Top Quotes: “The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It” — Kelly McGonigal

Introduction

“Research shows that people who think they have the most willpower are actually the most likely to lose control when tempted. For example, smokers who are the most optimistic about their ability to resist temptation are the most likely to relapse four months later, and overoptimistic dieters are the least likely to lose weight. Why? They fail to predict when, where, and why they will give in. They expose themselves to more temptation, such as hanging out with smokers or leaving cookies around the house They’re also most likely to be surprised by setbacks and give up on their goals when they run into difficulty.

Self-knowledge — especially of how we find ourselves in willpower trouble — is the foundation of self-control.”

“You need to recognize when you’re making a choice that requires willpower; otherwise, the brain always defaults to what is easiest.”

“When your mind is preoccupied, your impulses — not your long-term goals — will guide your choices.”

“Her willpower challenge for the class was to check e-mail less, and she set an ambitious goal of checking no more than once an hour. After the first week, she reported that she did not come even close to her goal. The problem was that she often didn’t even realize that she was checking her e-mail until after she was scrolling through new messages. She could stop once she realized what she was doing, but whatever impulse led her to look at her phone or click over to her e-mail was happening outside of conscious awareness. Michele set the goal to catch herself sooner in the process.

By the next week, she was able to notice when she was reaching for her phone or opening her e-mail. That gave her an opportunity to practice stopping before she got fully sucked in.”

Meditation and Breathing

“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. People who meditate regularly aren’t just better at these things. Over time, their brains become finely tuned willpower machines. Regular meditators have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, as well as regions of the brain that support 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.”

“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 and “exhale” as you breathe out. When you notice your mind wandering (and it will), just bring it back to the breath. This practice of coming back to the breath, again and again, kicks the prefrontal cortex into high gear and quiets the stress and craving centers of your brain.

Notice how it feels to breathe, and notice how the mind wanders.

After a few minutes, drop the labels “inhale/ exhale.” Try focusing on just the feeling of breathing. You might notice the sensations of the breath flowing in and out of your nose and mouth. You might sense the belly or chest expanding as you breathe in, and deflating as you breathe out. Your mind might wander a bit more without the labeling. Just as before, when you notice yourself thinking about something else, bring your attention back to the breath. If you need help refocusing, bring yourself back to the breath by saying “inhale” and “exhale” for a few rounds. This part of the practice trains self-awareness along with self-control.

Start with five minutes a day.”

“Andrew found that even when his meditation felt distracted, he was more focused after practicing than if he skipped it. He also realized that what he was doing in meditation was exactly what he needed to do in real life: catch himself moving away from a goal and then point himself back at the goal (in this case, focusing on the breath).”

“You won’t find many quick fixes in this book, but there is one way to immediately boost willpower: Slow your breathing down to four to six breaths per minute. That’s ten to fifteen seconds per breath — slower than you normally breathe, but not difficult with a little bit of practice and patience. Slowing the breath down activates the prefrontal cortex and increases heart rate variability, which helps shift the brain and body from a state of stress to self-control mode. A few minutes of this technique will make you feel calm, in control, and capable of handling cravings or challenges.”

“Start by timing yourself to see how many breaths you normally take in one minute. Then begin to slow the breath down without holding your breath (that will only increase stress). For most people, it’s easier to slow down the exhalation, so focus on exhaling slowly and completely (pursing your lips and imagining that you are exhaling through a straw in your mouth can help). Exhaling fully will help you breathe in more fully and deeply without struggling. If you don’t quite get down to four breaths a minute, don’t worry. Heart rate variability steadily increases as your breathing rate drops below twelve per minute.”

“Because it takes only one to two minutes of breathing at this pace to boost your willpower reserve, it’s something you can do whenever you face a willpower challenge.”

“A 2010 analysis of ten different studies found that the biggest mood-boosting, stress-busting effects came from five-minute doses of exercise, not hour-long sessions. There’s no shame — and a lot of potential good in committing to just a five-minute walk around the block.”

“To trigger this relaxation response, lie down on your back, and slightly elevate your legs with a pillow under the knees (or come into whatever is the most comfortable position for you to rest in). Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, allowing your belly to rise and fall. If you feel any tension in your body, you can intentionally squeeze or contract that muscle, then let go of the effort. For example, if you notice tension in your hands and fingers, squeeze your hands into fists, then relax them into open hands. If you notice tension in your forehead or jaw, scrunch up your eyes and face, then stretch your mouth wide open before relaxing the face completely. Stay here for five to ten minutes, enjoying the fact that there is nothing to do but breathe. If you’re wor ried about falling asleep, set an alarm.

Make this a daily practice, especially when you’re dealing with high levels of stress or willpower demands. Relaxation will help your body recover from the physiological effects of chronic stress or heroic self-control.”

Small Steps

“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. And while these small self-control exercises may seem inconsequential, they appear to improve the willpower challenges we care about most, including focusing at work, taking good care of our health, resisting temptation, and feeling more in control of our emotions. One study, led by a team of psychologists at Northwestern University, even tested whether two weeks of willpower training could reduce violence against a romantic partner. They randomly assigned forty adults (ages eighteen to forty-five, all in romantic relationships) to one of three training groups. One group was asked to use their nondominant hand for eating, brushing their teeth, and opening doors. The second group was told to avoid swearing and to say “yes” instead of “yeah.” The third group received no special instructions. After two weeks, participants in both self-control groups were less likely to respond to typical triggering events, like jealousy or feeling disrespected by their partner, with physical violence.”

“The important “muscle” action being trained in all these studies isn’t the specific willpower challenge of meeting deadlines, using your left hand to open doors, or keeping the F-word to yourself. It’s the habit of noticing what you are about to do, and choosing to do the more difficult thing instead of the easiest. Through each of these willpower exercises, the brain gets used to pausing before acting. The triviality of the assignments may even help this process. The tasks are challenging, but they’re not overwhelming. And while the self-restraints require careful attention, they’re unlikely to trigger strong feelings of deprivation. (“What do you mean I’m not allowed to say ‘yeah’?!?!?’ That’s the only thing that gets me through the day!”) The relative unimportance of the willpower challenges allowed participants to exercise the muscle of self-control without the internal angst that derails so many of our attempts to change.”

“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.”

Running Out of Steam

“The brain, sensing an increased heart rate and rapidly depleting energy supply, literally puts the brakes on the body. At the same time, the brain creates an overwhelming feeling of fatigue that has little to do with the muscles’ capacity to keep working.”

“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 se-curity, 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?”

Morality

“The Forest Game is just a simulation, but one cannot help being reminded of the eerily similar demise of the Easter Island forest. For centuries, the lush, densely forested island in the Pacific Ocean supported a thriving civilization. But as the population grew, the island’s inhabitants started cutting down trees for more land and wood. By the year 800 C.E., they were cutting down trees faster than the forest could regenerate. By the 1500s, the forest was wiped out, along with many species the inhabitants depended on for food. Starvation and cannibalism became widespread. By the late 1800s, 97 percent of the population had died or left the barren island.”

“The moral licensing effect might explain why some people who have obvious moral credentials — a minister, a family values politician, an attorney general prosecuting corruption — can justify to themselves some serious moral lapses, whether it’s the married televangelist having sex with his secretary, the fiscal conservative using public funds to remodel his home, or the police officer using extreme force against a nonresisting criminal. Most people don’t question their impulses when they’re feeling virtuous, and some people’s positions permanently remind them of their virtue.

Why are we suddenly talking about discrimination and sex scandals instead of dieting and procrastination? Because what is a willpower challenge if not a battle between virtue and vice? Anything you moralize becomes fair game for the effect of moral licensing. If you tell yourself that you’re “good” when you exercise and “bad” when you don’t, then you’re more likely to skip the gym tomorrow if you work out today. Tell yourself you’re “good” for working on an important project and “bad” for procrastinating, and you’re more likely to slack off in the afternoon if you made progress in the morning. Simply put: Whenever we have conflicting desires, being good gives us permission to be a little bit bad.”

“When we think about our willpower challenges in moral terms, we get lost in self-judgments and lose sight of how those challenges will help us get what we want.”

“The problem with progress is how it makes us feel — and even then, it’s only a problem if we listen to the feeling instead of sticking to our goals. Progress can be motivating, and even inspire future self-control, but only if you view your actions as evidence that you are committed to your goal. In other words, you need to look at what you have done and conclude that you must really care about your goal, so much so that you want to do even more to reach it. This perspective is easy to adopt; it’s just not our usual mindset. More typically, we look for the reason to stop.

These two mind-sets have very different consequences. When people who have taken a positive step toward meeting a goal — for example, exercising, studying, or saving money — are asked, “How much progress do you feel you have made on your goal?” they are more likely to then do something that conflicts with that goal, like skip the gym the next day, hang out with friends 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!””

“When they asked students to remember a time they turned down a temptation, moral licensing ensued, and 70 percent took the next opportunity to indulge. But when they also asked the participants to remember why they had resisted, the licensing effect disappeared — 69 percent resisted temptation.”

“When the salad was an option, the percentage of participants choosing the least healthy and most fattening item on the menu increased. The researchers found the same effect for vending machine choices.”

“How can this be? Sometimes the mind gets so excited about the opportunity to act on a goal, it mistakes that opportunity with the satisfaction of having actually accomplished the goal.”

Variability

“We look into the future and fail to see the challenges of today. This convinces us that we will have more time and energy to do in the future what we don’t want to do today. We feel justified in putting it off, confident that our future behavior will more than make up for it.”

“Aim to reduce the variability of your behavior day to day. View every choice you make as a commitment to all future choices. So instead of asking, “Do I want to eat this candy bar now?” ask yourself, “Do I want the consequences of eating a candy bar every afternoon for the next year?” Or if you’ve been putting something off that you know you should do, instead of asking “Would I rather do this today or tomorrow?” ask yourself, “Do I really want the consequences of always putting this off?””

“When people are given a chance to pay for something that replaces a harmful act with something good for the environment — for example, paying 10 percent more on your electricity bill to use green sources of energy — no such licensing effect is seen. Why not? Economists speculate that this kind of green act doesn’t so much reduce guilt as it strengthens the consumer’s sense of commitment to the environment. When we pay that extra money to use wind or solar energy, we think, I’m the kind of person who does good things for the planet! And then we carry that identity with us, looking for more ways to live our values and achieve our goals. If we want to motivate green behavior in others, we would be wise to focus more on strengthening a person’s identity as someone who cares about the environment, and less on giving people the opportunity to buy the right to melt the polar ice caps.

This goes for any type of positive change, including how we try to motivate ourselves. We need to feel like the kind of person who wants to do the right thing.”

Marketing

“Marketing researchers at Stanford University have shown that food and drink samples make shoppers hungrier and thirstier, and put shoppers in a reward-seeking state of mind. Why? Because samples combine two of the biggest promises of reward: Free and Food. (If there’s an attractive spokesperson handing out the samples, you can throw in a third F, and then you’re really in trouble.) In one study, participants who sampled something sweet were more likely to purchase indulgent foods such as a steak or cake, as well as items that were on sale. The food and drink samples amplified the appeal of products that would typically activate the reward system.”

“The next time you walk by a fast-food restaurant and are tempted by the smell of french fries and burgers, it’s a safe bet you’re not smelling the food inside, but a carefully manufactured Eau de Eat More being piped onto the sidewalk through special vents. The website of Scent Air, a leader in the field of scent marketing, 18 brags about how it lured visitors into an ice cream parlor on the lower level of a hotel. With a strategically placed aroma-delivery system, they released the scent of sugar cookies to the top of the stairs and waffle cones to the bottom. The average passerby will think she is inhaling the authentic smell of the sweet treats. Instead, she is breathing in enhanced chemicals designed to maximize the firing of her dopamine neurons and lead her — and her wallet-straight down the stairs. 1 For Bloomingdale’s, the company varied the scents by department: Baby Powder to trigger warm and fuzzy feelings in the maternity department, Coconut in the swimsuit department to inspire fantasies of cocktails on the beach, and the “soothing scent of Lilac” for the intimate apparel department, presumably to calm down women standing naked under fluorescent lighting in front of a three-way dressing-room mirror. You may not even consciously notice these scents, but they can influence your brain and your shopping all the same.

Of course, science can be used for good as well as profit, and to be fair, the field of scent marketing has done more for the world than sell ice cream cones and bikinis. A Florida hospital’s MRI department reduced its last-minute appointment-cancellation rates by introducing Coconut Beach and Ocean fragrances into the waiting areas. A little promise of reward can be a powerful antidote to anxiety, and help people approach things they would rather avoid.”

False Rewards

“There is growing evidence that when people pay close attention to the experience of their false rewards, the magical spell wears off. If you force your brain to reconcile what it expects from a reward — happiness, bliss, satisfaction, an end to sadness or stress — with what it actually experiences, your brain will eventually adjust its expectations. For example, when overeaters slow down and really experience a food that usually triggers cravings and bingeing, they typically notice that the food looks and smells better than it tastes; even with the mouth and stomach full, the brain begs for more; their feelings of anxiety only increase as they eat more; sometimes they don’t even taste the food when they’re bingeing, because they’re eating so fast; and they feel worse physically and emotionally afterward than they did before.”

Anxiety & Setbacks

“Terror management strategles may take our minds off our inevitable demise, but when we turn to temptation for comfort, we may inadvertently be quickening our race to the grave. Case in point: Warnings on cigarette packages can increase a smoker’s urge to light up. A 2009 study found that death warnings trigger stress and fear in smokers — exactly what public health officials hope for. Unfortunately, this anxiety then triggers smokers’ default stress-relief strategy: smoking. Oops. It isn’t logical, but it makes sense based on what we know about how stress influences the brain. Stress triggers cravings and makes dopamine neurons even more excited by any temptation in sight. It doesn’t help that the smoker is — of course — staring at a pack of cigarettes as he reads the warning. So even as a smoker’s brain encodes the words “WARNING Cigarettes cause cancer” and grapples with awareness of his own mortality, another part of his brain starts screaming, “Don’t worry, smoking a cigarette will make you feel better!”

There is a global trend of adding increasingly graphic and disturbing photos of tumors and dead bodies to cigarette warnings. This may or may not be a good idea. According to terror-management theory, the more horrifying the images, the more they will prompt smokers to relieve their anxiety by smoking. However, these images may be quite effective at preventing people from taking up the habit, or strengthening a smoker’s intention to quit. The verdict is still out on whether these new warnings will reduce smoking, but we should keep an eye on the possibility that they will have unintended consequences.”

“In one not-so-nice study, Polivy and Herman rigged a scale to make dieters think they had gained five pounds. The dieters felt depressed, guilty, and disappointed with themselves — but instead of resolving to lose the weight, they promptly turned to food to fix those feelings. Dieters aren’t the only ones susceptible to the what-the-hell effect. The cycle can happen with any willpower challenge. It’s been observed in smokers trying to quit, alcoholics trying to stay sober, shoppers trying to stick to a budget, and even child molesters trying to control their sexual impulses. Whatever the willpower challenge, the pattern is the same. Giving in makes you feel bad about yourself, which motivates you to do something to feel better. And what’s the cheapest, fastest strategy for feeling better?”

Guilt

“The self-forgiveness intervention was a clear success: The women who received the special message ate only 28 grams of candy, compared with almost 70 grams by women who were not encouraged to forgive themselves. (For reference, a single Hershey’s Kiss is 4.5 grams.) Most people are surprised by this finding. Common sense says that the message “Everyone indulges sometimes; don’t be too hard on yourself” will only give dieters permission to eat more. And yet getting rid of guilt kept the women from overindulging in the taste test. We may think that guilt motivates us to correct our mistakes, but it’s just one more way that feeling bad leads to giving in.”

“One reason forgiveness helps people recover from mistakes is that it takes away the shame and pain of thinking about what happened. The what-the-hell effect is an attempt to escape the bad feelings that follow a setback. Without the guilt and self-criticism, there’s nothing to escape. This means it’s easier to reflect on how the failure happened, and less tempting to repeat it.

On the other hand, if you view your setbacks as evidence that you are a hopeless loser who screws everything up, thinking about your failure is a miserable exercise in self-hate. Your most urgent goal will be to soothe those feelings, not learn from your experience.”

“This study, published in 2007, was the first to directly compare the self-control of chimpanzees and humans. What the researchers found, however, says as much about human nature as about the evolutionary basis of patience. Although both chimps and humans preferred six treats to two if they didn’t have to wait, the species made very different decisions when they had to wait. Chimpanzees chose to wait for the larger reward an impressive 72 percent of the time. The Harvard and Max Planck Institute students? Only 19 percent of the time.”

“When we’re on our best behavior, humans’ ability to control our impulses puts other species to shame. But all too often, we use our fancy brains not to make the most strategic decisions, but to give ourselves permission to act more irrationally. That’s because a big prefrontal cortex is good at more than self-control. It can also rationalize bad decisions and promise we’ll be better tomorrow.”

Immediate Gratification

“The good news is, temptation has a narrow window of opportunity. To really overwhelm our prefrontal cortex, the reward must be available now, and for maximum effect — you need to see it. As soon as there is any distance between you and the temptation, the power of balance shifts back to the brain’s system of self-control. Take, for example, the Harvard and Max Planck students whose self-control collapsed at the sight of two M&M’s. In another version of the study, experimenters asked the students to make the choice without putting the rewards on the table. This time, the students were much more likely to choose the larger, delayed reward. Not being able to see the immediate reward made it more abstract and less exciting to the reward system. This helped the students make a rational choice based on mental calculations, not primal feelings.

This is good news for those who want to delay gratification. Anything you can do to create that distance will make it easier to say no. For example, one study found that just putting a candy jar inside a desk drawer instead of on top of the desk reduced office workers’ candy consumption by one third. It isn’t any more difficult to open a drawer than to reach across a desk, but putting the candy away reduced the constant stimulation of desire.”

“When the brain compares a cookie you have to wait ten minutes for to a longer-term reward, like losing weight, it no longer shows the same lopsided bias toward the sooner reward. It’s the “immediate” in immediate gratification that hijacks your brain and reverses your preferences.

For a cooler, wiser brain, institute a mandatory ten-minute wait for any temptation. If, in ten minutes, you still want it, you can have it — but before the ten minutes are up, bring to mind the competing long-term reward that will come with resisting temptation. If possible, create some physical (or visual) distance as well.

If your willpower challenge requires “I will” power, you can still use the ten-minute rule to help you overcome the temptation to procrastinate. Flip the rule to “Do ten minutes, then you can quit.” When your ten minutes are up, give yourself permission to stop — although you may find that once you get started, you’ll want to keep going.”

“1. When you are tempted to act against your long-term interests, frame the choice as giving up the best possible long-term reward for whatever the immediate gratification is.

2. Imagine that long-term reward as already yours. Imagine your future self enjoying the fruits of your self-control.

3. Then ask yourself: Are you willing to give that up in exchange for whatever fleeting pleasure is tempting you now?”

“She worked with Diakonia, a Swedish charity that supports local sustainable projects in developing countries, to compare two different fundraising strategies. In Give More Now, current donors were asked to increase their automatic monthly donations starting with the very next payment. In Give More Tomorrow, donors were also asked to increase their monthly donation, but it wouldn’t kick in until two months later. Donors who received the Give More Tomorrow request increased their donations 32 percent more than the donors who were asked to Give More Today. When it comes to our own self-control, we need to be careful about what we expect from our future selves. But when it comes to getting other people to commit their money, time, or effort, you can take advantage of the future-self bias by asking them to commit far in advance.”

“To get to know their future selves, the students interacted with their age-advanced avatars in an immersive virtual reality setup. The participants sat in front of a mirror, but they saw reflected their future selves. If the participant moved her head, her future self moved her head. If she turned sideways, her future self turned sideways. While participants watched their future selves in the mirror, an experimenter asked each participant questions, such as “What is your name?” “Where are you from?” and “What is your passion in life?” As the participant answered, it appeared as though the future self was speaking.

After spending time with their future selves, participants left the virtual reality lab and began a hypothetical budgeting task. They were given $1,000 and asked to divvy it up among present expenses, a fun splurge, a checking account, and a retirement account. Students who had interacted with their future selves put more than twice as much money into their retirement accounts as students who had spent time looking at their young selves in a real mirror. Getting to know their future selves made the students more willing to invest in them — and, by extension, themselves.

Although the technology is not yet widely available, one can imagine the day when every human resources office has new employees interact with their future selves before enrolling in the company’s retirement plan.”

“If you’re trying to decide between starting a project now or putting it off, imagine yourself grocery shopping next week, or at a meeting you have scheduled. When you picture the future, the brain begins to think more concretely and immediately about the consequences of your present choices. The more real and vivid the future feels, the more likely you are to make a decision that your future self won’t regret.”

“Studies show that imagining your future self can increase your present self’s willpower. One experiment asked couch potatoes to imagine either a hoped-for future self who exercised regularly and enjoyed excellent health and energy, or a feared future self who was inactive and suffering the health consequences. Both visualizations got them off the couch, and they were exercising more frequently two months later than a control group that did not imagine a future self. For your willpower challenge, can you imagine a hoped-for future self who is committed to the change, and reaping the benefits? Or a future self suffering the consequences of not changing? Let yourself daydream in vivid detail, imagining how you will feel, how you will look, and what pride, gratitude, or regret you will have for your past self’s choices.”

Social Influence

“Although it’s hard to believe that physical fitness could be contagious, a 2010 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that poor fitness spread through the U.S. Air Force Academy like an infectious disease. A total of 3,487 cadets were tracked for four years, from their high school fitness tests through their regular fitness exams at the academy. Over time, the least-fit cadet in a squadron gradually brought down the fitness levels of the other cadets. In fact, once a cadet arrived at the academy, the fitness level of the least-fit cadet in his squadron was a better predictor of his fitness performance than that cadet’s own pre-academy fitness level.”

“When Christakis and Fowler looked at participants’ weight over time, they saw what looked like a real epidemic. Obesity was infectious, spreading within families and from friend to friend. When a friend became obese, a person’s own future risk of becoming obese increased by 171 percent. A woman whose sister became obese had a 67 percent increased risk, and a man whose brother became obese had a 45 percent increased risk.”

“They also found evidence for the contagiousness of self-control. When one person gave up cigarettes, it increased the odds that their friends and family would quit too. Christakis and Fowler have found the same pattern of contagion in other communities, and for willpower challenges as diverse as drug use, sleep deprivation, and depression. As unsettling as it may be, the implication is clear: Both bad habits and positive change can spread from person to person like germs, and nobody is completely immune.”

“Let’s say I accidentally slice my right thumb as I grab the knife. Ouch! As you see this happen, mirror neurons in the pain regions of your brain will respond. You’ll wince and know immediately what I’m feeling. The experience of pain is so real to the brain that the nerves in your spinal cord will even attempt to suppress incoming pain signals from your own right hand just as if you had actually cut your hand! This is the empathy instinct that helps us understand and respond to other people’s feelings.”

“In many situations, we find ourselves automatically mirroring the physical gestures and actions of others. If you pay attention to body language, you’ll notice that people in conversation start to adopt each other’s positions. One person crosses his arms, and moments later, his conversation partner crosses her arms. She leans back, and soon enough, he leans back, too. This unconscious physical mirroring seems to help people understand each other better, and also creates a sense of connection and rapport. (One reason salespeople, managers, and politicians are trained to intentionally mimic other people’s postures is that they know it will make it easier to influence the person they are mirroring.)

Our instinct to mimic other people’s actions means that when you see someone else reach for a snack, a drink, or a credit card, you may find yourself unconsciously mirroring their behavior — and losing your willpower. For example, a recent study looked at what happens in smokers’ brains when they see a movie character smoke. The brain regions that plan hand movements became activated, as if the smokers’ brains were preparing to pull out a cigarette and light it. Just seeing someone smoke on screen launched a subconscious impulse to light up.”

“Students caught the goal to make money just from reading a story about another student who worked over spring break. These students then worked harder and faster to earn money in a laboratory task.”

“Other studies show that thinking about a friend who smokes marijuana increases college students’ desire to get high, while thinking about a friend who does not smoke decreases their interest.”

“The best way to strengthen your immune response to other people’s goals is to spend a few minutes at the beginning of your day thinking about your own goals, and how you could be tempted to ignore them. Like a vaccine that protects you from other people’s germs, reflecting on your own goals will reinforce your intentions and help you avoid goal contagion.”

“When we observe evidence of other people ignoring rules and following their impulses, we are more likely to give in to any of our own impulses. This means that anytime we see someone behaving badly, our own self-control deteriorates.”

“Research shows that thinking about someone with good self-control can increase your own willpower. Is there someone who can serve as a willpower role model for your challenge? Someone who has struggled with the same challenge and succeeded, or someone who exemplifies the kind of self-control you would like to have?”

“A coworker didn’t have anywhere near the effect of a close friend, and even the friend of a friend’s friend had more influence than a person you saw every day, but didn’t like.”

“if the reports were honest, this study suggests a new strategy for discouraging unhealthy behavior: Just convince people it’s the habit of a group they would never want to be a member of.”

Suppression

“Wegner has even shown that suppressing thoughts about a crush while you are awake increases the likelihood of dreaming about them — more than intentionally fantasizing about the dreamboat does.”

“Wegner has found evidence for ironic effects of attempting to suppress just about any instinct you can imagine. The job candidate who wants so badly to make a good impression is most likely to blurt out the very thing that makes the interviewer cringe. The speaker trying to be politically correct paradoxically activates every offensive stereotype in his mind. The person who most wants to keep a secret finds herself compelled to spill the beans. The waiter who tries the hardest to not tip his tray is most likely to end up with marinara sauce on his shirt. Wegner even (somewhat charitably) credits ironic effects for the scientific finding that the most homophobic men get the largest erections while watching gay porn.”

“To appreciate the near universality of chocolate cravings, consider this: For a study designed to examine the differences between people who crave chocolate and people who don’t, it took researchers a year just to find eleven men who didn’t like chocolate.”

“For your biggest “I won’t” power challenge, try one of the following strategies for flipping your focus:

• What could you do instead of the “I won’t” behavior that might satisfy the same needs? Most bad habits are an attempt to meet a need, whether it’s reducing stress, having fun, or seeking approval. You can get the focus off of prohibiting your bad habit by replacing it with a new (hopefully, healthier) habit. One of my students was trying to quit coffee and turned to tea as a substitute. It had all the same benefits — being a good excuse for a break, giving him more energy, easy to get anywhere — without as much caffeine.
• If you weren’t doing the bad habit, what might you be doing instead? Most of our addictions and distractions take time and energy away from something else we could be doing. Sometimes focusing on that missed opportunity is more motivating than trying to quit the bad habit. One of my students felt like she was wasting her time getting sucked into reality television shows. She had more success at turning off the TV when she set a goal for what she should use the time for instead — learning to be a better cook. (She started by substituting cooking shows for the shows she had been watching a good first step — then transitioned from couch to kitchen.)
• Can you redefine the “I won’t” challenge so that it becomes an “I will” challenge? Sometimes the very same behavior can be thought of in two different ways. For example, one of my students redefined being late as “being the first person there” or “arriving 5 minutes early.” This may not sound like much of a difference, but he found himself far more motivated — and less likely to be late — when he turned being on time into a race he could win.”