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Hello you! It's Friday

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already, and it's my birthday

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today. I'm 48 years

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young. Although my body seems to be aging

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in Fahrenheit, but my brain's working in Celsius,

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which makes me nine, which seems

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about right some days. I demolished

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a packet of peanut M& Ms the other day like

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they were going out of fashion. But it

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had been a long and busy day, so I'm certainly

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not gonna Beat myself up about

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it, but it reminded me of those old

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marshmallow experiments that Walter

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Mischel at Stanford University

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did with kids to test

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their self control. Quite a famous experiment,

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and what with all the mince pies and Christmas chocolate

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knocking about the supermarkets, everyone's

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willpower is going to be tested even before

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Christmas, especially if we've used

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up all our willpower during the day, holding

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ourselves back from screaming or

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needing to prevent procrastination. Because

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even not procrastinating takes

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willpower. Good news,

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though! Our willpower can

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be topped up. Decent quality sleep,

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meditation Eating

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well, exercising, they all help

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to fill up our willpower

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fuel tank, if we've been draining

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it. Because it's not just about not

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eating the mince pies we bought in advance

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for Christmas. Self control

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keeps us off social media, helps

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us to turn off the TV,

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gives us more time for the things we might be procrastinating

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about, helps us to challenge any

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negative self belief and raise

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our self esteem. So it is

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useful, but for it to become second

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nature and effortless, it

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might take some effort first.

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What we find is that being specific

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helps. If there's an area of

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your life that you want to have more self control

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over, then the more specific

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the better. Rather than saying

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to yourself, I want to work

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with more focus. Look at

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what that means, because it

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could be that your goal needs to

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be I want to work on a project

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for two hours without checking my

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emails, and in which case, you

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know that turning off your email software

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is a good idea then, because the extra

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thirty seconds or so it might take for

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the software to load up, it's

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enough for you to know that it's not worth

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checking it. It gives you a longer gap

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between the thought and the behaviour

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to be able to go, nope,

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I need to carry on with what I'm doing. So

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be specific. If you're always

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late for appointments, set a goal

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of being five minutes early. For

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everything. That sort of thing.

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That old marshmallow experiment did give us

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some insight into what helps,

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actually. If you don't know what I'm talking about,

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very briefly, it was just a series

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of experiments where children

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were given the choice of one marshmallow

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now or two later

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on. And there were quite a few different versions.

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When the children were asked to think about how

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sweet and chewy the marshmallow was,

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they found it quite hard to resist it. Obviously!

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But when they were asked to look at it and see

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how much like a fluffy cloud

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it resembled They had more

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self control. When it was

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in a see through box, as

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opposed to a completely opaque box,

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and so was out of sight, out of mind, the

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out of sight, out of mind thing helped, too.

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That was replicated with some studies that I

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really should have paid

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more attention to, knowing what happened to me earlier in

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the week, with some office workers with

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M& Ms. Some were

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in a clear bowl, some were in an opaque

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bowl, so they couldn't see through them. Having

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it in a clear bowl made them eat more,

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as did having it on their own desk,

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rather than on the desk next to them. That

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helped as well. Having it just

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a couple of seconds away, it creates

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a gap between thoughts and

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behaviours that gives you the opportunity

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to go Nope, not

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doing it. I made an episode about

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decision making last month as well, didn't I? That

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ties into this, because if we can set up

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some habits and routines that make

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it easier to make decisions, because we've

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made them out of habit rather than through conscious

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effort to choose, then

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it doesn't use up so much of our willpower. There's

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a lot of life habits that we can employ

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that can make things so much easier

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for us. We just have to recognise

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That we deserve to put them into place,

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and then do something about it. Anyway,

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I'll be off for another week. As always,

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if you like these free episodes, there's more

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on my Patreon page, which I use

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to raise money to help people with their therapy

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costs. Because therapy ain't cheap.

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But if we all chuck in 6 per month,

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it makes it cheaper for people. So, come

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on board. You'll be making a big difference to somebody's

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life. And I will talk to you again on there

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on Monday. with a full

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episode, none of this 5

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minute Friday low fat version. My

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Monday ones are all 15 minutes

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or more, usually, so I will speak

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to you then. Take care!