Willpower Project 6 of 11: What the Hell

These last couple weeks have continued to hinder my ability to write, and it’s difficult to get back in the habit. Travel and selling a house have both put a significant damper on my willpower and it’s been extremely easy to choose activities that take less sustained energy. The “what the hell effect” (see below) has definitely made it easy to put off writing this post, and as each day passes it’s easier to put it off one more day, and more difficult to sit down and return to writing. I’m back home, with no immediate travel plans, my work schedule is more normal, and I’m reestablishing my intent to finish off the book with weekly posts with a combination of self-compassion and an attempt to reduce the variability in my life.

Chapter 6: What The Hell, How Feeling Bad Leads to Giving In
This chapter lined up with a significant portion of McGonigal’s workshop that I attended at the NTC Symposium back in February. As such most of this was familiar. The synopsis is this: making ourselves feel guilty doesn’t work to help change behavior. Instead it’s better to forgive ourselves and offer the kind of feedback that we would give to another. I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot since the symposium and I’ve definitely seen improvement in my ability to make positive change in behavior or to stay on track with goals. Last week when I slipped my self-imposed Monday deadline I didn’t beat myself up about being lazy or slacking on a goal. Instead, I was mindful of the factors that caused me to slip my goal to better understand why it happened. I then forgave myself for the slip. (It helped that the slip was primarily due to factors beyond my control.) Then, as the third step, I offered myself the kind of recommendations I would give to my novice teachers, including the suggestion to find other opportunities to write. (I’m taking my suggestion by doing work in the airport and on the plane back home.)

There was a second piece to the “what the hell” cycle of guilt and indulgence, however, that was not included in McGonigal’s workshop: the concept of terror management. In short this is the idea that when we feel upset, threatened, or scared we seek to fix that emotional state through dopamine channels. This most easily manifests in indulgent behaviors. This explains the phenomenon of indulging in sugary snacks while watching the seriously disturbing evening news, but it also explains the negative impact of self-guilt. The intervention for this is to be more mindful throughout the process, the theory being that if we are aware of how we respond we are more likely to make rational choices that align with long-term goals, thus allowing us to break the impulsive cycle. I’ve already seen mindfulness helping me get back to writing, and I hope to see payoff in other areas of my life as well.a