by Maria's Last Diet
Willpower is a funny duck. It quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, but it’s not a duck. Here’s why.
It’s a mistake to think of willpower as a unity. Willpower is actually a combination of “skills”.
Here’s a partial list of those skills:
• Self-control
• Self-regulation
• Delay of gratification
• Directing attention
• Distraction
• Adherence to long-term goals
• Planning
• Practice
• Preparation
• Rehearsal
• Impulse control
• Good-enough emotional outlets
Sound daunting? Well, put this way, it is.
Try looking at the list this way.
A woman goes into the supermarket to shop for the week. She has a family of four: herself, her husband, and two children, one adolescent and one pre-adolescent. She is dieting, of course, trying to lose over 35 lbs. She is in her second week of dieting and has lost 2½ lbs so far. She is feeling somewhat defeated by this little bit of weight loss, but is still game to go on. Being in the supermarket and shopping for the week is a test of her willpower.
Here’s what she did before she went. She had a great, I mean really great morning with her husband. She made a truly detailed list of what she was going to buy, right down to the exact amounts. She knew her weak points and prepared herself by visualizing them beforehand and also visualizing what she would do to deal with them. For two days before shopping, she practiced tempting herself with food and non-food items, and practiced turning down each temptation. On the back of her shopping list, she wrote her weight-loss goals; not just the number of pounds, but the look, the size, the health, and other things she was looking forward to.
She did two other things that didn’t make sense to her family until she explained them. Ever since she last went to the supermarket, which was the week before, she had often put off the very things she used to do quickly and efficiently. Instead, she did something else that seemed terribly peculiar to her children. For example, instead of brushing her teeth first thing, she went in to make the coffee. Instead of taking some sips of coffee while cooking breakfast, she waited to have the coffee with her breakfast. No one, including her husband, understood her.
What she was doing is easy to spot if you have the “skills” list in front of you. She was getting a head start on the skills of delaying gratification, directing attention, and distraction. She would need all of these if she was to stick to her plan at the supermarket.
So, there you have it, willpower in a large nutshell. It’s not a duck, even though it quacks and waddles.