Pause and Plan - Deepstash
The Psychology of Willpower

Learn more about personaldevelopment with this collection

How to strengthen your willpower

How to overcome temptation and distractions

The role of motivation in willpower

The Psychology of Willpower

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Pause and Plan

  • The pause and plan response is the opposite of the fight or flight response.
  • This starts with the perception of internal conflict, not an external threat.
  • The pause and plan response is also physical.
  • Keeps you from immediately following your impulses and gives you time for more flexible and thoughtful action.

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Motivation And Self-Control

  • I will and I won’t power alone do not constitute willpower. To say no when you need to say no, and yes when you need to say yes, you need a third power. The ability to remember what you really want.
  • To exert self-control you need to find your motivation when it matt...

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The Three Power Challenges To Test Willpower

  • An “I will” power challenge: What is something you would like to do more of or stop putting off because you know doing it will improve the quality of your life?
  • An “I won’t” power challenge: What is the stickiest habit in your life? What would you like to give up or do less of becaus...

1.15K

7.44K reads

The Future You

Introduce yourself to you and you 2.0 (the future you!).

Future you is the person you imagine when you wonder if you should clean your closet now or later.

Meet your future self:

  1. Create a future memory. Imagining the future helps people delay gratification....

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Willpower Experiments

Willpower experiments: Increase self-control.

  • Slowing your breathing immediately increases self-control.
  • Try to reduce to 4-12 breaths per minute.

Willpower experiment: the 5-minute green willpower fill-up.

  • Green exercise. Any physical activity that gets ...

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Willpower Is Contagious

  • Both bad habits and positive change can spread from person to person like germs.
  • Thinking about someone with good self-control can increase your own willpower.
  • Go public with your willpower challenge.
  • Strengthen your willpower immune system. Spend a few minutes at...

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Stress Busting

The most effective stress-relieving strategies are; exercise, playing sports, praying, attending a religious service, reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, getting a massage, going outside for a walk, meditating, doing yoga, spending time with a c...

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Challenge Accepted! Self-Motivation

Challenge Accepted! Self-Motivation

Change requires doing. For your biggest willpower challenge consider the following motivations:

  1. How will you benefit from succeeding at this challenge?
  2. Who else will benefit if you succeed at this challenge? How does your behaviour influence your friends, family, coworkers, ...

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The Promise of Reward

  • The reward system of the brain is not what we think it is. We mistake wanting for happiness.
  • When it comes to happiness, we cannot trust our brains to lead us in the right direction.
  • Dopamine plays a role in anticipating rewards not in experienci...

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Become a Dopamine Detective

  • We live in a world engineered to make us want. Pay attention to what captures your attention.
  • Daydreaming about unattainable rewards can get you into trouble.
  • The rewards system of the brain also responds to novelty and variety.
  • Our brain responds to smells, advertise...

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The Science Of Willpower

The Science Of Willpower

  • To succeed at self-control you need to know how you fail.
  • The best way to improve your self-control is to see how and why you lose control.
  • Self-knowledge is the foundation of self-control.
  • Theories are nice; data is better.

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Train Your Mind and Body

Train Your Mind and Body

  • Physical exercise, like meditation, makes your brain bigger and faster.
  • Studies showed that the biggest benefits can come from just 5 minutes of exercise.

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Dopamine Experiment

Dopamine Experiment

Dopamize your “I will challenge.”, being mindful of your dopamine triggers.

What gets your dopamine neurons firing?

  • Look for how retailers and marketers try to trigger the promise of reward.
  • Notice when wanting triggers stress and anxiety.

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Too Much Self-Control

Insane levels of self-control have pitfalls too, like:

  • Dangers of chronic stress.
  • High energy expenditure.

Too much willpower (chronic self-control) could be dangerous. Trying to control every aspect of your thoughts and behaviour is too big of a burden.

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The Craving

The Craving

Trying to suppress thoughts, emotions and cravings backfires and makes you more likely to think, feel or do the thing you most want to avoid.

Four steps to handle cravings:

  1. Notice that you are thinking about your temptation or feeling a craving.
  2. Accept the thought or ...

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The Self-Control Muscle

The self-control muscle can be exercised and made stronger.

It can be challenged by controlling one small thing you aren’t used to controlling. Or it can be committing to any small consistent act of self-control.

For example, creating and meeting self-imposed deadlines, or somethi...

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Meditation To Increase Willpower

Meditation To Increase Willpower

When your brain meditates it gets better at attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness.

How to meditate:

  1. Sit still and stay put.
  2. Sit in a chair with feet flat on the ground or cross-legged on a mat.
  3. Sit up straight and put your h...

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