Have We Been Thinking About Self-Control All Wrong?
Do you deplete your willpower reserves when you ignore your cravings and grab a salad instead of a tub of ice cream? Until a few years ago, that answer was unequivocally “yes.” But now, in light of new evidence, psychologists are considering that maybe willpower is not as finite as they once thought.
If you’ve ever attempted to shed a few pounds by following a diet, you probably know how much willpower it requires. Successful dieters use cheat meals to maintain this self-control. The idea is that by allowing themselves to enjoy their favorite foods for one meal per week, they can replenish their self-control and stay on track with their diet plan.
However, new research suggests that cheat meals, and our whole idea of self-control, may be based on a wrong assumption.
We don’t have to treat our willpower like a limited resource that needs refilling. Instead, we can access it endlessly with the right belief and mindset.
In this article, we’ll explore how new evidence is challenging the previously air-tight rules of self-control and how you can leverage the latest ideas on willpower to achieve success.
What Are Self-Control and Willpower?
According to the American Psychological Association, self-control refers to your “ability to be in command of your behavior (overt, covert, emotional, or physical) and to restrain or inhibit your impulses.”
Willpower, on the other hand, refers to your “ability to carry out your intentions” and exert self-control.
You exercise self-control when you resist the temptation to have another slice of cake, bite your tongue instead of making a rude remark to a coworker, or stay up late studying for your tests.
Self-control and willpower are tightly intertwined with self-improvement and success. Whether developing healthy habits, breaking out of bad ones, improving time management, or ensuring academic and professional excellence, discipline, self-control, and willpower are crucial skills for achieving your goals.
Can You Run Out of Willpower?
For the longest time, psychologists believed that willpower emanated from a singular source in the brain and could be exhausted. They thought of it as a muscle and that, like any other, it fatigues with use. Thus, the longer and more actively you exercise your willpower, the harder it will be to maintain self-control in the face of subsequent temptations.
This idea is called the ego depletion theory. It emerged from the experiment of psychologists Roy Baumeister and Dianne Tice, and more than 3,000 papers have cited it since its publishing.
Here’s how the experiment worked.
The psychologists placed freshly baked cookies beside a bowl of radishes and brought two groups of participants into the room. One group was only allowed to eat radishes, while the other was allowed to eat chocolate chip cookies. Both groups were subsequently given an impossible puzzle to solve, and the duration they worked for was measured.
Baumeister and Tice found that the participants who had eaten the radishes worked for an average of eight minutes before quitting, while those who had eaten the chocolate chip cookies worked for an average of 19 minutes — the same time as a control group who had eaten neither radishes nor cookies.
Baumeister and other psychologists who repeated his experiment concluded that we all have a finite amount of willpower and that resisting the cookies drained it for the group who had eaten the radishes, making them do worse on the puzzle.
This opinion held sway for the longest time.
But a second look at the ego depletion theory reveals that its foundation may be shakier than we initially realized. This is especially true when we take into consideration that different personality traits are associated with the determination to reach goals (which definitely requires willpower and stick-to-itiveness).
Has the Ego Depletion Theory Been Debunked?
The cracks in the ego depletion theory first began to show when one of its pillars — that consuming sugary drinks could prevent the loss of willpower — failed to hold up upon reanalysis.
Subsequent analyses yielded even more inconsistencies, culminating in a 2014 study that conducted ego depletion experiments at 24 different labs, which failed to replicate the effect observed by Baumeister.
There is still a lot of conjecture and skepticism on what these results mean for self-control, but many people no longer subscribe to the idea that willpower is a finite resource.
Indeed, it may be worthwhile to explore other ideas. One thing that researchers do agree upon is that the brain plays a significant role in creating new habits and breaking old ones.
The Impact of Belief and Mindset on Willpower
One particularly compelling idea that explains willpower and self-control is that of Stanford professor Carol S. Dweck, who associates self-control with belief.
In her study, she showed that people who believed self-control was a limited resource exhibited depleted levels of self-control after a demanding task. Alternately, those who felt it was an inexhaustible resource presented high levels of self-control throughout.
The implications of this study are staggering. Could it be that our beliefs influence our self-control so that accepting exhaustion drains us while believing in our unlimited willpower empowers us?
That is what the research suggests, so perhaps it is time to reconceptualize the way we think of self-control. Instead of a muscle or fuel in a tank that wears or runs out, it’s more like an emotion that fluctuates depending on our feelings and experiences.
Redefine What Self-Control Means to You
Changing how you look at self-control and willpower is easier said than done, but it is not an impossible task. When you are determined to get things done, there are many things you can do to be successful.
Visualizing and emulating someone you consider a model of self-discipline is a good start. You can also draw on experiences where you overcame difficulty in starting something and persevered to reach your goal.
Author Bio — Demilade Adejola, BrainManager Team
Demilade Adejola is currently working on his Bachelor of Law degree at the University of Lagos. He has always nurtured a curiosity about the human mind. He is fascinated by the interplay of environment and personality on behavior and is always looking inwards to better understand his.
Using the insight he’s garnered, as well as expert research, Demilade creates content that helps people understand why they act and feel the way they do — and how they use that information to their benefit.
