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    Cultivate Willpower and Jumpstart Motivation: Take Control of Your Life 10 Minutes at a Time (The Best of Small Steps to Big Change, volume 1)
    Cultivate Willpower and Jumpstart Motivation: Take Control of Your Life 10 Minutes at a Time (The Best of Small Steps to Big Change, volume 1)
    Cultivate Willpower and Jumpstart Motivation: Take Control of Your Life 10 Minutes at a Time (The Best of Small Steps to Big Change, volume 1)
    Ebook167 pages2 hours

    Cultivate Willpower and Jumpstart Motivation: Take Control of Your Life 10 Minutes at a Time (The Best of Small Steps to Big Change, volume 1)

    By Lynn Johnston

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    About this ebook

    Take control of your life ten minutes at a time--that's the philosophy of Small Steps to Big Change, the blog about the power of kaizen to make life better.

    This anthology will teach you:

    - How Your Living Room Can Give You More Willpower

    - The Emotional Foundations of Clutter

    - Five Steps for Cultivating Self-Discipline

    - Three Goal-Setting Mistakes You're Probably Making

    - How Horseshoe Nails Are Ruining Your Life

    - The Magic Question That Keeps You Moving Toward Your Goals

    - Three Goal-Setting Mistakes You're Probably Making

    - How to Ease Into a New Diet or Fitness Routine Without Disrupting Your Life

    - Tips for Clearing Mental Clutter

    ...and much more!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLynn Johnston
    Release dateJul 12, 2012
    ISBN9781452486253
    Cultivate Willpower and Jumpstart Motivation: Take Control of Your Life 10 Minutes at a Time (The Best of Small Steps to Big Change, volume 1)
    Author

    Lynn Johnston

    Lynn Johnston is the creator of one of the world's most popular comic strips, For Better or For Worse, which began in 1979 and is published in more than twenty countries. A Pulitzer Prize nominee, Lynn's many honors include the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award and the prestigious Order of Canada. Farley, the Old English Sheepdog from her comic strip, is based on a beloved dog—of the same name—she once owned. Lynn lives in Northern Ontario, Canada.

    Read more from Lynn Johnston

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      Book preview

      Cultivate Willpower and Jumpstart Motivation - Lynn Johnston

      Five Techniques for Cultivating Self-Discipline

      What do you think of when you hear the word discipline?

      For me, it has negative connotations: punishment for bad behavior, being denied the things I want, rigid rules and an inflexible schedule, and worst of all, the certainty that as hard as I try to be good, I’m probably going to mess up.

      As you might guess, up until recently, I haven’t been a big believer in self-discipline.

      But as a result of my recent readings on willpower and productivity, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to change my definition of the word.

      What if I stop thinking of self-discipline as being strict with myself, and start thinking of it as the ability to get myself to make the right choices (i.e. choose long-term benefit over short-term pleasure) when it counts?

      Instead of relying on the usual disciplinary tools (punishment, denial, etc), I could…

      Ask myself a question that helps me focus on the long-term consequences of my actions.

      Whenever I’m considering eating something, I could ask myself:

      If I eat this food today, will I be thinner or fatter tomorrow?

      When the computer beckons and I’m tempted to entertain myself with email instead of doing the items on my list, I could ask myself:

      When I look back on my day tonight, which of these activities will I be proud to have done?

      When I’m tempted to blow off exercise to keep working or to watch TV, I could ask myself:

      What would a healthy person choose?

      No punishment required, just a simple question that takes me off auto-pilot and focuses me on long-term benefits.

      What other ways could I keep myself on the path toward my goals without having to feel the sting of the metaphorical whip?

      Adopt real-life role models.

      Not quite able to forgive my mother’s latest snarky remark? What would Buddha do?

      Having trouble motivating myself to get started on today’s writing? What would Stephen King do?

      Should I take a risk and try something new, or play it safe? What would Aunt Tilly do?

      By posing these questions, I’m using role models to tap into my desire to become a better person. I want to be as successful a writer as Stephen King, and as enlightened a human being as Buddha, and to live as exuberantly as my late Aunt Tilly, who was like a second mother to me.

      Make a Pre-commitment.

      Make the right decision when I’m in a good mental space and then put the associated behavior on autopilot, so I won’t be tempted to change it when I’m tired and stressed.

      For example, setting up an automatic transfer to my IRA or savings account, so that the money gets saved without me having to decide to do it every month. (In this case, I’m outsourcing the job of being disciplined to my bank.)

      Or bringing a healthy lunch to work, so it’s less tempting to spend money on junk food at the cafeteria.

      Eliminate temptation altogether.

      If I can’t stop myself from making impulse purchases with my credit cards, I could put those cards in a baggie and hide them in the freezer, or cut them up. If I can’t resist stopping at that amazing bakery on my way home from work, I could take a route that doesn’t pass by the bakery.

      If the wrong choice isn’t even an option, I’m much less likely to feel as if I’m denying myself.

      Practice making the right choice on a small scale and ease myself into good habits.

      Yes, even when it comes to self-discipline, it’s an option to take the kaizen approach. :)

      I could eat my usual diet, but make a rule that I must eat my (low calorie, filling) veggies first.

      Or I could switch out my usual potato chips for mixed nuts or baked, whole-grain crackers.

      Or substitute a chocolate cookie for that monster brownie I usually prefer.

      Or instead of buying a brownie at the cafeteria, make a healthier version at home (the Sneaky Chef has a lower sugar, lower fat brownie recipe that’s bursting with nutrients and chocolatey-goodness).

      Mark Joyner, creator of Simpleology, calls this making a strengthening choice. And even the smallest strengthening choice can send ripples out through the rest of your life.

      Studies have shown that exercising your willpower regularly in small ways not only increases your willpower in the future, but it also tends to bleed over into other areas of your life. In their book Willpower, Baumeister and Tierney describe a study in which students who were coached to exercise regularly also spontaneously began to keep their homes cleaner, smoke and drink less, and procrastinate less on schoolwork.

      As you get used to thinking about long-term consequences and making the right choices on a small scale, it becomes easier to do the same when faced with the big decisions.

      Are You Wasting Your Willpower?

      Have you ever started the day determined to stick to your diet…and blown it by lunchtime?

      There’s a reason that as the day went on, it got harder for you to live up to those good intentions. Psychological studies on willpower and self-control have revealed that we actually have a limited amount of willpower available to us each day–and once we’ve used it up, it’s gone.

      Yes, gone. Self-control–the ability to make yourself do the right thing instead of the easy thing or the fun thing–is an exhaustible resource. Or, to quote Chip and Dan Heath, the authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.

      So how do we use up willpower? By…

      - Making choices

      - Editing or otherwise controlling our behavior (usually as a way of managing other people’s impressions of us)

      - Controlling our emotions, especially negative ones

      - Focusing on instructions given to us by someone else

      - Being careful or deliberate in performing a task

      - Forcing ourselves to push on with a task even though we’re frustrated

      - Engaging in creative thinking

      In other words, any time you are not on autopilot, you are burning up self-control. How many times per day do you bite your tongue, force yourself to choose carrot sticks over cookies, or come up with a creative solution for a problem on the job?

      Notice that the energy which fuels your creative process is coming from the same place that fuels getting chores done and resisting the ice cream in the back of the freezer. That makes it even more important for us creative types to be good about managing the mundane aspects of our lives–so we’ll have more energy left over for writing that novel!

      How to Get More Willpower

      The good news is that, while self-control and willpower are exhaustible, they’re also renewable, and there are things you can do to increase the amount you start the day with.

      Take care of your body. One of the biggest factors in how much willpower you have is your health. Physical vitality translates into mental energy that’s available for making choices. Lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and other things that drain your body don’t just affect how you feel, they also affect how much self-control you have available. Getting a good night’s sleep, taking a fifteen-minute walk, a few minutes of deep breathing, eating a healthy meal: these are just a few of the small steps you can take to increase your physical vitality, and at the same time, your willpower.

      Nourish your mind. Mental stress–sensory overstimulation, an environment that’s full of distractions, having too much on your mind–also reduce your available willpower. There are many small steps you can take to reduce mental stress too: meditation, journaling, talking with a good friend, losing yourself in a good book for a few minutes, listening to relaxing music.

      How to Use Your Willpower Wisely

      You can make what willpower you already have go farther::

      - Do the important things first. Don’t wait until you’ve exhausted your willpower for the day and then start the big hairy project you’ve been meaning to tackle.

      - Make starting easier. Taking the first step on a project often involves overcoming many mental hurdles, and each of those hurdles requires a bit of willpower to get past. What’s the simplest first step you could take? A phone call? A google search? A quick-and-dirty list that breaks the project down into simple steps? Gathering all the materials you’ll need in one place? Anything that makes you feel like you’ve gotten a grip on the project today can make it easier to do the next step tomorrow.

      - Eliminate unnecessary choices. It’s hard to choose carrot sticks over cookies as a snack — but what if it wasn’t a choice? Bring healthy snacks to work with you. If you need help keeping portions in check, put an appropriate amount of your snack into a ziploc baggie, so you don’t have to think about how much you’ve eaten.

      - Simplify your routines and habits. For example, how many choices do you make every morning while you’re getting dressed? Laying your clothes out the night before or having your closet arranged by outfit could make getting dressed a no-brainer.

      - Plan ahead. Do you have to wrack your brains every night to come up with something you can make for dinner using what’s in the fridge? How many decisions and how much mental stress could you eliminate from you day by planning the week’s meals ahead of time and buying the necessary ingredients each weekend?

      - Arrange your environment to make the right choices easy. If you have to clean off your desk before you can start writing your novel, how likely are you to work on the novel? Would you channel surf less if your television was hidden away in an entertainment center with doors? Could you hide the junk food in the back of a cabinet and put the healthy food right up front? The more your environment supports the habits you’re trying to cultivate, the easier it is to stick to those habits.

      - Make a checklist. If you have to look around a messy room and decide what to do first, you’re squandering precious willpower. But if you have a cleaning checklist for each room, all you have to do is follow the list.

      - Set rules. This one sounds like a drag, but when you discover how much mental stress the rules can save you, you’ll be glad you did. One of my new rules is that every time I go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, I do a small kitchen chore while the water is heating, like loading or unloading the dishwasher. Stress eaters often reduce snacking by following the rule that every time they get stressed and want to eat, instead they take a minute to do a breathing exercise. Thinking about situations where your willpower often fails and coming up with a rule that guides you to the better choice can significantly reduce the amount of stress you feel when that choice comes up.

      The better you get at using your willpower wisely, the more effective you will be in your daily

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