Willpower takes a battering in the holiday season, but there are ways to fight back, says Jan Hills
It’s that time of year when willpower seems to be needed. We asked people what willpower challenges they would be facing this holiday season ahead of a webinar we ran. Along with the usual desires for excessive amounts of food and wine, the challenge of not falling out with the in-laws seemed to feature a lot. On the work front it was about finishing those long-term projects before the end of the year.
Willpower is often thought of as a competition between short-term and long-term goals. For example, quickly replying to a low priority email versus completing a big long-term project that could boost your chances of promotion. The demon on one shoulder tells you to prioritise the email to get some instant gratification, while the angel on the other shoulder tells you not to. The voice that wins determines which goal is addressed.
But this is not actually what happens. Sometimes people make a habit of exerting willpower, like the committed jogger who gets up in the morning and ‘automatically’ sets out on a run. People can also set themselves up for a willpower failure by prioritising the immediate over the long-term. In fact, willpower is only a battle between impulsive and controlled behaviour sometimes. Success or failure is often a matter of habit, planning or situational forces.
You can take comfort in the view of scientist Elliott Berkman who says anyone will find it hard to resist a desired food, drink or other temptation when it is sitting right in front of them. The answer? Don’t buy biscuits, chocolate or wine if that is what you are trying to avoid and close your email when you’re trying to work on a big long-term project.
The problem is that when our willpower fails we often give up in a big way, like when we eat a piece of cake we didn’t intend to and then think ‘oh well, I may as well keep eating the cake’, as illustrated in this rather amusing video by Dan Ariely.
It seems the guilt we feel puts us in a state that makes us more vulnerable to future willpower lapses.
That said at this time of year it’s probably a better strategy to just reconcile yourself to the temptation. Or of course you could just withdraw from the celebrations, which would also help with the in-law issues.
If that’s not possible here are a couple of my favourite science based methods to help you achieve your goals.
Avoid over-reacting to willpower failure. To think about how you will handle it, consider the following experiment. People on a diet were encouraged to eat a donut. Then later on the researcher told them they recognised that the participants must be feeling guilty, but as they were asked to eat the food they shouldn’t be too hard on themselves. In the experiment the participants went on to eat significantly less sweets in the next stage of the research. The conclusion is that the more you beat yourself up the more likely you are to fail the next challenge, while self-compassion or forgiveness increases willpower.
Think deeply about the urge. The next technique sounds counterintuitive but is known to work. To get the idea of how it works start by holding your breath for a little longer than is comfortable, for most people this is about 15 seconds. You will feel mild discomfort, notice how it feels. This is a little bit of a willpower challenge and is one of the best predictors of being able to meet your willpower goals; it’s called distress tolerance. Recognising how it feels and being mindful of the feelings and just being with the feeling decouples the link between the cue and the routine in a habit.
The steps to practice are: notice what you are feeling and thinking - attend to the experience and what it feels like in your body; breathe and broaden your attention; and then look for the next opportunity to carry out your goals. The technique is called surfing the urge. You relax into the physical sensations, which will eventually go away by waiting out the discomfort. Smokers who do this no longer equate relaxation with smoking. And imagine how useful this will be when you want to snap at your in-laws?
As we move into the holiday season or the year-end work frenzy, think about surfing the urge and being compassionate to yourself if you do lapse. And if you do nothing else just slow down and notice more.
There is a good chance you will notice you don’t want the cheese, wine or pointless distraction and even if you decide you do want it at least you will enjoy it mindfully.
If you would like to learn other techniques you can watch our webinar covering more of the science and several other methods for strengthening willpower.