There’s a fine line between being spontaneous and being flat-out impulsive.
Spontaneous, and you’re taking life as it comes to you. There’s an exciting element of the unknown. Here not overthinking is seen as positive and fun.
Impulsive, and you lack restraint and might very well come to regret your decisions. Irresponsibility and immaturity could be part of the equation.
When you’re impulsive, your emotions, and ultimately your behavior, slip from your control.
Compulsive and pathological are two buzzwords in this vein.
According to the DSM-IV, approximately 10.5% of the general population has an impulse control disorder.
Those who neglect more significant delayed rewards in exchange for smaller instantaneous rewards are considered to have issues with impulse control.
As written here,
Impulsivity has two main characteristics: rapid, unplanned reactions and reduced concern for the consequences of actions.
But can beating impulses be as simple as thinking, before you make a decision, of what’ll happen and how you’ll feel in the aftermath?
Whether it’s eating habits, gambling, skin-picking, sex addiction, stealing or any other manifestation of impulsivity, it’s a problem. But it’s a problem that can be fixed.
Males tend to be more prone to impulsive behavior. There is also a genetic factor involved, as well as having been a victim of trauma, abuse, and neglect.
So if you’re impatient, have obsessive thought patterns or can’t seem to internalize the consequences of your conduct, try out one of these holistic strategies.
Make it harder
The best way to put off temptation is to not have any. And you can’t do that if whatever it is that’s tempting you is easily accessible.
The harder it is to satisfy your craving, the less likely you’ll be to go after it.
Say hours are evaporating on Youtube. You’d prefer to be more productive but you can’t help yourself. In fact, your browser automatically sends you to Youtube when you open it up.
Start by either blocking Youtube — and any other distracting website while you’re at it — or reorganizing your computer so that it’s not a click away. Delete it as a bookmark or sign out of your account. The latter will stop its algorithm from curating videos just for you.
If snacking is your problem, remove all snacks from your pantry and counter. Avoid evil aisles in the grocery store. Get familiar with why snacking is bad, that is, unhealthy snacking.
Just complicate the exercise of carrying out your impulses.
Keep a journal
Tracking your progress, especially your success, will motivate you even more.
There’s a great book detailing why this is so, called The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work by Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer.
In it, they write:
“Even when progress happens in small steps, a person’s sense of steady forward movement toward an important goal can make all the difference between a great day and a terrible one.”
This “progress principle” can be applied to mastering impulses.
In a journal, confront the behavior you want to kill. Is it too much shopping? Write how it usually plays out (“I always check out what sales they’re having at this boutique near my place”) and why it’s damaging (“I don’t need any extra clothes, and I’d rather use my money to travel”).
Next, write a plan (“From here on, I’ll take another route to and from home”) and what positive results could bring you (“With more money, I could visit my sister in Florida”).
Every day you don’t cave and buy something, write a line of triumph (“I didn’t buy anything!”) and how it feels (“I’m so glad I could finally refrain”).
Now repeat this for 30 days — or until you’re over it (“Now I don’t even look at the boutique when I pass by”).
Adopt a reward system
Immediate rewards specifically are highly beneficial. Immediate rewards, as compared to delayed or no rewards, are shown to increase intrinsic motivation.
In a study, rewards were found to be more effective in getting people to act. As for getting people to not act, punishments were more effective.
Depending on your perspective, impulse control can be about acting differently (i.e. being disciplined) or not acting (i.e. not being impulsive). The bottom line is you have to change.
Bet a friend or family member money (or something you value) that you won’t succumb to your impulses. If it’s substance abuse you’re struggling with, the deal is you’ll have to pay x amount of money for every time you indulge. That should be enough of an incentive to abstain.
For not-so-serious-but-still-negative impulses (surfing the internet), you can even use the impulse as your reward.
For example, for an hour straight of high-volume work, you’ll be allowed half an hour of the internet. Since the internet is something you desire, you’ll have no trouble striving for it as a goal.
Too often those of us on the path to self-improvement lose hope and ultimately quit because we’re not seeing results. We believe they should be here already, but they aren’t.
Impulse control (and, ideally, impulse eradication) is no small task. Our prefrontal cortex could be deeply compromised due to stress. That means we’ll have to retool our executive function, which is involved in judgement.
To manage this will be a longish process. But if you follow the advice above, you’ll be on the right track to having complete control over your life. Don’t forget to acknowledge your “small wins”.
