Two causes why you can't quit and form habits

A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests:

“Self-control requires a certain amount of glucose to operate unimpaired. A single act of self-control causes glucose to drop below optimal levels, thereby impairing subsequent attempts at self-control.”

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Several studies suggest that we have limited reserves of willpower, the fuel of our willpower is glucose, and this fuel depletes when we use our willpower to do or avoid actions.

“For instance,” Dr. Roy Baumeister, a researcher at Florida State University says, “In a study in my lab, we invited some students to eat fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies, and asked others to resist the cookies and munch on radishes instead. Then we gave them impossible geometry puzzles to solve. The students who ate the cookies worked on the puzzles for 20 minutes, on average. But the students who had resisted the tempting cookies gave up after an average of eight minutes.”

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Now can you guess what are those two mistakes that prevent people to form good habits and quit bad ones?

They’re here:

1. They depend only on their willpower
2. They decide to work on too many habits at the same time

But according to recent studies humans have limited reserves of willpower. So, if despite Herculean efforts you aren’t able to form many habits at the same time, it means that your willpower is getting depleted.

In this situation you end up hating yourself, feel guilty, and jump on the conclusion that there’s a defect in your character.

Bullshit.

The truth is that the defect isn’t in your character – it’s in your approach.

So what’s the correct approach?

Well, the correct approach is to use your willpower strategically.

Start small

Let me assume that you want to form the exercising habit. You begin by doing hard labour, and with a resolve that you'll never quit it. But after a few days your enthusiasm evaporates and you quit.

In this situation, don't exercise for long time. Instead, start by exercising for 10/20 minutes. It’s much easier and soon you’ll see that it has become automatic with you. Then you can gradually increase the time.

Concentrate your focus

Focus mainly on one habit till its purpose (exercising or waking up early) becomes easy for you. In this way your complete willpower will get centred to hit its target with full force. You can then choose to work on the next habit, and then on the next one, and so on. It’s only a matter of time that you’ll install a number of productive habits.

Additionally, in my previous post I told you how I quit my bad habits without much willpower. (Though it’s on quitting bad habits, the advice and examples present in it will work equally well on forming good habits too.) I started small, implemented some clever tactics and made some changes in my environment to get success – thus using my willpower frugally and relying less on its limited reserves.

For instance, to get rid of Facebook addiction, I started resisting the urge only for 5 minutes and applied the Pomodoro Technique. To know more how you can start small, use clever tactics and change the environment, read that post here.

"Sow a thought and you reap an act; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

Samuel Smiles