How Can We Work On Self-control?
We set goals for ourselves, we are motivated to achieve them and we want to change our habits. We know what change is that we need and how it benefits us, but we fail. Why, if rationally it is the best for me, do I continue to carry out behaviors that harm me? I lack self-control!
Do you see yourself identified? This has happened to all of us when it comes to following a diet, a physical exercise plan or to stop using tobacco … Do not despair! Self-control can also be worked on and enhanced. Read on for some useful tools for this task.
Use self-registrations to work on self-control!
The point is, sometimes we can’t help but do something that we know is harmful to us. We rationally know that we would have to control it but at some point we relapse. We think of phrases like “total, if nothing happens for a hamburger, tomorrow I’ll go back to the diet and lose weight”, “well, I had proposed to go to the gym 3 days a week, but I can miss one”, and so on.
To start exercising self-control in these types of situations, let’s look at the first tool we can use: self-registrations. What does it consist of? In writing down on a sheet all those moments in which we carry out the behavior that we want to avoid. Of course, without obsessing about it!
The point is that this will help us to highlight how many times we are doing what we would like to abandon, so that we become aware that we are not doing it only “from time to time.” We can also write down the times we substitute that inappropriate behavior for the one we want. In this way, we will also highlight the efforts we are making and we will be able to strengthen ourselves for it.
Reattribution can help you with your self-control, exercise it!
From psychology, it has been observed that one of the traps we fall into the most when we carry out an exercise in self-control has to do with the attributions we make over the responsibility of our actions. Our attributional style directly affects our self-assessment and subsequent behavioral adjustment.
If we consider that we do not have responsibility for the behaviors we do, self-control will decrease. We will consider that we cannot do anything to change the situation. So why should we even try to do it? In addition, emotions such as sadness will appear, which can lead to depression.
Therefore, it is good that we readjust the attribution we make to our actions. To do this, we can put into practice the following exercise: look at the positive and negative events of the last two weeks and indicate the degree of responsibility that we have had in each of them.
It is important to put the percentage that your own factors, others or chance have played. In this way, we will become aware of reality. In addition, those situations in which we can modify the positive or negative consequences for us, modifying our behavior, will be highlighted.
In self-control, set goals!
Sometimes self-control problems come from setting goals that are unrealistic. For example, if we consider that we are never going to eat carbohydrates again or that we are going to go to the gym 6 days a week, we are going to have a good chance of failing in our attempts to maintain such strict discipline.
Therefore, it is relevant that, once again, we adjust more to reality. It is more feasible to establish small goals or objectives that we can gradually achieve. In this way, we will be able to raise the level of self-demand little by little, as we meet objectives.
These objectives must be positive, realistic, specific, concrete and under our control. Thus, the goal of going to the gym 6 days a week can be modified. We could start by planning to go 3 days a week for two months, then expand to 4 during the next two and so on until we reach 6 days a week … More affordable this way, right?
And most importantly, to promote self-control… Reinforce yourself!
The simplest way for a behavior to be maintained and enhanced is through reinforcement. What does it consist of? In rewarding that same habit. This can be done in many ways: by indulging ourselves, such as going shopping, or by something less material, such as telling ourselves how well we are doing, fostering positive affect.
Thus, we can make two lists of reinforcements. In the first we will put rewarding activities for us. They must vary in their magnitude, so that they suppose different levels of rewards depending on the different demands of the behaviors that we want to acquire. Thus, we can go from buying a sweet that we love to going on a trip.
In the second we will write compliments for ourselves, which include our own virtues. In this way, we can put “I am being constant, I am going to achieve it”, “I have done a good job”, “I am doing very well”, and so on. We will have to say these phrases to ourselves immediately after performing the behavior that we want to promote.
It is important that we start and train the tools that I explain here. It is extremely important that we be constant in these exercises, since it is the way we enhance our self-control. The effort is worth it!
