We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

Self-Control Principle 1 Willpower is a finite resource

The window two feet to my left is directly above the kitchen of my house. We live next door to a bar and an Italian restaurant, which presumably also have their kitchens on this side of the building, because throughout the day my room is bombarded will all manner of delicious aromas. When this happens, naturally, I get hungry. Hell, Im getting hungry now just writing about it (but that could also be the smell of curry drafting through my window). Consequently, I have to regularly fend off the urge to eat. If youve ever been on a diet, I know that youll recognize this sort of temptation. You smell food, you imagine eating it, you salivate, then you go eat something. Not even the thing you just smelled, necessarily, just something. If your motivation towards your diet is high, you can probably handle this once or twice. But what if you live where I do? Or what if you worked in a restaurant yourself, smelling, seeing, even preparing food all day? Would you become more likely to break your diet as the day went on? The laws of probability say yes the more you are required to resist eating, the more opportunities you have to cheat, therefore statistically speaking, all else being equal, youre more likely to give in. But theres more to it than mere probability. Study after study has shown that willpower is a finite resource it runs out. Once it does, we find ourselves succumbing to our instincts, giving in to urges wed ordinarily brush aside. Some people have a little willpower and others have a lot. But even the strongest will has limits. When the first smell comes into my room, its no problem. Sure, I get an urge to go to the fridge and eat something, but I can easily resist. The next time is no problem either. Nor is the one after that. But with each application of willpower to resist the urge, my reserves deplete a little more. So later, when I go to Costa and buy my Americano, I put three sugars in instead of my usual one. This is a physical process. Just as your muscles get tired from constant work, so does your willpower muscle. Certainly, your motivation, mood, internal beliefs and other factors do play a role (which well discuss in-depth later), but they only serve to augment or abate this physical process. This sounds like bad news, but it does have a positive side. We can use it to our advantage. Knowing that willpower depletes whenever you use it, try to limit the number of occasions that youre called upon to do so. For example, if youre dieting, see your house free of all food disallowed by your program. That way, you wont have to resist eating it, giving you more willpower for the times you really need it. Yes, youll have to employ more willpower in the supermarket, but the net effect will be positive. If youre cutting back on your internet use, get a program like Self-Control, which blocks any sites you specify for any given time interval. If youre trying to stick to an exercise plan, try scheduling your workout for the

mornings, when your willpower reserves are fresher after your nights sleep. You get the idea. Me? Im just keeping my window shut from now on.

Self-Control Principle 2: Different tasks draw from the same willpower resource
This time it will be different, I said to myself after creating my daily routine. It was beautiful. My past attempts at self-organisation had failed, I surmised, because my schedules were too strict. This time I just had my 15 daily tasks listed down one side of a page, and days of the month along the top. If I did what was required in each domain, I would put a cross in the relevant box. My schedule was my own to decide on the fly. I was sure to succeed. Except that I didnt. My first week went great, fuelled by fresh enthusiasm for my new plan. After that it tailed off and the crosses got sparser and sparser. I thought the initial problem was overly-rigid structuring, but it wasnt. It was the amount of stuff I had on the list. In the last post I explained how willpower, like all forms of power, is finite; it gets weaker with use. So if youre on a diet while at some social soire, the more you resist the buffet the more likely you are to eventually give in. However, this depletion (called ego-depletion by psychologists) is not domain specific it can affect your willpower in other areas too, even mental tasks, as self-control researcher Roy Baumeister discovered in a fiendishly clever and slightly cruel study. Imagine youve fasted for a few hours, and then youre taken to a room filled with the aroma of freshly baked cookies. Then you see them, piled up on a plate on the table. Filled with joy, you sit down to eat. Then the researcher shows you the plate of radishes next to it. Dont eat the delicious cookies, he says, But help yourself to as many raw radishes as you like. Damnit! Through a herculean feat of willpower that David Blaine would be proud of, you resist. Youre then given some puzzles to test your brain. You, and the other participants told not to eat the cookies would persist on this task for about eight minutes on average, while another, luckier group who were allowed to eat the cookies would stick at it for an average of 20 minutes. Even though resisting cookies would seem to have nothing to do with persistence on mental puzzles, they are in fact very much related different tasks draw on the same finite resource. Sticking to a diet? Youre more likely to light up a cigarette. Tough day at work? Youre more likely to snap at your spouse. Been studying for a few hours? That ice-cream just got a whole lot more tempting! But as with Principle 1, this isnt all bad news. You can use this knowledge to your advantage by adding another actionable step to our portfolio: do less. Focus on one or two primary goals at the once. Prioritise of all the things you want to do; lose weight, quit smoking, reduce internet usage, learn Swahili, pick the one thats most important to you at the moment and focus on that. Then once youve made the actions leading to that goal habitual, add another goal.

Actionable Steps
Principle 1 Limit or avoid situations where youre required to exercise willpower, in order to reserve willpower for when its needed. Principle 2 Reduce the number of goals you pursue at any given time so you can focus your willpower on a limited number of tasks.

Self-Control Principle 3 Willpower can be developed

Strong self-control correlates with success in work, relationships, health and almost any other domain you can think of. Its kind of like IQ in that sense, however it differs from intelligence in one very important aspect its easy to develop. If you think your willpower is a fixed trait, something youre born with and thats that, there are loads of experiments to prove you wrong. The first such test (as far as Im aware) was back in 1999. Willpower researchers Muraven, Baumeister and Tice took a group of students and split them into four groups. Each group received a different self-control training regimen. One group had to work on their posture, one tried to control their emotional state at all times, one kept a food diary and the final group did nothing (to serve as a control group). The students were given a self-control test before and after their program to see if there was any effect of this willpower training. Theres a standard format for doing this youre given two self-control tasks in a row, but youre really being tested on the second one. The aim is to see whether the first task depletes your willpower reserves on the second task, and to what extent. The results showed that monitoring your posture and keeping a food diary had a significant impact on peoples self-control after only two weeks. Their performance in the second task was better than the other two groups, indicating that the first task had not depleted them as much. Presumably, this indicates that their training regime has endowed them with a larger self-control reservoir from which to draw. Interestingly, trying to control your emotional state was as effective as doing nothing at all, but this is probably because we cant control our states directly, only indirectly through our thoughts and behaviours, so this groups was effectively doing nothing. Finding two ways to boost willpower was a hugely significant finding. As I said earlier, the two variables that correlate best with success in various domains are IQ and self-control. Theres not much we can do to increase IQ, but now we know ways to build our self-control. Other activities that have been successfully tested with the same experiment design are doing normal activities with your non-dominant hand, like brushing your teeth or opening doors and changing something about your speech (avoiding the words literally, like and basically would be particularly beneficial for humanity). Lots of other activities would work too. Basically (sorry), anything that involves changing a habit will be effective as a workout for the willpower muscle.

However theres one thing I recommend above all else mindfulness. This is a psychological technique which helps you to control your attention and increase your awareness. These two things are absolutely crucial to our main goal at Urge Surf overcoming cravings. If youre suddenly hit with a desire for chocolate, say, you need to be mindful enough to recognize this as a simple bodily signal if youre going to get past it. Otherwise youll mindlessly react to it, youll be chomping down on a Snickers before you even know whats happening. And if you try some technique like distracting yourself from the craving, you still need to bring your attention from the craving to the distraction not always an easy task, as Im sure youre aware! But mindfulness helps you to do this. Remember the study of mindfulness in prisons? They found that doing a mindfulness course reduced substance abuse and the results persisted for some time after the intervention, even though the participants werent asked to continue practising. And with this study, were talking about some of the most addictive substances that exist. So while brushing your teeth with the weaker hand, improving your posture or trying not to swear will certainly be effective in developing your self-control, mindfulness gives you two more tools with which to fight craving increased awareness, and increased ability to control your attention. This is not to mention its other positive side-effects, like improved well-being, immune function and cognitive performance! The downside is that it takes a little time 20 minutes a day to meditate is 20 minutes out of your day, while brushing your teeth with the other hand or working on your posture is no burden on your schedule at all. So if setting 20 minutes a day aside for mindfulness seems daunting, work on your posture for a week or two until your willpower strengthens, and then switch to mindfulness. So now we have another actionable step: Actionable Steps Principle 1 Limit or avoid situations where youre required to exercise willpower, in order to reserve willpower for when its needed. Principle 2 Reduce the number of goals you pursue at any given time so you can focus your willpower on a limited number of tasks. Principle 3 Pick a simple habit to change and stick with it to build your willpower reserves. If youre planning a big behaviour change, like quitting smoking, do a few weeks to a month of willpower training before you start. Reference: Muraven M, Baumeister RF, & Tice DM (1999). Longitudinal improvement of selfregulation through practice: building self-control strength through repeated exercise. The Journal of social psychology, 139 (4), 446-57 PMID: 10457761

Resistance training builds your self-control muscles

If you accept self-control principle three, then the next step is to learn exactly what activities we can do to develop our self-control muscles. Lots of tests have

been conducted in this vein. Megan Oaten and Ken Cheng split a group of people into two. One would take part in a two month exercise program, consisting of weights training and resistance training, the other were not enrolled in the exercise program. By the way, weights and resistance training are basically the same thing; they refer to anaerobic workouts, not cardio workouts like Body Pump or cycling (though they too produce self-control benefits as well discuss later). At the end of this program, the participants took part in two self-control tests. The first one isnt important its sole aim is to fatigue their self-control muscle. The idea is that, if physical exercise develops willpower, then the group who exercised would do better on the second test of self-control, in just the same way that a physically fitter group should be able to handle two exercise routines in succession better than an untrained group. As expected, the exercisers performed better on the self-control task, indicating that sticking to a resistance training routine is an effective way to build selfcontrol. Not only that, but their enhanced willpower spilled over into multiple domains they reported less smoking, better maintenance of household chores, better control over their spending and more time spent studying. So when youre pumping iron at the gym, remember that youre strengthening your willpower as well as your body. Reference: Megan Oaten and Ken Cheng, Longitudinal Gains in Self-Regulation from Regular Physical Exercise, British Journal of Health Psychology 11 (2006): 717733.

Meditation has the edge over relaxation exercises

In a previous post, we talked about how our biological evolution has fallen behind our cultural evolution, and how this has lead to unhealthy behaviours, cravings and addictions. We then discussed a study which found reductions in substance abuse as a result of mindfulness meditation practice. But the problem was, the intervention didnt separate the meditation itself from the other aspects of the course relaxing for 10 days, being in silence, eating a certain way, and so on. So you could argue that just taking time out to relax is whats bringing the benefits, not the mindfulness training itself. However, another study suggests otherwise. Researchers enlisted a group of people and split them into three groups. One did mindfulness training, one did a relaxation exercise and the third was a notreatment control group. The meditators had four 1.5 hour sessions, spread over four weeks. The exercises included: body scan meditation,in which the practitioner focuses attention on each part of the body to notice sensations that arise; sitting meditation,where the practice is focusing non-judgmental awareness on whatever arises moment by moment; Hatha yoga, where one practices gentle stretching while maintaining attention on subtle movements in the body; walking meditation, where one practices walking

slowly, with awareness; and loving-kindness meditation, where one focuses attention on feelings of caring and love for ones self and others to cultivate compassionate awareness and action in everyday life. While the relaxation exercises: [integrated] techniques of autogenic relaxation using the six autogenic phrases used by Schultz, progressive muscle relaxation (using tension and release of muscles throughout the body to relax), simple breathing techniques (such as simple diaphragmatic breathing and breathing with counting), and guided imagery to give a comprehensive course on stress reduction via a focus on bodily relaxation. To test whether the conditions were similar, the participants rated the warmth of the room and the abilities of the instructor delivering the intervention, and the results came out even. So which group did best? Well, in terms of reducing distress and increasing positive mood states, the results were more or less even. Both relaxation and meditation were better than nothing, and meditation was slightly but not significantly more effective than the somatic relaxation exercises. However, meditation did have an edge in one area reducing distracting and ruminative thoughts. This is as youd expect, given the concentration-building nature of mindfulness meditation. Statistical modelling indicated that part of the benefits of reduced distress in the mindfulness group were caused by this decreased rumination. In other words, meditation provides the same benefits that relaxation does, but it also gives you more control over your thoughts. If youre experiencing an addition, or even just a craving for something like chocolate or sex, thoughts of this thing fill your mind. Relaxation doesnt help you with this mindfulness does. It helps reduce the quantity of these thoughts because it gives you more control over them. Youre able to stop the thought in its tracks and come back to the present moment, or the breath, or whatever you want because youre in control. Theres another thing in this paper thats worth mentioning the results were recorded 7 to 14 days after the end of the test, AND they were taken just before the medical students had their finals! So the take-home from this is that mindfulness is effective even during times of high stress!

What is Urge Surfing?

Urge Surfing is a mental technique that helps you overcome cravings and urges. It is based on mindfulness, a way of paying attention based on Eastern meditation practices. Mindfulness involves deliberately bringing your attention to the present moment. Not thinking of the past, not planning the future, you simply exist in the moment, observing whatever happens. Mindfulness is usually developed through meditation techniques These meditation techniques all share one thing in common mindful attention has to be non-judgemental. Which is to say, whatever moves through your conscious attention is simply observed, without judgement and without

evaluation. Sensations, thoughts, smells, sounds, sights whatever you perceive, are neither good nor bad, painful nor pleasurable, true nor false. You dont label them or evaluate them in any way, but rather, you observe them for what they objectively are, as best you can. In other words, you accept it for what it is. Subjectively speaking, a craving is a call to action. Its a sign from your body, telling you it needs something. Get me some chocolate! I wanna watch TV! Smoke em if ya got em! In many ways, its the complete opposite of the mindful state just described. The mindful state says Things are what they are, and thats OK. A craving says Things are not good! We need to change the way things are. Right now buddy! If you follow the advice of a craving its like rejecting the present moment. But another thing that naturally follows from mindfulness is the knowledge that the present moment is always changing. Thoughts move in and out of your head, sensations come and go, emotions arise and then pass away. A craving is no different. They do not last forever. In all likelyhood, you have managed to avoid a craving at one point or another. Maybe you quit smoking for a few weeks, or maybe you stuck to a diet for a month. Since you werent in a state of craving 100% of the time you did that, you already know that cravings arent permanent. They come, and then they go. Kind of like a wave. And just like waves, they come back. Then pass, and then come back. The technique of Urge Surfing teaches you to surf the waves. A craving arises, so you start to surf it. You enter a mindful state, observing the craving objectively, accepting the moment for what it is. The cravings call to action is diminished, and you ride the weakened wave to the shore. Then another wave arises, and you do the same. Over time, the waves that arise become weaker and easier to surf. Of course, some waves are easier to surf than others. In cases of addiction, for instance, you might only be able to surf a wave for a few minutes. But you keep at it, and there are other techniques and meditations you can do even when not in the presence of a craving to help you improve your surfing abilities, so to speak. And eventually you find yourself surfing waves for longer and longer periods, until you have surfed a full wave. Then youre on the home stretch. Then you may be rid of the craving, except in rare circumstances or when faced with certain cues, such as smelling cigarette smoke. On the other hand, urges may never go away completely, but at least you have a way to handle them. You might also be interested to know that the benefits of Urge Surfing do not stop at handling cravings. The meditation skills on which they are based offer many benefits to the body and mind, improving mood, immune response and cognitive function, to name but a few things. And what you are really doing here is building self-control, which studies have shown is a greater predictor of success than IQ! What is tempting you? Are you ready to give Urge Surfing a try? Kurzzusammenfassung Jeder hat Willenskraft, auch Menschen die Dinge aufschieben.

Willenskraft kann erschpft werden, deshalb muss man mit ihr haushalten. Der Blutzuckerspiegel und die allgemeine Erschpfung wirken sich auf die Willenskraft aus. Wer in einem Gebiet willensstark ist, muss es nicht auch in einem anderen Gebiet sein. Willenskraft ist Disziplin. Wenn man sich Aufgaben setzt, ist es gut diese in kleinere Schritte aufzubrechen. Nach dem Motto auch die grte Reise beginnt mit dem ersten Schritt.