You may wonder now - if self-control is exhausting, why do some people seem to have an iron will?

The main takeaway from research is that self-control is ultimately limited by our biology. We can't exercise effortful self-control indefinitely - the brain has to do regular maintenance to re...

In general, temptation bundling, self-rewarding and commitment contracts are a kind of 'trick' you play on yourself - you sweeten the goal-promoting activity with a few perks (or you punish yourself for failure), but the core activity remains as unpleasant as ever. Although these techniques may w...

To counteract epsilon-cost temptations and correctly identify a self-control conflict, you need to group the decisions together. To do that, use one of these three techniques: broad bracketing, connectedness and self-diagnosticity.

For example, when thinking about whether to buy a chocolat...

You can easily apply high-level construal to all important decisions in your life. Are you deciding whether to work on your career skills or go to the pub? Ask yourself why you need better career skills. Is the answer 'to get promoted and reach a higher salary'? Then ask yourself why you want to ...

The way you can boost your connectedness is by reflecting on how much your character changes over time. Although people's personalities naturally change, the changes are gradual and span over decades. Moreover, some of our core personality remains constant across the lifespan.^,

On the other hand, you can also bracket this choice broadly - instead of eating a single chocolate bar, you're considering the rule of eating like this all the time. If you ate a chocolate bar like this every time you're at the checkout counter, you'll quickly be overweight. Now, your epsilon cos...

Buddhist monks used a version of this technique where they detach themselves from sensory pleasures by imagining the human body in various states of decay. Seen from that perspective, worldly pleasures lose some of their allure.

The re-appraisal strategies included: imagining being full, b...

In summary, we recommend the following:

• whenever making an important decision, get yourself into a high-level (=abstract) construal by asking yourself a series of 'why' questions
  • for instance, if you want to lose weight, ask yourself: Why do I want to lose weight?

In summary, when deciding between a tempting option (watching TV, smoking a cigarette, eating a high-calorie dessert) and a healthy option (exercising, drinking herbal tea, eating fruit), you can use three re-appraisal strategies:

• you can stimulate disgust by imaging the possi...

It's very useful to get into the habit of broad-bracketing all of your decisions. Whenever you're making a choice regarding food, exercise, expenses, ask yourself: What are the costs and benefits of this decision if I make it every time from now on?

Another way is to reframe your behaviors...

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits , has a useful way of framing these issues of identity, "Every action you take is a vote for the kind of person you wish to become."

Do you want to take up running? Start thinking of yourself as a runne...

Fortunately, there's another strategy that can help you tip the scales in the right direction. Scientists have shown that people who have developed a self-image around virtuous activities are more likely to identify and resolve self-control conflicts. For these people, indulging ...

If you find yourself in a similar situation, then your best chance is to down-regulate the self-control conflict. A powerful way to do that is by changing the way you think about it, in other words, 'reframing' it.

There's two broad ways you can think about any situation - you can adopt a ...

In summary, you can avoid having to use your willpower by doing the following:

• choose 'want-to' goals (for which you have intrinsic motivations) rather than 'have-to' goals (for which you have extrinsic motivations)
• if you can't choose want-to goals, increase your wan...

This study shows that it's much better to bolster your want-to rather than have-to motivations. If you only have have-to motivations, then you'll experience self-control conflict. You'll know you should choose the option with the delayed reward, but you'll want the option with the immediate rewar...

Positive appraisals seem to be more effective than negative appraisals. For instance, positive appraisals of healthy food reduce eating of unhealthy food more effectively than negative appraisals of unhealthy food. Also, thinking about the long-term benefits of not eating unhealt...

One of the ways you can self-affirm is by taking this online test . The test is free and takes about 15 minutes. In the test you'll answer a series of questions designed to assess your core strengths. The test result will provide y...

Interestingly, when a 'high-level' symbol was displayed during the 'taste rating', the participants consumed almost 1/5 fewer snacks.

The most well-established technique is the one used in the study above. Whenever you're faced with temptations, ask yourself a series of 'why' quest...

In summary:

• when people receive information about the risks of their current lifestyle, they tend to avoid, downplay, or derogate such information (this is called defensive processing)
• you can overcome your own defensive processing with self-affirmation
  • one wa...