The Willpower Experiment: Week Four, Part One

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Four of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here. Chapter Four has this tantalizing title: "License to Sin: Why Being Good Gives Us Permission to Be Bad." This chapter has so much "meat" to it that I'm going dividing our review into two parts. I'll post the second part on Wednesday. Let's start with Sonnet's introduction to Chapter Four.

Chapter Four! We have made it four weeks, that’s almost a month into this series. I think we’ve all earned a little something for doing so well and staying with our willpower challenges for a whole month! Plus, it’s Valentine’s Day this week. Here, have some chocolate hearts… Oh wait. Oops. This kind of pitfall is the focus of this chapter: How we use what’s called “moral licensing” to convince ourselves that we’re such great people and we’ve made such awesome progress on our goals that we really, truly should choose to go against our willpower challenges. So this chapter shifts from talking about the physical issues at work behind willpower struggles to the mental games we play.

I will admit, either I am deeply in denial or I didn’t find much of this chapter ringing true for me. I am the kind of person who does make choices to slack off, eat cookies, and ignore the piles of clutter… but then I’m also happy enough to own those choices. Yep. I ate that entire chocolate cake. It was awesome, too. Yes, I spent the entire day while the kids were at school napping. Maybe not the best choice for me, OK, but it felt good and I got what I needed from it. Maybe I suffer from inflated self-esteem?

It's funny--and cool--that Sonnet and I are finding different chapters to be eye-opening. Last week was "her week," and this week was mine! This chapter really helped me understand what is behind most of my willpower failures. When I look at Chapter Four of my copy of the book, there's practically more underlined in it than not!

I tend to frame things in terms of "right or wrong." And I try to motivate myself by "doing what's right," but somehow that often doesn't work. The biggest reason for that, according to McGonigal? "If the only thing motivating your self-control is the desire to be a good enough person, you're going to give in whenever you're already feeling good about yourself" (p. 86).

As Sonnet puts it, The theme of this chapter, I would say, is summed up in this quote from the book: “We need to feel like the kind of person who wants to do the right thing.” Wants to, not has to. If you tell yourself that _____ is the right thing to do, you are going to talk yourself out of it. Moralizing is not going to get you there. ______ needs to be an action that helps you meet your goals if it is going to be something you can stick with.

"When it comes to right and wrong," McGonigal points out, "most of us are not striving for moral perfection. We just want to feel good enough--which then gives us permission to do whatever we want" (p. 83, emphasis mine).  

Wow--I do that! In the past, I've moralized the idea of having a decluttered house. It seemed like decluttering was a "good" or "right" thing to do. So why didn't I do it? "I can't be good at everything," I told myself. "I do a lot of things well. Keeping a clean house just isn't one of them. And that's okay." In other words, "I don't need to declutter. I'm a good enough person without doing that!"

And really, it is okay to have cluttered areas in my house! It's not a moral failing, though I've certainly attached enough guilt to it through the years! The problem is, I wasn't paying attention to what I really wanted. I've realized that I like living in an uncluttered environment. I was so stuck in the "right vs. wrong" cycle, justifying my "weakness," that I was robbing myself of something I really wanted! Now I'm moving towards what I want--not because it's "the right thing to do," but because it brings me more peace and contentment.

Let's delve more into how we use "good" things to justify willpower failures. Here's Sonnet:

Chapter Four talks about the hazard of moral licensing, where we feel so good about ourselves because of some real or perceived action that we give ourselves permission to behave badly because we’ve ‘earned’ it. There’s the related “halo effect” where we look for any reason to say yes to something we should say no to (It’s organic! It’s on sale! It’s for charity!) and then feel good about saying yes instead of feeling guilty. My mom tells a story from her childhood that is a great example of both these effects. When she was a teen, she decided one summer that she was going to swim every day in order to lose weight. She took the bus to the pool downtown with total devotion, but after weeks of swimming her weight wasn’t budging. What she hadn’t counted on? The bus route had her transferring at a stop right next to a doughnut shop, and she ate a doughnut every day on her trip. She ‘earned’ it because she was being good about her exercise (moral licensing) and because she is a diabetic, it was a healthy choice to keep her glucose up (halo effect.) I love this story, because can’t everyone relate?

When we feel good about ourselves, we tend to make less-than-positive choices. It's like we've already put a checkmark in our "Good" box on our personal report cards, and we don't feel the need to put another checkmark there. The scientific studies that support the "halo effect" and other types of moral licensing are so fascinating to me! Here are some examples:

• "People who first remember a time they acted generously give 60 percent less money to a charitable request than people who have not just recalled a past good deed" (p. 84).
• "Another study found that merely considering donating money to a charity--without actually handing over any cash--increased people's desire to treat themselves at a mall" (p. 85, emphasis mine).
• "In one study, [researchers] reminded successful dieters of how much progress they had made toward their ideal weight. They then offered the dieters a thank-you gift of either an apple or a chocolate bar. Eighty-five percent of the self-congratulating dieters chose the chocolate bar over the apple, compared with only 38 percent of dieters who were not reminded of their progress" (p. 89).
• And my personal favorite: "Researchers have found that if you pair a cheeseburger with a green salad, diners estimate that the meal has fewer calories than the same cheeseburger served by itself" (p. 99). That's quite a halo effect!

It's such a crazy trap--we do something good, or even think about doing something good, and then sabotage ourselves by "rewarding" ourselves with something completely counterproductive! Just being aware of this reasoning can really be helpful. But Wednesday we'll share more about the moralizing that goes on in our crazy heads, and practical ways to change that reasoning so that we can succeed in our willpower challenges!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Three

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Three of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here.

I've been keeping up with my willpower challenge, tackling one area of clutter each weekday. In each of the last two weeks, I missed one day, but then I picked up the habit the next weekday! Here are a couple of my recent successes:

The Plastic Storage Stuff Cabinet in the Kitchen

I really wish I'd remembered to take a "Before" picture of this! I did take a photo (top) of the pile of stuff I dug out of the cabinet before I organized it and threw away much of it. And, as you can see, the area is now nicely-organized, and I can actually find containers with their matching lids!

 Beneath the Cabinet, and on the Countertop, in the Master Bathroom

Once again...no "Before" photo. But look at my bathroom countertop and cabinet! Wow. I know what I have and where it is, and I threw away a LOT of old hair products, makeup, and expired medications. This was a two-day project; that kept it from being overwhelming.

Sonnet's recap of Chapter Three is fantastic, so I'll get right to it, and then I'll write a quick wrap-up at the end. Heeeeeeere's Sonnet!

Wow. Last week was so difficult for me to just trudge through, and this week couldn’t be more different – the light is breaking through! At the same time this is a chapter just bursting with information and a whole lot of ground to cover. It became a challenge just to keep up with reading and understanding all of the concepts presented.

Let’s see. I guess the best way to break Chapter Three down would be to explain the theme. Chapter Three makes the analogy of our willpower function being like a muscle in the body. This analogy holds true in many different ways: the willpower ‘muscle’ can be fatigued through overuse, the willpower muscle needs fuel, the willpower muscle can be trained. If we want to be experts at utilizing our own willpower, it is useful to think like athletes, and treat our brain as if it were a muscle.

So that overview barely grazes the surface of this very in-depth and practical chapter, but at least it will help give you some context.

First: I found this chapter / week to be extremely useful. I felt like I was finally having some success. I was able to look back at the previous week and say my obstacles and frustration weren’t about the book really; they were about my situation. My parents (who, God bless them, tend to be critical) were coming to visit. I wasn’t feeling well. I was trying to round up a birthday party for my youngest child. I was PMS-y. All of those things combined to leave me at my weakest self, struggling just to keep my head above water. No one can exercise willpower in that situation, because there just are no resources left. This realization has been good for me. I’m able to look more kindly at myself, to not feel like a failure but like a person who endured a crummy week. Instead of saying in my head, “You couldn’t even write 15 minutes a day, you lazy git,” I find myself saying, “Wow, Sonnet, you made it through all that and survived intact. Way to go!” What a nice change!

So last week my argument was that we couldn’t do all these behaviors that increase our willpower – eating right, sleeping well, meditating, exercise – because if we were able to, we’d already have willpower. A line from this week’s chapter gives me the answer to this dilemma. “Committing to any small, consistent act of self-control… can increase overall willpower.” Small, did you get that word? In fact Dr. McGonigal addresses this directly by talking about a study where participants were asked to do one very small, very unthreatening task every day. Don’t clean out the entire closet, but maybe just look inside it every day. Say ‘yes’ instead of ‘yeah.’ Put one item in the recycle bin every day. These tiny tasks are easy to do, build confidence, and aren’t overwhelming. But just the act of doing them every day trains and strengthens your willpower muscle. It teaches your brain how to pause and check in before acting on impulse with something you want. So here is the answer to my confusion and frustration!

START SMALL.

That’s it, that’s the secret. Really small. Like meditating 5 minutes a day, or writing down every time you walk the dog, or hitting the snooze just once instead of twice. Simple, easy efforts that you know you can do without feeling deprived or discouraged. Then do that act every day and – surprise! – your willpower will increase. You will find like magic that other acts requiring willpower, the big ones like jogging and cleaning the basement and eating kale, will start to come more naturally.

I found this to be true this week. I focused only on meditating, because I could do that. And I did manage it, all week. I also managed to write every day without much trouble, and to my surprise the house is less cluttered, the kitchen is cleaner, the dog has been walked, the laundry has been folded. Okay, I still ate a lot of junk and slept at odd hours, but hey. One step at a time. It really did work for me, when I had the physical resources to do it.

There are so many concepts in this chapter that I want to discuss, but for a blog post this would end up being far too long and I’d lose everyone. So I’ll leave you with some of the ideas just briefly so that you can mull them over yourself before we check in again next week.

• “People who use their willpower seem to run out of it… trying to control your temper, stick to a budget, or refuse seconds all tap the same source of strength.” Like a muscle, your willpower only goes so far before it succumbs to fatigue. And it isn’t just your hard challenges that sap your strength. Everyday challenges we all face can really run our willpower muscle down, and we often end up exhausted and powerless by the end of the day.
• “If you never seem to have the time and energy for your ‘I Will’ challenge, schedule it for when you have the most strength.” Your willpower resources are depleted through the day. For most people, their reserves are highest in the morning, so doing the thing that is hard for them is easiest then. Trying to go to the gym after work when you are empty and fatigued is setting yourself up for failure. Make a choice to schedule your toughest challenge when you have the most willpower.
• Losing the ability to make willpower choices when blood sugar is low is purposefully chosen by evolution. Making long-term plans (i.e. willpower: choosing a greater reward in the future) would be seen by the prehistoric brain as a luxury, only available in times of plenty. If blood glucose is low, it tells the brain food is scarce and times are dangerous, so start taking risks to survive. Those impulse behaviors are the result of thousands of years of development perfecting a survival system… not a personal weakness.

There’s a lot to think about here, but it’s all good. If you’re still on the fence about doing a willpower challenge or reading the book, I’d suggest making this chapter a priority. Personally I feel like I am finally starting to see some real changes in behaviors that have dogged me for a lifetime. It’s surreal and wonderful!

Awesome recap, Sonnet! I only have a few things to add.

• I'm glad I'm only focusing on ONE major willpower challenge right now. I have ideas of other challenges I want to tackle once I'm really on top of my clutter. But "if you try to control or change too many things at once, you may exhaust yourself completely" (p. 56). I'm keeping up with my decluttering, even though my schedule has been extra-busy the last two weeks...because I'm not trying to take on ten other willpower challenges at the same time.
• In this chapter, McGonigal writes about finding your "I Want" power. Readers are asked to think about what they really want that can motivate them to succeed in their willpower challenges. She writes about someone named Erin who was trying to stop losing her temper when her kids acted up. I relate to that! Erin wanted "To be a better parent" but then she just felt guilty for not being a good enough parent! "Erin realized that an even bigger motivation was the desire to enjoy being a parent" (p. 75). Next time I'm tempted to yell at my kids, I want to think about how I'll enjoy parenting if I communicate kindly with my kids instead of acting like we're enemies! Maybe that will help motivate me.
•  Harnessing my "I Want" power has been motivational for me in keeping up with my decluttering. I think about how much I enjoy being in my house when I'm not surrounded by clutter spots. I think about how good I feel when I complete one of my daily tasks. And I think about how wonderful it will be when we are ready to sell this house (if we ever decide to!), not to have to frantically declutter in a matter of weeks to get the house ready to show to buyers. I used to think, "I really should declutter." Now I want to declutter because it benefits me in so many ways!

This book is so powerful...and the next chapter is one of my favorites. Here's the title, just to pique your curiosity:

"License to Sin: Why Being Good Gives Us Permission to Be Bad"

Chapter Four was so eye-opening for me the first time I read it, and I'm looking forward to reviewing it again! See you next week for that discussion!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Two

Sonnet and I are continuing our Willpower Experiment, as we read  The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, PhD. To read my initial review of the book, click here. Week One's blog post is here.

I'm continuing to take care of one clutter area (usually a small one) per weekday. I missed one day last week, an exceptionally busy day. That's okay! I proved my commitment by finding time to tackle a small area the next day. Remember my junk drawer?

Well, that was one of my projects this week. Here's the new and improved junk drawer:

Much better, right?

Chapter Two is called "The Willpower Instinct," and it goes into the biological basis of self-control. "Heart rate variability" is the amount your heart rate naturally goes up and down throughout the day. It is a GOOD thing. People with greater heart rate variability statistically have higher self-control and are less likely to give in to willpower challenges.

McGonigal details several ways to increase your heart rate variability, which "sets you up" to be more successful at building self-control! You don't have to focus on all these at once! That can be overwhelming (as Sonnet expresses below.) Choose one thing at a time to work on. Here are some tips you can choose from to help you increase heart rate variability and self-control:

• Slow your breathing to four to six breaths per minute. I tried this for five minutes while we were doing school this morning--and then continued past five minutes because it was working so well! I was more patient with Zoodle and Chickie. I was able to discipline Zoodle by sending him to his room, and help Chickie with her least-favorite subject (math), all without raising my voice or losing my temper. I like this exercise because I can do it even when I'm doing other things--I don't have to focus as much as I would during traditional meditation. And "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" (p. 41). So whether your challenge is staying patient with your kids or staying away from ice cream, you can try this easy technique.
• Exercise! Of course, regular exercise is a great thing in many ways. But you can boost your mood and your willpower just by going outside and being slightly active (like walking) for five minutes. Five minutes! I've found this works so well for me. I've been more willing to go outside with my kids lately, hanging out with them while they ride bikes. (Zoodle is still mastering bike-riding, so I'm pretty active while I'm out there, since I'm helping him.) It improves my mood, which makes me more likely to say "yes" to decluttering.
• Sleep. Did you know Americans get, on average, two hours less sleep a night than they did in 1960? Wow!! I know on days (like today) when I'm extra-tired, being self-controlled feels extra-hard. I usually sleep a lot, but we all have rough nights. McGonigal explains that if it's too hard for you to consistently get a good night's sleep, you can "catch up" with one good night, or "stock up" by getting extra sleep in advance of times you know you'll be sleep-deprived. Or you can take short, ten-minute naps to recharge your body. There are studies showing all of these techniques to be effective.

There are a couple of other things I want to share from this chapter.

• "So often we believe that stress is the only way to get things done, and we even look for ways to increase stress--such as waiting until the last minute, or criticizing ourselves for being lazy or out of control--to motivate ourselves. Or we use stress to try to motivate others, turning up the heat at work or coming down hard at home. This may seem to work in the short term, but in the long term, nothing drains willpower faster than stress" (p. 51). This was an eye-opener for me, because I tend to try to motivate my kids through stress. I get frustrated and tense. I raise my voice and pressure them to do what they're supposed to do. I'm trying to find better ways to motivate them, because I know that yelling really doesn't work! They may (eventually) obey me, but it isn't teaching them the internal motivation they need to do the right thing when I'm not there.
• "Just like living under chronic stress is unhealthy, trying to control every aspect of your thoughts, emotions, and behavior is a toxic strategy. It's too big a burden for your biology.... Even as you strengthen self-control, you cannot control everything you think, feel, say, and do. You will have to choose your willpower battles wisely" (p. 49). This is freeing to me. I can easily feel guilty that I don't have perfect willpower. It's good to be reminded that it's actually unhealthy to be a control freak!

Now, here is Sonnet's input on Chapter 2:

I’ll admit it, this week was really difficult for me. Maybe it’s because we had family visiting, and my schedule was out of sync. Maybe it was just starting new techniques. I am not sure, but I really belly flopped this week with the willpower stuff. And the very premise of this entire chapter leaves me shaking my head – it seems so backwards to me. We’re only two chapters in, and I feel like I’m starting to sink! 

In this chapter Dr. McGonigal talks mainly about situations where our willpower reserves will be depleted, and we’ll be more likely to give in. Some years ago in therapy for compulsive behavior I remember being taught to think of these situations as “HALT” triggers: are you Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired? If so, “halt” (stop.) Your compulsion is about those needs, not about your craving at all. Dr. McGonigal speaks about the exact same principals here, backing them up with the science behind willpower and the physiological responses to the choices we make.

Physical or emotional stressors – fatigue, hunger, anxiety, etc – these kinds of things all put us in a less than ideal state for coping. That state flips chemical switches in our brain that tell us that things aren’t going well, so go for the fight-or-flight options - which are impulsive. It is actually, on a physical level, harder to make good willpower decisions if you tired or hungry or upset about something. In one way everyone recognizes the truth of this. You’ve been doing great with that new diet until you break up with your boyfriend and then the ice cream and chocolate come out, no holds barred. You stick to a tight daily budget until your boss makes you work late and then you’re too tired to care and just buy dinner on the way home. But knowing that it’s not some ephemeral sort of ‘weakness’ that causes these lapses, but real changes in how the brain functions in order to protect us, is powerful. I do feel much better about it now!

So the idea is, then, to minimize these stressors on your life. In doing so you avoid shifting your brain into survival / impulse mode, and gain more willpower and control. Eat regularly, and eat nourishing foods. Sleep enough. Use the daily meditation breath practice to help let go of tension. Exercise, exercise, exercise. If we take care of our physical and emotional health, we’ll be able to make good choices.

And this is where it breaks down for me. In order to gain more willpower and be able to do the healthy things that don’t come easily to me, I need to exercise daily, stop eating junk food, go to bed early every night, and meditate. Well, obviously – if I could DO those things, I would HAVE willpower! It’s a spiral you can’t get out of. I have read and reread this chapter and I can’t figure out how someone such as myself (who struggles in basically all areas with willpower) is supposed to simply start just knowing how to eat better, exercise more, and sleep more. There are no suggestions as to how to do this either, except for a sentences stating reasons that these actions are good for me (which I already knew, of course.) I’m also struggling with the author’s suggestion to take a 5 minute ‘green willpower fill-up’ break every day to get outside and enjoy nature. It has been 40 below zero and we haven’t had anything green outside in months! Going outside for 5 minutes gets you frostbite and is not exactly relaxing. So, no go on that assignment either.

I guess I’m stuck with just the deep breathing and meditation suggested in chapter one. I’m not giving up on the book or the program, so I’ll continue to do that part and just do my best with everything else. Maybe future chapters will help me find my way to more practical willpower solutions.

That does sound like a frustrating week, Sonnet! I do think other chapters will help you with some of this. I hope next week is more encouraging to you--and when the sun is out and your area of the world has gotten warmer again, I bet that will help too.

I'll end with this quote, which sums up the chapter nicely:

"Focus meditation...is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve the biological basis of willpower. It not only trains the brain, but also increases heart rate variability. Anything else that you do to reduce stress and take care of your health--exercise, get a good night's sleep, eat better, spend quality time with friends and family, participate in a religious or spiritual practice--will improve your body's willpower reserve" (p. 39).

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.