Why Trying to Control Yourself Doesn't Work, Requests & Creativity

Amigos!

Happy halloween 👻🎃.

The big 3 newsletter is here.

• 1 mental health tip
• 1 social skills tip
• 1 personal reflection

Let's begin with this week's mental health tip...

1.) Why trying to control yourself doesn’t work

I’ve always been disciplined.

But I have my moments.

I can spend a whole week enacting the self-control of a sage, steering clear from temptations to scroll, eat junk food and distract myself from the book in front of me. But then my week of discipline is followed by a few days of scrolling into oblivion, eating my body weight in digestive biscuits and doing anything I can to distract myself from the discomfort of sitting my arse down to learn.

I believe the technical term for this is ‘falling into a rut’.

And since I was 17, the psychological paradox of self-control has baffled me. Because it seems the more you try to control yourself, the less control you have. So this week, when I discovered there's a better alternative to self control, I felt relieved.

So why doesn’t self-control work?

First of all, we need to distinguish between two types of self control; inhibitory self control and standard self control.

Inhibitory self control (also known as willpower) is when you control yourself by saying no to temptation. Standard self control is anything else you do to regulate your behaviour rather than just slapping yourself on the wrist whenever you reach for a cookie.

But here’s the issue…

Trying to control yourself reflects a misunderstanding of neuroscience and human psychology.

Let me explain…

As we covered in a previous newsletter, the front part of your brain (the pre frontal cortex) is what’s responsible for you saying no to temptation in pursuit of delayed gratification. To put it simply, your pre frontal cortex is what gets you to do the hard thing when the hard thing is worth doing.  

But here’s the catch…

Your pre-frontal cortex gets tired.

There’s only so many decisions you can make in a day and there’s only so much temptation you can say no to (which we’ll get into in a second).

Think of it like a lemon; the more you squeeze a lemon the less juice there is. So too, the more you use your brain, the more tired it’ll get. Not to mention an older part of your brain called the amygdala can easily override your pre frontal cortex when you’re stressed, scared or when your emotions are going crazy. Also, multiple other brain regions are constantly fighting for your attention.

For example:

• The amygdala wants you to pay attention to the threats in your environment and your emotions
• Your dorsal striatum (the control centre for your habits and knee jerk reactions) just wants you to do whatever you usually do in that situation
• Your nucleus accumbens (the control centre for reward and pleasure) is pulling your arm whilst yelling “OH LOOK A COOKIE!”

All the while your pre frontal cortex is trying to argue: “but guys! This won’t get us closer to our goals!”. Worse yet, your pre frontal cortex is weaker than these other more ancient brain regions, which means relying on pure willpower alone is like fighting a battle against the mongols, whilst naked, downhill, without weapons and on 2 hours  sleep. It's a losing battle.

So, as we’ve mentioned, self control is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more it tires. In fact, a study got volunteers to note down all the temptations they encountered over a week, and the results showed those who experienced more temptations were less likely to achieve their long term goals, even if they used more self control when facing temptation.

So if self control helps you in the short term but is a bad long term strategy, what should we do instead?

The simple answer…

Remove temptation.

Here's why...

By removing temptation from your environment, rather than reactively overpowering it each time it sprouts up, you not only save your energy but you solve the core issue. After all, you can’t eat a cookie you don’t have.

Go deeper…

To overcome temptation, you must understand the 4 stages of the temptation generation cycle as highlighted by Angela Duckworth and colleagues.

Stage 1: the situational stage.

Stage 2: the attentional stage.

Stage 3: the appraisal stage.

Stage 4: the response stage.

Here’s an explanation of these stages by graduate psychology assistant Laverl Z Williamson:

Imagine the temptation of eating a cookie:

“To gorge on those cookies at the end of your working week, you first had to go through a situational stage, where you put yourself in a compromising situation with tempting cookies. From there, you transitioned to an attentional stage, where you directed your attention back towards those cookies. After that, you went through an appraisal stage, where you thought about how good those cookies would taste (especially with a glass of milk). All this led to a response stage, where you broke down and eventually ate all the cookies. To put it bluntly, a lot of things had to go wrong for you to end up giving in to temptation. The good news is that this means you could have applied self-control at several instances prior to when you tried and failed to exert inhibitory self-control (or ‘willpower’ in everyday talk).”

So to tackle each stage of temptation in more detail, here’s what you can do:

Stage 1: the situational stage.

DON’T BUY THE COOKIE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Or...

DON’T SIT IN FRONT OF A COOKIE AND TRY TO NOT EAT IT.

In technical terms this is known as:

• Situation selection = removing the cookies from sight
• Situation modification = throwing the cookies away

Another study shows students who move their phones out of sight are more likely to achieve their academic goals rather than students who used inhibitory self control when they feel tempted to use their phone. (Remember inhibitory self control is when you exercise willpower to say no to temptation).

But what if you live with other people and don’t have the luxury of removing temptations from your environment?

Proceed to the next stages…

Stage 2: the attentional stage.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the marshmallow test before, but in case you haven’t, in one of the most well known experiments ever conducted, young children were challenged to sit in front of a marshmallow for 10 minutes without an adult in the room, and if they lasted the 10 minutes they would get 2 marshmallows as a reward. The results showed the children who lasted the 10 minutes were more successful and better off later in life (primarily because they are better at delaying gratification).

But we rarely hear what strategies the successful kids used in that experiment.

Most of the successful kids used cooling strategies by distracting themselves from the marshmallow by looking away.

So the point is…

It’s hard to be tempted by something you’re not paying attention to.

So look at all of the objects in your environment as a demand for your attention and as cues for the habits you have, good or bad. And readjust them accordingly.

Stage 3: the appraisal stage.

The second strategy the successful kids used in the experiment was reappraising the marshmallow by thinking of it as a puffy round cloud rather than a tasty sugary treat. This is also known as down-regulating the lure of the temptation.

Take whatever temptation you’re facing and turn it into something trivial, mundane or disgusting.

Here’s Marcus Aurelius explaining this perfectly:

“Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realising: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love—something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid. Perceptions like that—latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the time—all through our lives when things lay claim to our trust—to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them. Pride is a master of deception: when you think you’re occupied in the weightiest business, that’s when he has you in his spell.”

For example:

• Scrolling = a brain zapping activity which rots my mind.
• Eating junk food = an expensive habit which rots the insides of my stomach.

Not so pretty now huh?

Stage 4: the response stage.

Finally, to change your response to this temptation you can use if-then plans.

This is when you decide a plan in advance to replace negative behaviours with positive ones when temptation arises.

Note: it works best with specific situations.

For example:

• “If I want to check social media, I will set a 10-minute timer for myself, and then when the timer rings, I will turn off the app,”
• "If I find myself scrolling Facebook, then I will call someone on the phone or send them a text message to find out how they are doing instead.”

You can promise yourself to give in to the temptation later, or give into it now but just a little bit (e.g. eating only half a cookie) or for a short time (e.g. five minutes of scrolling YouTube) because, as professor of psychology Marina Milyavskaya says:

“Later often turns into never, and a little bit of an indulgence is better than a lot.”

So, to finalise this segment, the key takeaway from all of the above information is...

The more strategies you use to overcome desire, rather than just sheer willpower, the more successful you’ll be (in fact, 2.3 times more successful for each additional strategy you use according to Milyavskaya's research).

Now let’s cover this week’s social skills tip…

2.) Make specific requests

Within the next 2 weeks I’ll be uploading a full guide on non violent communication, which is a communication technique popularised by communication expert Marshall B. Rosenberg.

But here’s one of the key takeaways I’d like to share with you now.

Be specific and positive when requesting things from others.

Go deeper:

Most of the time we make vague negative requests of others.

For example:

• Can you stop doing that?!
• Can you stop annoying me?!
• I want you to understand me
• I want you to let me be me
• I’d like to get to know you better

But these requests are useless and are likely to be met with the response; "what do you mean?"

Here’s a cartoon which illustrates the dangers of vague requests…

To further illustrate the danger of vague requests, imagine the scenario of asking someone to not interrupt you when you talk. So now, instead of interrupting you, they go on their phone and don’t hold eye contact when you’re talking. Now both people's needs aren’t being met!

So to make better requests that people will understand, there are 4 things you need to do:

• Observe
• Identify and express feelings
• Connect feelings to needs
• Make specific requests

For example:

"Stop smoking" becomes...

Observe: “Honey I saw a packet of cigarettes in your car.”

Identify and express feelings: “I’m feeling worried about you smoking”

Connect feelings to needs: “because I need to keep you safe”

Make specific requests: “can we talk together about the health risks of smoking?”

"Stop interrupting me" becomes...

Observe: “I’ve noticed you talk before I’ve finished a sentence.”

Identify and express feelings: “I’m feeling frustrated”

Connect feelings to needs: “because I need to finish my sentences to make sure what I’m saying is correct.”

Make specific requests: “Would you mind waiting until I’ve finished speaking before you respond?”

"Just let me be me!" becomes...

Observe: “I’ve noticed that you question my decisions.”

Identify and express feelings: “I’m feeling disheartened by this”

Connect feelings to needs: “because I need to feel supported by the people I care about.”

Make specific requests: “Would you be willing to keep your worries to yourself about my decisions?”

Lastly, here are two more tips for making better requests...

1.) Avoid turning your requests into demands

You can tell if something is a demand or a request by what the speaker does if the request is not complied with.

For instance, if you deny someone’s request and that results in them criticising or judging you, it wasn’t a request, it was a demand.

And as Marshall B. Rosenberg says:

"The more people hear demands, the less they enjoy being around us."

However, a request is made when the speaker shows empathy towards your needs.

For example:

“Oh, so you’re pretty tired huh? Would you be willing to…”

In a true request, there’s no coercion or manipulation, the listener is free to say no without fear of repercussions.

"Requests are received as demands when listeners believe that they will be blamed or punished." - Marshall B. Rosenberg

2.) Always let people know what you’re referring to so they don’t guess

Instead of saying “you’re not a good team player.”

Say: “In yesterday’s call, I noticed you interrupted James before he could suggest his idea.”

If you don’t provide context for your request or observation, people will guess. And 99% of the time their guess will be wrong.

I'll elaborate more on the above in the upcoming video. Stay tuned.

Now let’s finalise with this week’s personal realisation.

3.) The flow of making art

Something about the chaotic creativity of artists has always fascinated me.

Since I was 17 I’ve loved the work of artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, and this week I was watching a short video on his creative process and I learned something which blew my mind.

Basquiat was a prolific artist who worked at an intense speed without compromising on the qualify of his work. And in an interview he spoke about how everything he did fuelled his creativity; everything he looked at, observed and noticed in his day to day life was used in his art in some way.

And then it hit me…

Most of the flow that you will have while making art will come from all the things you were doing when you were not making art.

I notice this with my videos…

The extent to which I understand a topic is dependent on whether I allow myself to think and digest what I’ve learned instead of zapping my brain with technology in my free time. If I haven't done the former, the video comes out terrible, clunky and awkward. You can tell I don't understand what I'm talking about.

So too, my ability to find weird and unique analogies for what I'm explaining is dependent on how observant I am when I'm travelling, walking or working out.

Hemmingway also seconded this principle. His process was 90% thinking, 10% writing.

So this has given me even more reason to unplug, be aware and connected to the present moment so that it can fuel everything I create.

I hope this may inspire you to appreciate your down time as well and not separate whatever it is you create from other areas of your life.

Because artist or not, everything is an opportunity for intrigue.

Thanks for reading,

Until next week!

Lew

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