Will Power

Long trip ... small gas tank/battery

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong. — H.L. Mencken

Life is hard and complicated, and there will always be a demand for helpful advice. Sadly, most of the content in the self-help literature promises more than it delivers in terms of results.

Most advice takes the familiar form of

For problem “X”, JUST DO “Y”

That format suggests that hard problems have simple solutions we can easily implement, which is what most advice seekers want to hear. So those articles and books and programs attract a lot of reads and likes and dollars. Problem is … THEY OFTEN DON’T WORK!

The main reason most behavioral advice fails is that it over-relies on old-fashioned notions like grit and willpower:

• For a drinking/drug problem, JUST say “No”!

• For a weight problem, JUST eat less and exercise more

• For a performance problem, JUST try harder/longer

• For a loneliness problem, JUST make more friends

• For a “burnout” problem, JUST relax/meditate

• For a money problem, JUST save more

If just doing the JUST part was an effective solution, more people would be doing that and getting great results. But they are not.

Motivation

I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.  — Tennyson

People do (or don’t do) things for good reasons. There are multiple factors and forces (biological, psychological, social, environmental) that influence our actions. We like to believe we are the masters of our fate, and to some extent we are, but not about everything in every moment. Just deciding to change something can be a weak lever trying to move a very heavy boulder. Even the recent paradigm of building habits to get things done requires a great deal of attention and energy to launch.

While we tend to view motivation as something that happens INSIDE a person, our behavior is deeply influenced by conditions in the external ENVIRONMENT. It’s a survival skill for us to be very aware of what’s happening around us in terms of potential opportunities and threats (physical and social). So most of us are experts at tracking and responding to environmental cues and conditions.

Parents, teachers, corporations, governments and other power centers often adjust the environment to reinforce the behavior they want. As long as someone can control conditions and consequences that really matter (money, freedom, grades, approval/popularity, safety, survival etc.), they can influence if not fully control the behavior of others. It’s a strategy that works very very well.

If others can influence our behavior by manipulating the environment and important incentives, isn’t it logical to assume we can influence our own behavior the same way?

Manipulate … yourself!

We are one of the few species (along with beavers etc.) that can decide to intentionally change the environment to our benefit. Many powerful people and institutions routinely manipulate the environment for gain and profit, but few individuals intentionally change their environment as a personal change strategy. Again and again we default to our little battery/gas tank of intentionality and will-power as our preferred change engine. Then we react with surprise and disappointment and self-blame when we run out of energy and fail to reach our goal.

One of the most powerful ways to shape our own behavior for our own benefit and advantage is to set up environmental conditions that increase the probability that we will do what we want to do

Here are a few examples of changing the environment to get more of what we want (notice how they take the burden off our willpower supply):

• Weight management: avoid temptation by keeping off-plan foods out of your home/refrigerator; stay out of restaurants where free grazing is easy; create financial incentives (rewards and penalties) managed by someone else for reaching and maintaining healthy weight targets

• Savings/wealth creation: guarantee saving by installing an auto-transfer function to move $X from your checking to your savings/investment account on the day you get paid; set daily/monthly etc. spending limits on your bank accounts and cards

• Screen “addiction”: install tech and apps that limit your daily access to screen gazing and content consumption; delete apps where use no longer feels voluntary

• Substance abuse/gambling: your habit/drug of choice costs a lot of money; transfer control of your personal funds (bank/investment accounts, credit cards) to a trusted accounts manager with strict spending limits

• Burnout: change jobs to where your workload is more manageable and you have more control/resources

• Fitness/Exercise: install an affordable home gym to reduce obstacles like cost and travel time; engage a workout buddy who commits to reinforcing shared health commitments

But … my CONTROL!

Did you notice how you cringed at the notion of giving up control over such important parts of your life as money, food and decision-making? Most people will only chose to do this if they can appreciate one big PARADOX:

To achieve mastery and results in one area of your life, it may be necessary to give up some control in another

This paradox flies in the face of our American archetype of the rugged self-made individual who builds their success and fortune on “sweat equity”. No pain, no gain. It’s all about control.

But the more control we have, the more responsibility we must assume for controlling ourselves through intentional effort. Once we understand and accept the strict LIMITS of our willpower and self-control (usually learned through repeated failures), the more open we may become to considering the upside benefits of giving up some control to be more effective. Then we can decide how best to restructure our environment to implement those intentional control transfers for our own benefit.

Rx: Try a 2 week experiment with one of the strategies above. Gather data. Decide if the results are good enough to continue for another 2 weeks. And repeat.

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