Selbstmanagement in 52 Weeks - Willpower revisited

A cat will chase a toy mouse because a good chase activates its brain's reward system. The same is true for us. We experience anticipatory happiness. In other words, anticipation of a desired outcome makes us feel good. Research by Stanford University's Brian Knutson shows that just looking at the object of our desire activates neural signals associated with the release of dopamine in the brain. (Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them.)  

Knutson's research suggests that we don't just derive happiness from attaining, receiving, or consuming the object of our desires, we also do so from anticipating it i.e. it's not just eating the cake that makes us happy but also gazing at it through the bakery window. 

Think of anticipating an exciting vacation, a date with a lady you've admired for a long time, or a meal at a famous restaurant. This may be the reason why people go shopping, gamble, test-drive hot cars or go to strip clubs. Although they can't possess the object of their desire, they experience the titillating state of anticipatory joy. 

Anticipatory joy—prevalent in both animals and humans—probably helped us survive (pursuit of food sources) and ensured our reproduction as a species (pursuit of sexual partners). Anticipatory joy also helps us complete more complex and challenging goals by providing us with the determination, excitement, and grit needed to complete marathons, college or graduate school degrees, or fluency in a foreign language. We enjoy chasing our dreams and also value things more if we have worked for them.

Marketers play on our anticipatory joy by telling us that we will be happier if we buy or consume certain products. Sales, discounts and special offers are nothing but a play on anticipatory joy. So are casinos and horse-races. Driven by anticipatory joy (that can turn into addiction), recreational drug users often describe their addiction as a constant chase after that elusive first high.

So what exactly is the point of dopamine? Being "happy" surely can't be that essential to the survival of the human race, is it? Well, it actually is. Dopamine released before and during sex encourages people to engage in intercourse, therefore furthering the human race. Dopamine released when we eat something tasty means that humans as a species have kept themselves nourished for all these years. It is an essential component of life itself, almost as though our bodies are blackmailing us to keep us alive

Day 1

Today, test the promise of reward with the temptations that regularly “seduce” you.  My seducers are salty snack junk and wine but yours could be betting, chocolate, television, shopping, checking Facebook and Twitter, online games, etc.

Use the table I’ve cooked up to register the amount of real pleasure as well as only the “promise of reward”. How does your promise of reward feel: anticipation, desire, hope, excitement, anxiety (!), salivation? How intense is the feeling on a scale between 0 and 10? Does the intensity of the feeling change while you engage in the behavior? What makes you stop (you are completely stuffed, worn out, out of time, out of money, someone makes you stop or you are out of the indulgence)?

Keeping track of desire and reality -  Are you really as satisfied as your brain promised you'd be?

	desire	before	during	end	afterwards
time of day	Indulgence	How intense is the “promise of reward”? (0 – 10)	Does the “promise of reward” feeling increase  or get less?	What made you stop?	Did you actually feel happy (-er) afterward?

Day 2

• Do you tell yourself you’ve been good when you succeed at a willpower challenge, then give yourself permission to do something “bad”?
• Do you tell yourself you will make up for today’s behavior tomorrow – and do you really follow through?
• Do you justify a vice because of one virtuous aspect (for example, fat-free, light or diet, environment friendly, discount or sale)?
• When you think about your willpower challenge, which part of you feels like the “authentic” you – the part of you who wants to pursue the goal, or the part of you who needs to be controlled?

When we turn willpower challenges into measures of moral worth, being good gives us permission to be bad. For better self-control, forget virtue, and focus on goals and values. Remember what is really important to you and where you want to go.

Day 3

According to behavioral economist Howard Rachlin, most personal problems with self-control arise because people have difficulty delaying immediate gratification for a better future reward. To avoid those problems, he suggests a strategy of "soft commitment," consisting of the development of valuable patterns of behavior that bridge over individual temptations.

Actions today really do affect actions tomorrow. For instance, not smoking tonight makes it easier not to smoke tomorrow, and not smoking tomorrow makes it easier not to smoke the next day, and so on. If „smoking this one last cigarette“ really made sense, we'd never stop smoking!

When you want to change a behavior, aim to reduce the variability in your behavior, not the behavior itself. Rachlin did studies with smokers, asking them just to try to smoke the same number of cigarettes every day, not to try to smoke less. Those smokers actually decreased their overall smoking.

Rachlin argues that this works because the smokers are deprived of the usual cognitive crutch of pretending that tomorrow will be different. Every cigarette becomes not just one more smoked today, but one more smoked tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. This adds new weight to every cigarette, and makes it much harder to deny the health consequences of a single smoke.

So today, apply Rachlin’s advice to your own willpower challenge. Aim to reduce the variability of your behavior day to day. View every choice you make as a commitment to all future choices.

Ask yourself “Do I want the consequences of _____________ every day for the next year(-s)?”

Day 4

I read some studies about the psychology of willpower and how the concept of 'progress' towards our goals actually undermines us. The perception that we've done something good invariably leads us to sabotage ourselves by giving us license to do something we know we shouldn't.

Putting healthy items on a menu makes people more likely to buy the unhealthy stuff. When McDonald's put healthy choices on its menus, sales of Big Macs skyrocketed. This is because we look at the healthy choices and they remind us of our intention to eat healthier. Being reminded of that intention makes us feel good - and what we want is to feel good. Once we achieve that feeling, we order the Big Mac. The same thing happened when healthy snacks were put in vending machines. Sales of the unhealthiest snacks in the machines spiked.

Progress can be motivating but only if you view your actions as evidence that you are committed to your goal. If you look at it and congratulate yourself on it, then you're more likely to sabotage yourself.  You need to look at what you've done and conclude that you must really care about your goal, so much so that you want to do even more to reach it - as opposed to sabotoging your goals by rewarding yourself.
 
These two phrases operate on your mind differently: "I did that because I wanted to!" versus "I did that, aren't I terrific, now I can do what I really want!"
 
Remembering that you resisted temptation will only give you license to give in. Remembering why you resisted temptation will help you remain committed.
 
Today, see if you use your 'good' behavior to give yourself permission to do something 'bad'? Is it a harmless reward or is it sabotaging your goals?  Then, the next time you find yourself recalling past good behavior to justify indulging, focus for a few minutes on the why instead. Recalling past good behavior will only trip you up. 

Day 5

Using dopamine to your advantage
Many people „dopaminize“ tasks they procrastinate by doing them in combination with things they really enjoy such as music or TV while exercising, ironing and the like, writing and doing paperwork in cafés (think Harry Potter) or even simple things like a lovely glass of ice tea while working on taxes.

Today, link something you should do but are less than motivated to wrap up with something that gets your dopamine neurons firing. Even visualizing the best-possible outcome of the hard work will start the dopamine flowing.

Are you experiencing anticipatory joy when thinking about the coming weekend? 
Go for it!