Introducing Several Ways to Beat Temptation

Wednesday’s Wisdom:  Don’t take for granted that your willpower will just kick in and beat temptation when you need it.  Take active steps to conserve your willpower and exercise it to keep it strong.

This article is going to show you how to get past moments of temptation as well as will give a four-step plan that will help you overcome random triggers to bad habits that you would like to quit.

Willpower is a Muscle

It may not have dawned on you, but willpower is a muscle.  Willpower gets weak when you don’t use it just like your muscles.  If you want your willpower to become stronger you have to exercise it like you would any other muscle.  Willpower has its limits of what it can do before it fails just like your other muscles.  Willpower needs time between workouts to gain the benefit of a previous workout just like your other muscles

I’m sure you get the picture.  The more you pull on your willpower the less resources you will have to resist that next temptation.

One Temptation is Not Just As Good As Another

Not all temptations are created equal.  There are some temptations that take zero mental effort to resist and others that take just about every fiber of your being to resist.  I will now list two ways to cheat temptation.

1.        Start habits that take your mind far from the temptation.

If you begin a new habit and follow it every day it will take minimal effort to resist temptation.  If your habit becomes an automatic response then no effort will be needed to resist the temptation.

2.       Pinpoint Triggers and Practice Avoiding Them.

Triggers can be smells, people, times of the day, sights or sounds.  Triggers are the cause of habits that fail and willpower that breaks.  Triggers can be bad habits.  For instance, you might leave your work to watch a particular show that you have gotten into the habit of watching.  You have gotten into the habit of watching that show and become very anxious when the time of day arises and you are not in front of the television.  That time of day is a trigger.

Your habit could also be a having a snack at a particular time of day.  Once again, the time of the day would be the trigger.

Habits have a lot of power over your life.  Habits can impact your life positively.  Bad habits, however, often take a concentrated effort to break.  The good news is that you can spend the same amount of effort to break a bad habit as you would to replace that bad habit with a good one.

Several Steps to Beat Temptation

1.        Identify the habit.

2.       Identify the Triggers.  During this stage you simply want to record when you actually break down and indulge in the habit.

3.       Identify the Obstacles.  Once you have collected the data look for patterns.  For instance every morning, on your way to work, you stop at Dunkin Doughnuts and get coffee.  You are often tempted to buy a doughnut.  You actually fail and buy a doughnut two times out of each week.

4.       Develop If – Then Scenarios.  Create a list of actions that you will complete when you are tempted.  For example, the days that you do not buy a doughnut are draining your willpower.  Buying the Dunkin Doughnuts coffee is the trigger.  You can avoid this trigger by eating a healthy breakfast before leaving in the mornings and buying a coffee maker to make coffee at home.  Other ways to enact an if – then plan is to simply avoid people, sights, locations, or sounds.

Conclusion

It really is easy to beat temptation.  The less you give your willpower to do the simpler it will become to develop good habits.  Good habits allow for your willpower reserve to be filled and available to be put to other temptations that might arise. 

I hope this article has helped you to develop ways to strengthen your willpower and beat temptation.

(This article was written via “4 Ways toOvercoming Your Willpower Triggers” by S. J. Scott)

If you learned anything new from this post then please leave a comment.