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| Self Efficiency |
just think of your heroes Mother Teresa Albert Einstein Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela they had different backgrounds and different skills but they share one thing in common self-control they overcame obstacles they persevered in the face of failure and frustration and they worked harder than others to achieve their goals you might think you're worlds apart from these self-control icons but I'm here to show you that you have that same ingredient that will help you achieve your goals what is self-control it has three parts: monitoring how much we keep track of what we're doing how often you weigh yourself check your bank balance or keep track of your grades standards these tell you what's appropriate.
Laws tell us how fast was supposed to drive they tell us why we should wear a suit instead of flip flops to a job interview and they tell us how to live up to our moral ideals and strength this is the energy to use self-control self control is fragile if you use it you have less energy left over later why should we study self-control three reasons self-control improves individual well-being people with better self-control have better mental health better physical health they get better grades and they're less likely to struggle with alcohol and drug abuse to illustrate one study wanted to see which is more important in predicting success in school self-control or intelligence they measured self-control and intelligence at the beginning of the year and then waited patiently to see how well the students did in their classes at the end of the year the result self-control was twice as important as intelligence in predicting academic success self control also improves relationships and might even help you deal with frustration but no one had conducted an experiment to see whether self-control helps people overcome.
Their aggressive urges to test this we had college students come to a laboratory for what they thought was a taste testing study unbeknownst to the students, they had been randomly assigned to two different groups the first group was given a plate that had a tasty donut on it the experimenter said we want to get your opinion on how the donut tastes next the experimenter waited as a student was close to taking the first bite of the donut once the student's mouth was open the experimenter interrupted and said wait I messed up please don't eat the donut the experimenter then left the room for six minutes.
The second group was told the same thing but this time they couldn't eat a radish instead of a donut imagine what those six grueling minutes were like forcing yourself to avoid eating a tempting donut probably took a lot of energy much more than forcing yourself to avoid eating a radish next we ignited an aggressive urge by having all participants get some insulting feedback Did the mentally fatigued students behave most aggressively they did they made a stranger suffer by making them eat lots of unpleasant spicy food.
what's this energy resource that becomes depleted one group of researchers stumbled on the solution in what they initially thought was a failed experiment they allowed some students to indulge themselves thinking this would undo the depletion effect it did but there is another surprise giving students a gloppy bad-tasting beverage with lots of calories did the same thing a large body of work now points to the importance of energy as part of the resource that’s involved in will power giving depleted people a boost of glucose reduces their aggression their irrational decision-making and their financial impulsiveness it tells your brain that energy is coming on board and you have to allocate your energy effectively but wait a minute if willpower relies on a common biological process is it necessary to have sophisticated mental machinery to show these depletion effects would animals show them and would a boost of glucose restore them to their normal selves as it does with humans.
My colleagues and I tested this possibility using dogs two of which were my own golden retrievers we depleted dogs by having them sit and stay for 10 minutes another group just sat in a kennel afterward we gave the dogs a toy that had food in it but we rigged it so they could never get any of the food out we timed how long they tried don't worry we gave them lots of treats at the end of the study the depleted dogs persisted about half as long as the nondepleted dogs in a second study, we undid this effect by squirting glucose in some of the dogs' mouths so the same thing that undid self-control failure in humans worked with dogs let's wrap up by talking about four things you can do to improve your self-control as we've seen improving your self-control has big payoffs including better health relationships and success in school you can start to see results quickly.
First, become a mental energy accountant this relates to our discussion of monitoring you keep track of your daily activities do you also keep track of when you'll spend your limited mental energy for the next two weeks plan your activities not only according to when they'll happen but also how much energy you’ll need to do them second build your self-control strength self control relies on an all-purpose energy resource so it doesn't matter how you practice it you get stronger the more you practice for the next two weeks try using your non-dominant hand to complete everyday tasks like cooking and brushing your teeth the idea is that you have to override your natural impulse to use your dominant hand which is what self-control’s all about it seems crazy but studies have shown that this self-control strengthening exercise pays off third play offense against your environment take control over your surroundings when you can't keep your eyes off your cell phone try turning it over you'll be surprised at how easily you’ll pay attention when you don't have to worry about looking at your phone and fourth take the mind out of the middle self-control hurts because we battle against ourselves should I exercise now or later should I eat one or two slices of cake.
if you want to study more set up a contract with yourself whenever I get home from class I'll do 30 minutes of studying sounds almost too easy doesn't it today we covered one of humanity's greatest strengths self-control each day we marvel at people who appear faultless when it comes to their willpower and we ask ourselves why don't I have more self-control we can’t make much progress in achieving our goals if we don't know about the basics of self-control what it is why it's important and how it works by resolving this mystery underlying self-control we can gain a new appreciation for people we regard as our heroes and understand that we have what it takes to achieve our goals and lead a happy healthy and successful life.
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