Moving on to number 10, continuing with the 19
reasons why willpower fails. Here at Thoughts
If It Were You, food for thought by neogentrics.
We're going to continue our morals here with
self -control. Number 10, sleep deprivation handicaps
best efforts. You may have a strong will or a
tremendous plan and great ideas, but if you're
not getting enough quality sleep, it'll all be
for naught. I'm going to say this right now.
Research has shown that shorting. yourself on
sleep has the effect of burning out your cerebral
circuits and a lot of other things as well. In
a very real sense, our brain overheats without
enough sleep and the outcome is slower processing
power, less mental energy, and hair trigger irritability
when things don't go well. Not a prescription.
for willpower success i'm just going to say that
right now basically it's like that computer you
have upstairs it's basically covered in viruses
it hasn't been maintained like it should probably
be i .e i am a tech person number 11 underestimation
of foods and other chemical effects go ahead
and cover those too i thought about it after
i did it um if you engage If you're engaging
willpower to break free from certain foods, dieting,
for example, or anything else that's basically
ingested, you're wise to recognize the power
of your adversary and not forget it. Reason is
kind of hard to swallow, no pun intended. Your
brain is complicit in your failures, okay? The
reason why these things are so hard to drop is
that your brain's reward center basically...
It wants them. It wants the dopamine release
that they trigger. And it's not going to stop
wanting it without a degree of hardships most
of us underestimate. Knowing the reasons why
your brain won't let go helps direct your efforts
and helps you understand why you will experience
failure probably more than once before you actually
succeed. With that being said, number 12. The
belief deficit. We spoke earlier about the brain
as an energy hog, if you will, back on the fourth
item. But in another sense, it's an energy miser.
If you don't really believe you can achieve something,
anything, you're basically triggering an internal
feedback loop that tells your brain not to allocate
resources whatsoever. Like trying to install
an operating system to a hard drive, but without
allocating the space first, and it erases all
your music on the second drive. Bottom line,
if you don't believe you can do it, you, well,
you won't. Granted, simply believing that you
can do something is absolutely no guarantee that
you can, but belief is a requisite condition
for achievement. Not an exhausted one. If you
want your brain to put mojo in your resolve,
as some people say, you'd better believe that
what you are doing is worthwhile. Otherwise,
you might as well quit now. Number 13, we adapt
to the consequences of quitting. Paul Bear Bryant,
the storied football coach of Alabama Crimson
Tide, once said, The first time you quit, it's
hard. The second time, it gets easier. And the
third time, you don't even have to think about
it. So, if the bear had studied cognitive psychology,
he'd have known that his wisdom isn't only satisfying,
but scientifically valid. The reason is that
we adapt to the sensation of quitting much as
we do anything else. The more we adapt, the less
the sensation we experience. Whatever external
consequences of quitting we may face, the one
thing that stings the most is feeling that internal
sensation. For willpower to work, it's important
that quitting doesn't lose its sting. Like when
you were younger and you disobeyed your parents
and you got a butt weapon or worse. Whatever
it may be. For those who got punished when they
did wrong. Going into the home stretch now, 14
out of 19 reasons. 14. Lack of feedback promotes
apathy. Another reason to keep a few trusted
other loops looped into your plans is that you'll
receive feedback on how well you're doing. Well,
if you seek it out, that is. If, on the other
hand, you choose to exercise your will in a vacuum,
you'll lose on multiple fronts. Lack of perspective,
lack of accountability, and an ever -increasing
sense of apathy about... why you're even doing
this in the first place. Research also shows
that if you wisely seek feedback, the faster
you get it, the better, because delayed feedback
undermines performance and it, you know, get
it as fast as you can and take it straight. It
doesn't matter if it hurts your feelings, if
it helps you move forward. 15. Imagine outcomes
misdirect energy. Will pitted against rumination
isn't a fair fight. Will doesn't stand much of
a chance. Our capacity to overthink and drift
into endless fields of rumination about the worst
that could possibly happen saps the will from
our bones. Our brains are extremely threat sensitive,
which is inherently a good thing, but the more
we ruminate about failures and loss, the more
energy it diverts towards addressing the threat
instead of achieving and overcoming. uh will
loses its edge before you even realize it's even
gone which hurts you more than helps you 16.
seduction of the chase obscures the goal we intuitively
know that the hunt the biochemically fuel drive
of our seeking brains if you will is frequently
more satisfying than getting whatever we actually
been hunting the problem is that it's easy to
lose sight of why we're even doing we're doing
in the first place, and instead become lost in
the ephemeral fog of the chase, if you will.
When you no longer understand or recall why you're
on the path you started down, your willpower
is derailed. Direction is lost, and it's not
easily regained. So staying focused is essential
for willpower to get you there to where you were
targeting in the first place. 17. The elusive
loop of habit change. Trying to will yourself
out of a bad habit is a classic tale of woe that
we all know way too well. The problem isn't that
we lack will, it's that we lack knowledge of
how to apply it. As Charles Doug explained in
his book, The Power of Habit, habit changes in
a three -act play, if you will. That's the best
way I can word that. A feedback loop that begins
with a cue, leads to a routine, and ends with
a reward. Smoking, as an example, starts with
the cue of stress, leads to a routine of smoking
to alleviate that stress, and ends with a reward
of reduced feelings of, well, stress. Of those
three things, the only one you can really change
is the routine. You will always experience stress
and always want to stress relieved, but the question
is, what routine will get you there? You have
to consider this. Will Pal can't stomp the routine
out of resistance, but it can help you replace
it with something else. On that note, number
18. All will and no technique. The most willful,
resolved person on the planet still needs a practice.
A tested method of accomplishing or overcoming
to achieve success. No one's wills themselves
into a being of star athlete or... A top professional
without paying heed to best practices that direct
their energy. Few people can simulate lost weight
and get in shape without a seasoned practice
to get there. Will may be the power, but it's
nothing without the practice. You still need
help. On that note, the last one is 19. Moral
licensing is a get out of jail free card. More
or less. All of us live on a... A seesaw, if
you will. You notice I like metaphors. If we
do something morally questionable, we feel a
sense of balance restored. If we then do something
morally loud, psychologists call this moral licensing,
if you will. And it's endemic to our species.
More to the point, it's a well -defeating dynamic
because... We can so easily adjust our standards
to avoid the necessity of having to exercise
well. All of us would benefit from taking a hard
look at our seesaw of life, if you will, and
whether we're seesawing ourselves away from the
ideal self we're willing to be. That's something
that we all need to consider. These are things
that basically hurt your self -confidence, if
not hurt you as a person. And they should be
skillfully avoided. Anyway, that brings an end
to this episode. In the next episode, we're going
to talk about how to build self -control. There
are a total of, I do believe, nine topics. I
can't remember at the moment. I will cover them
dutifully. And then we'll finish off this moral.