Are You Sabotaging Your Best Intentions?

“Self-Control is not a problem in the future, it is only a problem now.”

- Shlomo Benartzi

According to eminent psychologist Daniel Kahneman, we each have two selves. There's the Experiencing Self, which lives life continuously and is aware of what is happening about 3 seconds at a time. And then there's the Remembering Self, which thinks it remembers most of what happens, but which actually remembers very little.

Kahneman believes the Remembering Self can (and often does) sabotage our best intentions. Kahneman's insights carry a lot of weight. He's a former Nobel Memorial Prize winner, one of Foreign Policy magazine's "top global thinkers", and the author of the best-seller Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Let's see how his theory works in practice. What do you remember about July and August? You experienced a lot in those two months: more than 1.6 million three-second intervals. But, if asked what you remember about the summer, what would you say? How long could you talk about your summer? Twenty or thirty minutes perhaps? That is not much compared with the 80,000 minutes you actually lived during July and August.

Although your mind only remembers a fraction of what you think about moment by moment, your Remembering Self makes almost all of your decisions. Here's where the sabotage comes in. When we make decisions, we don’t choose between experiences - we choose between our memories (or our stories) of those experiences.

How many times has your Remembering Self promised you that you will:

• Save more for your retirement
• Exercise more regularly
• Pay down your credit cards
• Eat healthier foods
• Stop procrastinating

And yet, when you actually experience the moments when you could put those promises into practice (your Experiencing Self), your Remembering Self sabotages the opportunity by remembering  a good reason why you can’t do it this minute.

But there's help at hand. Authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein suggest we can overcome the 'can't do it now' message if we give ourselves a gentle nudge, rather than a giant task.

Nudge Yourself and Improve Your Life

According to their new book, Nudge, Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, you can achieve your goals more easily, and live more happily, if you get into the habit of giving yourself... a nudge. For example, if you would like to increase your retirement fund, arrange with your bank to transfer $25, $50,or $100 per week into an RRSP fund. Once the arrangement is made, you will hardly notice the deduction, but you will enjoy seeing your fund steadily increase.

Want to eat more healthily? Here's how the nudge strategy works. Instead of declaring you are going to lose 10 pounds (a giant task), give yourself a nudge: remove all sugary, fatty, and salty snacks from your environment and replace them with your favorite fruits and veggies. You can also explore stickk.com to choose other nudges which will help you achieve your goals.

So, when that self-sabotaging Remembering Self tells you can't pay your debts, or improve your diet, or get fitter - give yourself a nudge.

Strengthen your Willpower

The best way to reduce stress in your life is to stop screwing up. That's the conclusion of Roy F Baumeister and John Tierney in their book Willpower - Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. They found willpower gives people the strength to persevere and to make good decisions - but willpower is easily depleted.

Things that deplete our willpower include difficult decisions, lots of decisions, lack of sleep, lack of food, disorganization, trying to change a habit, making other major changes, starting to exercise, chronic pain, and dieting. Once our willpower is depleted, we tend to make more mistakes, to find decisions harder to make, to be more irritable, and to eat, drink, and spend too much.

You can strengthen your willpower by making sure you are getting enough sleep, eating regularly - especially at breakfast time - and recognizing your supply of willpower is limited. To strengthen your willpower, you want to develop effective habits. Your brain loves routines and habits, but it hates changing them. So just developing new habits will deplete your willpower. But your strengthened willpower will pay off in the future.

To strengthen your willpower:

• DO have one clear annual goal.
• DO convert your annual goal into monthly goals.
• DO identify your top three To Do’s for each week.
• DO your top three To Do’s first.
• DO have a To Don’t list, which outlaws phrases like:
• “I’m too busy.”
• “I’m too tired.”
• “I deserve a cookie.”
• “I’ll do that later.”
• DO recognize that whatever your conscious mind says to your subconscious, your subconscious believes every word. Instead of saying “it’s too hard”, say “it’s hard, but it’s not too hard”. Instead of saying “I should/I must”, say “I would prefer to”.
• DO set up to avoid crises. For example, hitting the snooze button too often, procrastinating, and believing that last minute rushes work as well as a systematic planned approach.
• DO review your progress regularly and reward yourself for good progress.
• DO remind yourself that like any development, strengthening your willpower takes time and effort.
• DO resist poor decision making, by writing out your rationale for the decision.

To strengthen your willpower:

• DON’T work on important decisions when you are tired, hungry or angry.
• DON’T forget Murphy’s Laws when you’re planning.
• 1. Nothing is as simple as it seems.
• 2. Everything takes longer than you think.
• 3. If anything can go wrong, it will.
• DON’T set unrealistic deadlines.
• DON’T procrastinate on fun, allow specific time for it.

Use these do’s and don’ts to strengthen your willpower. You will decrease your stress and increase your enjoyment of life. Your enriched willpower will do more than just help you get through crises; it will help you avoid them.

In the Conclusion chapter of Baumeister and Tierney’s book, they say:

“Everyone appreciates the benefits of self-control - someday. But when, if ever, is that day ever going to arrive? If willpower is finite and temptations keep proliferating, how can there be a lasting revival of this virtue? 

We don’t minimize the obstacles, but we’re still bullish on the future of self-control, at both the personal and social level. Yes, temptations are getting more sophisticated, but so are the tools for resisting them. The benefits of willpower are appreciated more clearly than ever. You could sum up a large new body of research literature with the simple rule: The best way to reduce stress in your life is to stop screwing up.”

Perfectionism is Unhealthy and a Waste of Time

According to Dr. Gordon Flett of York University who has specialized in studying perfectionism and anxiety, “Perfectionism is the need to be, or to appear to be, perfect.” He has identified three types:

1. self-oriented: those who expect perfection of themselves
2. other-oriented: those who demand perfection from others
3. socially-prescribed: those who think others expect perfection of themselves

People who are perfectionistic have unrealistically high expectations for performance, but take little joy in their accomplishments because their results are never quite good enough. This means that sometimes they avoid taking on a certain challenge because they fear that they can’t do it perfectly. Unlike high achievers who enjoy the “flow” of marshaling their strongest skills, stretching towards a challenge, and doing the best they can with the time and energy they have, perfectionists focus only on the result and find the hard work and long hours exhausting and the result imperfect.

Perfectionists live with an “internal bully” who is horrified by mistakes and is constantly threatening failure. This harsh internal voice often causes the perfectionist high anxiety, frequent frustration, guilt, and even panic. The person is often seen as a high achiever by others, but also as a person who is uncomfortable to be around because they seem so perfect.

If the perfectionist demands perfection from others, he or she is very difficult to work for or to have as a parent or spouse.

Martin Anthony's TEDx talk

Dr. Martin M. Antony is Director of the Anxiety Research and Treatment Lab at Ryerson University and Immediate Past-President of the Canadian Psychological Association. Dr. Antony is also currently a professor and Graduate Program Director at Ryerson University. He has recently co-authored a book called When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough. In 2010, he gave a very interesting TEDx talk with the same title.

High achievers set high standards for themselves and work energetically to achieve them, but their whole sense of self-worth is not dragged down if they don’t meet those standards perfectly.

If you suspect that you may be a perfectionist, ask yourself the following questions designed by Dr. Gordon Flett:

TEN TOP SIGNS YOUR A PERFECTIONIST

1. you can't stop thinking about a mistake you made
2. you are intensely competitive and can't stand doing worse than others
3. you either want to do something "just right" or not at all
4. you demand perfection from other people
5. you won't ask for help if asking can be perceived as a flaw or weakness
6. you will persist at a task long after other people have quit
7. you are a fault-finder who must correct other people when they are wrong
8. you are highly aware of other people's demands and expectations
9. you are very self-conscious about making mistakes in front of other people
10. you noticed the error in the title of this list

If you do think you may be a perfectionist, ask yourself what it may be costing you. People who are perfectionistic often have high anxiety, procrastinate frequently, don’t delegate as they should, spend more time planning than doing, avoid something if they fear they cannot do it perfectly, and may have difficulties in relating to peers, direct reports, and spouses.

If the price is too high, you can work towards changing the thoughts and behaviours which cost you too much time and energy. Start by watching Dr. Antony Martin’s TEDx talk, then read his book When Perfect Isn't Good Enough. Also, you will probably find Dr. David Burns, MD, book Feeling Good - very helpful.

Greater Brain Power Skills Defeat Procrastination

Fear and doubt are what’s actually causing us to procrastinate most of the time, so to alter that habit we need to look into what’s causing our fear and doubt. When we put off something we really need or want to do, it’s often because we have imagined that:

• There are too many difficulties and we won’t be able to handle them
• We can’t do it perfectly now, so we have to wait for more time and energy
• We will make mistakes and then will be blameworthy
• We are not in the mood, and we have to wait until we feel just right

When we use our mind to imagine future difficulties, we stimulate the release of the same stress hormones into our brain as if those difficulties are actually happening. Using your powerful mind to frighten yourself and create stress when there is no need for stress is a poor use of your intelligence and energy.

To defeat procrastination, identify what you’re telling yourself that causes you stress and gives you permission to delay. Then: challenge that thinking. For example, you might find that you’re saying something like,

“X will be too difficult.”

Things might be difficult, but they are not too difficult. You've done difficult things in the past and you've usually been pleased with yourself once you've finished them. The only way to find out whether you can handle the difficulties is to get started.

“I can’t do it right now.”

This comment is often shorthand for “I can’t do it perfectly right now.” Many of us mislead ourselves into thinking that we must, or have to, do things perfectly. First of all, you can’t do anything perfectly because that would mean that it couldn't possibly be improved in any way. So delaying yourself from starting because conditions are not “just right” is neurotic and a terrible waste of time. Striving for excellence by doing the best job we can with the time and energy we have is much more healthy and realistic. Susan Sweeney, best-selling author and internet marketing speaker, and a person I really admire because she has accomplished so much, told me that her favourite saying when she finds herself beginning to procrastinate is,

“Done is better than perfect.”

Delaying starting something you've got to do, like your tax return, means that you will be stressed about it for longer and you will probably have to rush it at the last minute, which leaves you open to making mistakes and doing a less than excellent job. Delaying starting something that you want to do, that will bring you some real benefit from getting it done, by telling yourself any of the above excuses is just a bad thinking habit.

“I might make a mistake and then I’ll be a failure.”

Remind yourself that the most successful people make the most mistakes. They learn to be successful through their mistakes. Just like a young child tries, tries, and tries again until she learns how to do something, successful people know that the best way to learn is to get into action.

The last excuse is often the one that causes the most procrastination.

“I’m not in the mood right now.”

Basically when you’re facing a challenging job, you’re almost never in the mood before you start. Remember the last time you faced an overwhelming project like cleaning out your closet or basement? You didn’t really get in the mood to do it until you were well started. Then once you were started, you kept going and worked at it longer than you had originally planned because you got into the flow. You had a clear goal, unambiguous feedback about how you were progressing, a good match between your skills and the challenges of the task, a sense of control, and few distractions.

It helps tremendously to recognize that we’re rarely in the mood to do something before we’re actually involved in doing it. The answer here is to say to yourself, “I will be in the mood to do this once I've started.”