The Ten Minute Decluttering Game

Ten Minute Decluttering Game

Years ago, I'd set the timer for one hour and everyone who lived with me set to work. We cleaned like crazy, threw dirty clothes into the washer (sorted, of course), dusted, vacuumed and put things back where they belonged. Crazy music was blaring and we often danced a merry jig after finishing a job. Once the timer rang, we walked through the whole living area, enjoying the transformation. Then we settled in for some serious family fun.

If you don’t want to spend an hour playing this De-Clutter-Game, just set the timer for 10 minutes and organize/clean or sort out for that length of time. If you do this in the morning and evening, your place is going to look marvelous and you will be doubly rewarded with a lovely sense of peace.

Here’s why 10 Minute 'Transformations' work: 

It is much easier to contemplate cleaning/organizing/decluttering for 10 minutes rather than to face the seemingly impossible task of completely organizing the kitchen or basement, as an example.

Here are a few tips to make this 10-minute cleaning whirl work for you. Do one, or a few, 10-minute declutters every day in addition to your regular chores, and you'll feel like your home is actually getting cleaner, rather than merely maintaining the status quo. The 10-minute declutter can also help you out when things are getting messier than normal and you want to get back to standard.

Ten Minute Projects Are Do-able

Working for only ten minutes seems achievable and easy. By breaking those daunting projects into smaller parts you avoid feeling snowed under. Avoidance of important tasks may seem like the easiest path but there is always a consequence for that choice.

Ten Minute Projects Bring Focus

Sometimes I fail to work on projects because I am distracted by other things. Taking ten minutes to focus on only one task helps me to get more done. (Writing down the steps calms me.) I usually end up spending more quality time because I am concentrating on that one area rather than trying to accomplish several things at once.

Ten Minute Projects Destroy Procrastination

Most people procrastinate because projects seem too big or too hard or too time-consuming to take on. By just doing something on the project, it helps break procrastination’s hold and get some momentum going. We are much more likely to spend time on it later because the hardest part has been broken through: getting started.

Is there an area in your life in which you have been procrastinating? Is there something that you know has to be done, but you stay busy doing other activities so you don’t have to face it?  That is the project to get started on this week.

10 Minute De-Clutter Guidelines

1. Find 3 large boxes or laundry baskets. (You can also use paper grocery bags or plastic garbage bags) Label them “GIVE AWAY”, “THROW AWAY” and “PUT AWAY”.

2. Commit to 10 minutes a day. Every morning or afternoon for the next  weeks, spend 10 minutes in one room filling those boxes with the clutter that you see. Choose a more public room first like your living room, entry way or kitchen.

3. Immediately disperse the items. At the end of your ten minutes, put the “THROW AWAY” items into the trash immediately; take the “PUT AWAY” items to the rooms where they belong; and store the “GIVE AWAY” box in a closet until the next day. On your next errand day or on Saturday morning take the give away items to Good Will or Salvation Army (no going through the box again before you donate it!).

Got 10 minutes? Go for it!!

Healthy Rituals for Early Morning

1.  Get an early start.

If your mornings are chaotic, the simple solution is to get up a little earlier than the chaos.  This, of course, starts the night before by going to bed a bit earlier too.

Adjust gradually, wake up just 10 minutes earlier each week for the next 6-9 weeks, and you’ll barely notice the change from day to day.  This extra time will help you avoid stress, speeding tickets, tardiness and other unnecessary headaches.

2.  Meditate on the goodness.

Begin each day with love, grace and gratitude.  When you arise in the morning think of what an incredible privilege it is to be alive – to be, to see, to hear, to think, to love, to have something to look forward to.  Happiness is a big part of these little parts of your life; joy is simply the feeling of appreciating it all.

Realize that it’s not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.  Be grateful first thing in the morning, and you will see more goodness everywhere you look throughout the day.

3.  Stretch it out.

Simple, but so often forgotten… stretching your body in the morning has these key benefits:

• Creates an increased range of movement in the body’s joints
• Enhanced muscular flexibility and coordination
• Increased circulation of the blood to various vital organs
• Increased mental and physical energy levels (resulting from increased movement and circulation)

If you’re uncertain about how to stretch properly, you can find hundreds of great tutorials on YouTube.  Choose one that you think will suit you best and practice it for a minute or two every morning.  You will sense a change yourself, guaranteed.

4.  Drink a tall glass of water before consuming anything else.

Another obvious practice that goes by the wayside…

Your body is more than 60% water, and when you’ve been sleeping all night without drinking any water, it gets dehydrated and desperate for hydration.  So quench your thirst with exactly what your body needs.  Avoid drinking coffee, tea or other beverages before you have at least one tall glass of water.  By doing so your body will start to wake up and you’ll naturally feel more energized and alive.  

5.  Keep things simple.

One of my personal mistakes several years ago was trying to fit too much into my mornings.  When I first started waking up early I wanted to workout, meditate, handle household chores, read, write, cook breakfast, reply to work emails, run errands, etc., and it turns out I couldn’t do all those things.  I was waking up early and stressing myself out.  I made my early mornings just as packed as the rest of the day.

What has helped me is having a few key things I do early, but not being over-committed to lots of goals and agendas.  I’d rather have space and flexibility, which makes the time much more peaceful and useful.  So the glass of water, stretching, gratitude meditation, tea, reading and writing are the only agendas I have on most mornings, but I’m flexible with those also.

6.  Do a few things that move you.

Again, DO NOT fill your mornings with things you have to do… but, DO have a few things you can’t wait to get out of bed and get started on.  For me, that goes back to my short list, which includes reading and writing – two of my greatest passions.  For you, perhaps a long meditative walk, yoga, prayer, painting, or simply reading the morning paper.

In other words, don’t just have a long list of things you think you should do but don’t really want to do.  Give your early mornings to yourself as a gift.

7.  Read, review or listen to something that nurtures your mind.

Some of the happiest and most successful people I know read a bit of scripture each morning, some read inspiring books, articles or quotes, while others listen to radio, podcasts or audio programs that move them to get their day started.  The key is having a ritual focused on absorbing small doses of self-improvement content to stretch and nurture your perspective and knowledge base.  It starts the day off on a positive note with positive, productive ideas to guide your day’s journey.  And that’s crucial, because your thoughts guide your reality.

So indulge in something positive every morning when you awake, and let it inspire you to do something positive before you go back to sleep at night.  That’s how memorable, manageable days are made.  

It is fun to watch the TED talks on YouTube. They always inspire me.

8.  Be present, breathe, and appreciate the space between activities too.

Your early morning moments aren’t just about the things you do; they’re also about the open space between the things.  That means the space itself is something to be appreciated as well.

So if you meditate and read, the morning isn’t just valuable because of the meditation and reading… the space around those two activities is also incredible.  The time spent walking over to your meditation mat, or finding your book, or turning the pages, or pouring a cup of tea, or sitting and watching the sunrise… these little open spaces are just as important as anything else.

Pace yourself so you’re not hurrying from one thing to the next, but instead noticing and appreciating the spaces in between, too.

9.  Move on gracefully to what’s most important.

As human beings we are goal oriented.  We like making progress.  When we accomplish one of our goals, we smile about it.  That’s why the happiest people I know are also some of the most successful people I know.

As your early morning winds down, the key is to funnel your attention directly into the right things, not the urgent things.  Because at some point we all wonder, “Why is it so impossible to get everything done?”  And the answer is stunningly simple: We are doing too many of the wrong things.  

Several research studies have shown that people never get more done by blindly working more hours on everything that comes up.  Instead, they get more done when they follow careful plans that measure and track key priorities and milestones.  So if you want to be more successful, less stressed, and a lot happier at the end of each day, don’t ask how to make something more efficient until you’ve first asked, “Do I need to do this at all?”

Simply being able to do something well does not make it the right thing to do.  I think this is one of the most common problems with a lot of time-management advice; too often productivity gurus focus on how to do things quickly, but the vast majority of things people do quickly should not be done at all.

Source: Marc Chernoff

3 Overlooked Secrets to Japanese Decluttering

1. Dump the Past

Most people are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what they actually own. At this point, I usually say, "Let's start with off-season clothes." I have a good reason for choosing off-season clothing for their first foray into this tidying gala. It's the easiest category for tuning in to one's intuition concerning what feels good.

If they start with clothes they are currently using, clients are more likely to think, "It doesn't spark joy, but I just wore it yesterday," or "If I don't have any clothes left to wear, what am I going to do?" This makes it harder for them to make an objective decision. Because off-season clothes are not imminently necessary, it is much easier to apply the simple criterion of whether they bring you joy. There's one question I recommend asking when you select off-season clothes. "Do I want to see this outfit again next time it's in season?" Or, to rephrase, "Would I want to wear this right away if the temperature suddenly changed?"

2. Go Up...in Energy

Let me introduce a secret to maintaining the neatness of closets that you work hard to organize. Arrange your clothes so that they rise to the right. Take a moment to draw one arrow rising toward the right and then another descending to the right. You can do this on paper or just trace them in the air. Did you notice that when you draw an arrow rising to the right it makes you feel lighter? Lines that slope up to the right make people feel comfortable. By using this principle when you organize your closet, you can make the contents look far more exciting.

To do so, hang heavy items on the left side of the closet and light items on the right. Heavy items include those with length, those made from heavier material and those that are dark in color. As you move toward the right side of the closet, the length of the clothing grows shorter, the material thinner and the color lighter. By category, coats would be on the far left, followed by dresses, jackets, pants, skirts and blouses.

3. Work by Category

In the majority of households, items that fall into the same category are stored in two or more places scattered around the house. Say, for example, you start with the bedroom closet. After you have finished sorting and discarding everything in it, you are bound to come across clothes you kept in a different closet or a coat draped over a living room chair. You will then have to repeat the whole process of choosing and storing, wasting time and effort, and you cannot make an accurate assessment of what you want to keep and discard under such conditions. Repetition and wasted effort can kill motivation, and therefore must be avoided.

 

This excerpt was taken from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Copyright ©2014 by Marie Kondo. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

The Request Game - Getting Past the NO

One of the reasons we don’t get on in life is our fear of rejection. That is why more men don’t approach women, salespeople don’t make more cold calls, why students are afraid to raise their hands in class, etc.

Ask anybody: “If you would be sure to get a yes, would you ask for …….”, would their answer be yes? But the uncertainty of not really knowing what the answer will be keeps us completely paralyzed.

Rejections send us on a mission to seek and destroy our self-esteem. We often respond to romantic rejections by finding fault in ourselves, bemoaning all our inadequacies, kicking ourselves when we’re already down, and smacking our self-esteem into a pulp. Most romantic rejections are a matter of poor fit and a lack of chemistry, incompatible lifestyles, wanting different things at different times, or other such issues of mutual dynamics. Blaming ourselves and attacking our self-worth only deepens the emotional pain we feel and makes it harder for us to recover emotionally. But before you rush to blame yourself, try Rejection Therapy - The Rejection Challenge!  Learn how, by requesting something (even quirky) and expecting the "no" answer, you can ease the pain you'd otherwise experience. 

To deal with this challenge, one man even concocted cards for people who are really caught in this trap. It is based on Rejection Therapy and is called, duh, Rejection Therapy™! The game consists of suggestion cards designed for anyone who wants to build confidence and overcome fear of rejection.

Rejection Therapy is a process. You start with a rejection that’s a little out of your comfort zone. If you can’t say hello to three strangers in a grocery store, you should conquer that one first.

Emotions like fear and anger are viral and indiscriminate. They undermine your sense of control and self worth. If you allow these mental states to exist, they tend to spill over into other aspects of your life.

When you go through the process and play Rejection Therapy card by card, picking off rejections one by one, starting small and moving up, you uncover trouble spots and learn to overcome them. Call it fear management. You discover ways to manage your fear so you can get that rejection. And you have fun doing it.

Once you get the rejection, the fear shrinks and confidence in yourself grows in all aspects of your life. What if Peter Dinklage hadn’t gone for auditions? He is a small person but that didn’t stop him. We see him as successful. But we don’t know about all the no’s he’s heard. He obviously didn’t leave it at that.

 I am reading a fun book by Jia Jiang, who perscribed himself a 100 day rejection challenge. He was aiming to make 100 crazy requests (at least one every day) to get rejected. The goal was to desensitize himself from the pain of rejection. It is a hoot to read. I have also read the book „Women Don’t Ask“ by Linda Babcock which is more about why women don’t negotiate.

Now it’s your turn. Take the Rejection Therapy 30 Day Challenge today! Try to ask for something every day. Expect a „no“ yet be prepared for a „yes“. Could happen.

"9 out of 10" daily tidying

If I don't watch out, my STUFF is going to overwhelm me - again.

Looking over to the far side of my new leather couch, I see a stack of six new books and several magazines. Looking over to the bookshelves in the hall, I contemplate the designated shelf filled with other new purchases that I have yet to peruse.

It is so easy to THINK what I can do in a day yet the reality of the TIME it will take eludes me. Yesterday, I had a wonderful list of things I was going to do before leaving for my job. All I really got done was pay several bills online and endure some tough personal training at the gym.

Today is a FREE day and every room has little piles of things that need to find a home or go back to their designated ones. It seems I just leave the objects for "later" and never get back to retrieve them. Now, I have a seemingly insurmountable mountain of things to put away.

NEW PLAN: Each day, I shall (try) pick two times and in those time windows, I shall whirlwind through my home and attempt to get things into  "9 out of 10" shape.

WHAT?!

On a scale of 0 to 10, 0 is complete messiness and 10 is complete cleanliness and order. The flat doesn't need to be perfect. A 9 will suffice.

If I can remind myself to take 5 minutes twice daily, things probably won't pile up and disturb the sense of order and serenity. My TRIGGERS for this action are 1) mornings, after getting up, I'll go through each room as quickly as possible and 2) afternoons before work when I've had my green tea.

There is no sense for me planning that after work. I only want to chill then. Yet I can be satisfied with a productive and successful day.

I want to establish this habit starting today. Would you like to join the "9 out of 10" club?

Catch Yourself if You are Slipping!

I've noticed that in the two plus years of the major de-cluttering of my apartment(s), stuff and inconsistency have been creeping back in.

So what DO you do after you've cleared the stuff and its insuing clutter? If your day-to-day routines are continuing to create clutter and hectic, then you'll always be one step behind.

Steps to a New Daily Routine

1. Identify the problem. Think of things that tend to "sneak up" on you in your life - annual things like tax time, monthly things like invoicing clients, weekly things like running errands or daily things like meal times. For now, let’s use the example - "I'm always rushed in the morning".

2. Identify the costs. If the costs aren't that high, you probably won't be motivated to do anything to change it. The costs of being rushed in the morning may include: poor choices for breakfast or no breakfast at all, poor digestion from eating too fast or perhaps not eating at all and having coffee on an empty stomach. Then, getting to work in a rush results in stressful travel, impatience and unpleasant interactions with fellow travelers. What happens if you get caught in a traffic jam or the train comes late? This will affect your whole day.

3. Back it up. So you're rushed in the morning - what choices did you make up to this point that resulted in being rushed?

4. Experiment with some changes in your routine. Don't be rigid; you're in the experimental phase here. One day you can try going to bed a half hour earlier and waking up a half hour earlier. (You might need to work up to this: Go to bed 5 minutes earlier each night for 6 nights.) The next day try laying out your clothes the night before. Next, try putting your lunch (and any other lunches you have to prepare) together the night before. The next day try a 5-minute meditation break in the morning. Be careful that you are not sidetracked by Siren-like distractions. Try to get up immediately when the alarm goes off. Don’t even think about pushing the snooze button!

5. Commit to a new daily routine. Once you've experimented for a week or so, look back and reflect on which strategies made the most difference to your morning (and the rest of your day). Use structures as reminders (tack up a list of your routine), inspiration (post a photo that represents the kind of relaxing morning you'd like to have) or tracking (give yourself a gold star or another fun and visual marker on the calendar for every day that you implement your new routine – or just shout “Yaaaay!”).

Remember that it's not about keeping a perfect routine or beating yourself up for straying from it - it's about making healthier choices every day. If you slip, your very next choice can set you straight again.

Get Your Grit On!

Grit and the art of practicing an instrument

Peak skill is reached after years of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice spells success. The expert performance framework distinguishes between deliberate practice and less effective practice activities. Alas, deliberate practice is rated as the most effortful and least enjoyable type of preparation activity. Deliberate practice mediated the prediction of final performance by the personality trait of grit, suggesting that perseverance and passion for long-term goals enable musicians to persist with practice activities that are less intrinsically rewarding—but more effective—than other types of preparation.

Are the most effective preparation activities enjoyable and effortless? Nope.

Let’s face it – sometimes practicing just ain’t fun.

There is no magic in the number 10 but it is important in achieving excellence:

- 10 years of deliberate practice and experience

- 10 thousand hours of work to achieve excellence

For example, the accumulated time that musicians have spent practicing alone during development is the best predictor of expert performance. (Ericsson et al., 1993). Individuals who accumulate more hours of deliberate practice likely do so because they are committed to improving their performance, not because they find these hours of practice innately rewarding.

In many other domains, world-class performers have been shown to acquire their skills through thousands of hours of solitary deliberate practice, effortful activities designed to improve performance. Deliberate practice entails engaging in a focused, typically planned training activity designed to improve some aspect of performance. During deliberate practice, individuals receive immediate informative feedback on their performance and can then repeat the same or similar tasks with full attention toward changing inferior or incorrect responses, thus improving the identified area of weakness.

Will Smith, the well-known actor says “ Where I excel is with a ridiculous sickening work ethic. While the other guy’s sleeping, I’m working. While the other guy’s eating, I’m working.”

Grit

Grit is a combination of passion and persistence. Having grit means pursuing your goal with vigor and focus over an extended period of time. Less gritty individuals are easily discouraged or frequently led off track by new interests. Grittier people are more likely to engage in deliberate practice, and their cumulative time devoted to this activity explains their superior performance.

Being gritty means:

·       Finishing what you begin

·       Staying committed to your goals

·       Working hard even after experiencing failure or when you feel like quitting

·       Sticking with a project or activity for more than a few weeks

So, let’s get more grit in our practice. GO FOR IT!!

Linda Langeheine, Some Gritty Teacher!

Learn another language!

Since I am in the 3rd third of my life, I need to take care that my brain doesn't get lazy!

So I am learning another language. Nothing spectacular - it brings my incredible total up to four (or 5 if you count my rudiments of French). English, German, Italian, Dutch, French... I'm impressing myself to death!!

Yes now I am taking on Dutch. It is an odd but "cute" language - not at all  as beautiful as French. It sounds pretty guttural.

There are wonderful websites for free where you can learn all sorts of languages. I am using Duolingo.
https://www.duolingo.com


A study from the University of Chicago found that when people speak in a language other than their native tongue, it helps eliminate their tendency toward so-called loss aversion—that is, getting too caught up in the “here and now” to make choices that could profit us further down the road.
Bilinguals are more confident with their choices after thinking it over in the second language and seeing whether their initial conclusions still stand up. This means that if you learn a second language, this might well improve your ability to make wiser financial choices, for example.

Who would’ve thought?

Additionally, a study conducted  by Researchers from University College London has shown that learning other languages altered grey matter – the area of the brain which processes information – in the same way exercise builds muscles.

Hey! Now we are getting somewhere. Says the ongoing Senior Citizen.


We live in an increasingly globalized world and companies are constantly expanding overseas and dealing with clients from all over the world. Between two candidates with the exact same skill set and experience, the person who is bilingual is arguably much more likely to get the job.
The Economist also points outs that while, according to one optimistic estimate, half the world’s people might speak English by 2050, “that still leaves billions who will not, and billions of others who remain happier (and more willing to spend money) in their own language,” the article concludes. Plus, studies show that knowledge of a foreign language brings economic benefits. Even a 2% annual “salary premium” will result, in some cases, in 6-digits returns upon retirement. Not a bad deal.

So, what about you? A few minutes a day (every day) is all it takes. Only slightly longer than it takes to do your evening hygiene routine.

HABITS THAT STRENGTHEN YOUR WILLPOWER

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle.

Success is a lot of small things done well, day after day.

What seems like an overnight success is usually a very long time in the making. Success is created from people who establish the right habits, then execute them over and over.

Here are the top 10 habits that have been scientifically proven to give you incredible willpower!

1.  MEDITATE

Meditation is the fastest and most effective way to increase your willpower. By meditating you are training the brain to focus and resist the urge to wander. Research shows that after just 2-3 days of practicing meditation for 10 minutes, your brain will be able to focus better, you will have more energy, and you will be less stressed. [1]

There are a lot of myths surrounding meditation. Burning incense, chanting, wearing robes, etc. So let's start by explaining what meditation really is. 

Meditation is simply the practice of bringing your thoughts to the present moment. 47% of our lives are spent either reminiscing about the past or thinking about what we are going to do in the future. [2]

We spend very little time with a clear, focused mind on what we are doing right now.

Meditation attempts to do just that. This is usually done by sitting upright in a room that is clear of distractions and focusing solely on your breathing. However, it can be achieved with any activity that brings your full focus and attention.

For example, if you are completely focused on the task of cleaning dishes; without mentally going over your day, pondering another problem in your head, or thinking about what you will be doing next, you can achieve a state of meditation.

If your mind is clear and focused completely on the present task, you will see the benefits of meditation.

To get started meditating, check out this article which will give you the tools and exercises you need to begin adding the habit of daily meditation.

2. EAT A LOW GLYCEMIC DIET

When the body takes in food, it creates a chemical known as glucose that travels through the blood stream. This is what the brain uses as its source of fuel to think, create, and exert willpower. So to ensure a healthy stock of willpower, we want to make sure our brain has enough glucose to use as energy.  [3]

Any food that contains calories will give your brain glucose to work with. But not all glucose is created equally. Sugary foods will cause a quick spike of glucose, giving you willpower fuel for the short-term, but will cause a subsequent crash that depletes your willpower just as fast.

The best thing you can do is keep the glucose level in your bloodstream steady. This will give your brain a consistent reserve of fuel to exert willpower for the long-term. To accomplish this, researchers suggest a low-glycemic diet. [4]

Here are some low-glycemic foods that will give you long-term willpower fuel:

1. LEAN PROTEINS

Nothing fancy is required – just lean cuts of beef, poultry, pork and fish.

2. NUTS

Specifically those nuts that are high in omega-3 fatty acids like walnuts, pecans and cashews. (Note: this does not include legumes like peanuts).

3. FRESH FRUIT

Fresh fruit is preferred over dried fruit because dried fruits have a high concentration of sugar in them. This will result in the glucose spike for the short term and lead to a subsequent crash. Some good choices are bananas, blueberries, apples and cherries.

4. VEGETABLES

All vegetables will help build your long-term willpower, but specific veggies have a lot of willpower fuel in them are root-based. These include sweet potatoes, carrots and onions which will all give you some serious willpower fuel!

Do not try to completely overhaul your diet if you are not used to eating these types of foods. Instead focus on eating them for just one meal per day. The best of which would be eating them for breakfast.

3. GET ENOUGH SLEEP

When you don't get enough sleep, your willpower takes the biggest hit. When you are tired, your brain cells are not able to absorb glucose as efficiently as when you are well rested. This means that you begin lose the “power” in your willpower. [5]

Then your brain will recognize the fact that it is not getting enough glucose, and immediately start to crave sugary foods and caffeine to replenish its supply. However, because your brain cells are not absorbing glucose as efficiently as they should be, not only will you give in to eating junk, you will eat much more than you need.

Your brain will continue to crave junk food until it gets as much glucose as it can out of your bloodstream – regardless of how many calories that may be.

Luckily, there are scientifically proven tactics that will help you get a better night’s sleep even without adding more hours:

1. A COMPLETELY DARK ROOM

Most of us underestimate the affect that lights in our room have on our sleep. When our room is completely dark, it helps our brain shut down and sleep more efficiently. This helps us get more rest out of the hours we lay in bed; helping to restore our willpower. [6]

2. NAP

Other research suggests that it is the amount of consecutive hours you spend awake that matters the most. So breaking up the day with a nap can have significant benefits. It is better to sleep for 7 hours with a 1-hour nap than it is to sleep for 8 consecutive hours without taking that break during the day. [7]

3. Create a reservoir

Getting more sleep on the weekend will create a reserve of energy your brain can use for willpower during the week. So if you cannot squeeze more hours of sleep in during the week, see if you can catch up on the weekend. [8]

4. EXERCISE

We all know that exercise is good for our health, but can it also be good for our willpower? In order to find out, researchers found 24 non-exercisers between 18 and 50 to partake in a 2-month study. They were given free gym memberships and asked to exercise just 1x/week for the first month and 3x/week for the second month.

Throughout the study they would test the participants on various self-control activities from resisting temptations to persevering through challenging tasks.

The results were nothing short of remarkable.

After just 2 months of exercise every participant had indeed increased his or her ability to resist temptations and persevere on tasks.

But the benefits didn’t end there. Without any instruction by the researchers, the participants also:

·      Procrastinated less

·      Felt more in control of their emotions

·      Reduced smoking, alcohol and caffeine intake

·      Saved more money

·      Ate less junk food

·      Began eating a healthier diet

·      Watched less TV

·      Spent more time studying

·      Splurged on impulse purchases less

·      Were more likely to be on time to appointments

All of these activities occurred naturally from the habitual exercise! [9]

Now, before you set a plan to go from not exercising at all to exercising every day, let’s pause. It’s important to remember that for a full month, these participants only went to the gym 1x/week. That means they only went 4 times total in the entire first month!

Clearly, it is not necessary for you to go crazy with your exercise plan. To start getting all of the benefits listed above, you just need to make a plan that is consistent, not overwhelming. Whether you can exercise 1x/week or 4x/week, it doesn’t matter. To see the benefits, you just need to set a plan that you will not fail.

5.  FOCUS ON ONE TASK AT A TIME

Ready for a puzzle? See if you can write down a list of all 50 states.

When you have listed 10, see if you can continue writing them while also figuring out the answer to 17 x 24.

Were you able to do it?

We have 2 distinct parts of our brain that help in our problem-solving. One is the limbic system, which makes our easy and automatic decisions. This includes brushing our teeth and stopping at a red light. This part of the brain is also short-term minded, and is what motivates us to indulge in unhealthy food and get off of the treadmill.

The other is the pre-frontal cortex, which solves more difficult problems like how to effectively communicate or solve more complicated math equations like the one above. This is also the part of our brain that thinks long-term and is responsible for our willpower. 

The problems above both require the pre-frontal cortex to solve. If I were to ask you to write the 50 states and do a simple problem like 10 x 5, you would have had no problem doing it. 10 x 5 is easy. It only requires our limbic system to solve, so we can successfully multi-task.

The more we multi-task, the more we train our limbic system. So by trying to do 4 things at once, we are unknowingly making the part of the brain that wants us to indulge stronger.

The pre-frontal cortex, however, cannot multi-task. The problems it deals with are too complicated. So by focusing on one task at a time, we are making the part of the brain that exerts willpower stronger!

So resist the temptation to multi-task and remain focused. This will train your willpower and help you make tough decisions. [10]

6.  PRACTICE MINDFULNESS

We tend to believe that every choice we make throughout the day goes through a process of well-informed decision-making. But 45% of our daily-decision are made completely automatically. From what we decide to eat, what we decide to wear and what we decide to do when we first get to work, our brains are running on autopilot. [11]

You can overcome this tendency by becoming more mindful of your daily decisions. This is as simple as pausing and questioning why you are making the decision to get coffee as soon as you make it into the office. Or why you are eating cereal for breakfast rather than eggs.

Simply question these daily decisions and you will strengthen your willpower to make better choices throughout the day. [10]

7. SELF-MONITORING

Something odd happens in our brains when we look at ourselves in the mirror. The part of the brain that would say "hey, that's me in the mirror" is not activated. Instead it is a part of the brain that says "I wish I was taller, skinnier, more muscular, etc." [12]

In other words, rather than seeing see who we are, we see who we want to be. This is not because we are shallow, it is because we all have an ideal self that we want to live up to. With this ideal self in our mind, we begin to think and act more like them.

The best way to keep your ideal self in mind is through a process called Self-Monitoring. This involves keeping track of as much information on yourself as possible. Like with the mirror, you will look at the information on yourself and compare it to what you really want. This will strengthen your willpower and help you make better decisions.

8.  PLAY OFFENSE

When researchers came across a group of people in the Netherlands who seemingly had unstoppable willpower, they thought they must be saints. They ate extremely healthy, exercised regularly, hardly procrastinated and reported less stress than almost everyone around them.

But they were not saints at all. Many of them reported that if they were to get behind a bar stool, they would never leave. Others reported that they were unable to resist sweets whenever they were around. It seemed that these "saints" were prone to the same temptations as the rest of us. [13]

So what was their secret?

The secret, it turned out, was that these people simply did not put themselves in those situations. Their lifestyles were well-organized to prevent having to look temptation in the face. 

These people played offense. They thought about what might tempt them in the future – whether it was alcohol, sweets, or distractions from work – and set themselves up to avoid them. They were seemingly willpower super heroes because they almost never had to use it. 

In your life, look for the things that test your willpower. How can you play offense and remove future temptations?

9. FIND INSPIRATION

We have all experienced the feeling of inspiration at some point in our lives. It may have been from a story in history, a speech by a great leader, or by a friend or family member. When we become inspired, we get a rush of energy that we feel can take us to new heights. It's almost as if we get more willpower.

When we witness something inspiring, the part of the pre-frontal cortex that thinks about the long-term lights up. The neurons in this part of the brain start firing and we feel a rush of energy as we begin to believe in our dreams and goals.

This essentially means that by becoming inspired, we give the pre-frontal cortex more power. This strengthens our willpower and makes it easier to work towards our long-term goals. [14]

To tap into this willpower, find something inspiring that you can turn to on a daily basis. This will help you find the willpower you need even when times get tough.

10. CHUNKING

The last and perhaps the most important willpower habit is chunking. Chunking is the process of taking a large task, goal, dream, etc. and breaking it into manageable “chunks”. 

If you’ve ever had a goal, you know how exciting it can be at first. You can see the “after photo” of your life when the goal is achieved - and you love what you see.  You imagine all of the great things about the “new you” and you can't wait to get started working towards that goal!

Then it’s time to actually do the work. And whether that work is putting pen to paper, or putting foot to treadmill, you get a sudden rush of being completely overwhelmed. You see just how much work it’s going to take to get you from where you are, to where you want to be. Then you get paralyzed by the fact that you don’t know where to begin. So you don't bother trying, or you lose the persistence to keep going.

Chunking works because it shifts your focus from that larger goal, into smaller chunks that are easier for your brain to comprehend. If your goal is to follow a 12-week exercise plan, it can be overwhelming when you’re tired on day 4 and thinking about the fact that you have 80 more days of this. [15]

But if you shift your focus to simply accomplishing the workout plan today, you are far less likely to become overwhelmed. Then, before you know it, 20, 40, 60 days have passed and you are more confident than ever that we can make it to the end.

CONCLUSION

Excellence is a habit. It is a lot of small things done well, day-after-day. Starting any one of the habits listed above has been proven to give you incredible willpower over time. But you must be consistent.

It will be far more beneficial for you to begin just 1 of these daily willpower habits and do it consistently, than to do all 10 for a short period of time. So select just 1 habit to add to your life and stick to it. After it has truly become a habit, move on to the next one. Over time, you will see incredible benefits to your willpower!

Sources:

    Oman, D., Shapiro, S., Thoresen, C., Plante, T., & Flinders, T. (2008). Meditation Lowers Stress And Supports Forgiveness Among College Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of American College Health, 569-578.

    Bradt, S. (2010, November 11). Wandering mind not a happy mind. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/11/wandering-mind-not-a-happy-mind/

    Gailliot, M., Baumeister, R., DeWall, C., Maner, J., Plant, E., Tice, D., ... Schmeichel, B. (2007). Self-control Relies On Glucose As A Limited Energy Source: Willpower Is More Than A Metaphor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 325-336.

    Pollan, M. (2009) Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. New York: Penguin

    Spiegel, K., Tasali, E., Leproult, R., & Van Cauter, E. (2009). Effects Of Poor And Short Sleep On Glucose Metabolism And Obesity Risk. Nature Reviews Endocrinology, 253-261.

    Dijk, D., & Archer, S. (2009). Light, Sleep, and Circadian Rhythms: Together Again. PLoS Biology, E1000145-E1000145.

    Feature, J (29 Nov. 2011) WebMD Magazine. Power Naps: Napping Benefits, Length, and Tips. WebMD.

    Breus, M. (2013) Can You Ever REALLY Catch-up on Sleep? Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness.

    Oaten, M. & Cheng, K. (2006) Longitudinal Gains in Self-regulation from Regular Physical Exercise. British Journal of Health Psychology 11.4: 717-33.

    Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

    Duhigg, C. (2012). The power of habit: Why we do what we do in life and business. New York: Random House.

    Baumeister, R., & Tierney, J. (2011). Willpower: Rediscovering the greatest human strength. New York: Penguin Press.

    Ridder, D., Lensvelt-Mulders, G., Finkenauer, C., Stok, F., & Baumeister, R. (2011). Taking Stock of Self-Control: A Meta-Analysis of How Trait Self-Control Relates to a Wide Range of Behaviors. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 76-99.

    McGonigal, K. (2012) The Willpower Instinct: How Self-control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. New York: Avery.

    Bandura, A., & Schunk, D. (1981). Cultivating Competence, Self-efficacy, And Intrinsic Interest Through Proximal Self-motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,586-598.

Source: Oprah.com