda, ice cream, candy, etc.) often. Not buying them is the best way to make sure I don't overindulge in them.

[KoiPondering]

This sounds a little less like Abandoning your self control, and more like avoidance of any temptation. I would only caution, if you avoid going out to keep from eating. Be sure your not avoiding socializing at all.

[CrustAlmighty]

I always tell myself that it's much easier to exercise self-control once in the grocery store than it is every day at the refrigerator.

[toocoldout]

Good thinking. I like that. Also once I buy the food I want to eat it when it's fresh.

[Blackbirdsings]

I'm getting really good a second guessing my impulse buying habits. Food you can go for value and number of meals from raw ingredients. Items are now based on their long term value or that are functional enough. I mean I would give anything to have an iPhone, besides the fact that I can't afford it. But I also realize as a designer, the computer and I are never far apart, so why would i need an internet device for random things, when I generally have a specific destination and travel plan every time I do go out.

I've been slowly developing these habits, because as being self-employed doesn't allow me to buy $7 cocktails or $50 meals. If more individuals and families executed self-control and thrifty behavior, you'd be surprised that you can afford good things, be well fed and having an enriched life, for the same salary you have been making for awhile.

What is always nice is dinner parties. Friends, free or reduced cost food and fun. Community building at its best.

[rini]

I have always said, "think of will-power as money in the bank."

You can spend some, but don't spend it all, because you will run out. BTW - diets run on the premise that if you are overweight your internal appetite controls must be defective (when, actually, it's your environment) and you should throw the baby out with the bathwater and ignore your internal signals completely. You should use will power twenty four/seven to maintain a certain calorie intake.

Of course, it's like Abraham Lincoln said.. "You can control everything you eat some of the time and some of what you eat all the time. You can't control everything you eat all the time."

..and he was thin...wasn't he????

No, seriously. DIets don't work, even the "reasonable" ones IMHO.

[alwaysthere]

On the misty cliff's of disposition
We are made to wait
Until more clearly we can see
And like the needle prick's
It's we who make ourselves sick
Ignoring the line
Not realizing that each thought has it's borders
And influence's the mind
Oh.. were free to lie or we may contend
But without a heart thats true
There on the verge we will stand
Or worst
Fall bitter to the very end
However
And the whole point of my compostion
Is that with just a little love and faith
We can easily change our postion
Then, when a little further away from the pain
Perhap's we'll see
that dispositions edge was never ever ever meant to hurt
But, the more to make us think
And then to
Set us free.

Stanley

[stevemarvin]

Very simple but very wise.

[jemiltd]

Interesting. A step further would be that those who are controlling gain the very opposite of their efforts to control. Something akin to self-fulfilling prophecy. Life is just too short to spend so much energy trying to control anyone else besides yourself. That can't be much fun either.

[djMikulec]

Giving up things you like? And this is called the Happiness Project?!? Bleah. ;-)

[katherine2]

So according to Gretchen's theory- if you want to control posting comments , then you'd avoid the temptation of being online. Or go somewhere you wouldn't want to post, like FOX.

[bighillaryfan]

Are you telling me we should pardon Bush. No way. ;-)

[fcsakes]

Absolutely!