Why You Need to Make Your Life More Automatic

Why is it that three prominent books published just during the past several months focused on the subject of willpower?

The first answer is that neuroscience has finally begun to open a window into the complex way our brains respond to temptation and what it takes to successfully exercise choice.

Second, a raft of recent studies have shown that the capacity for self-control — even more than genetic endowment or material advantage — fuels a range of positive outcomes in life, including more stable relationships, higher paying and more satisfying work, more resilience in the face of setbacks, better health, and greater happiness.

Finally, these books — Willpower, The Willpower Instinct, and The Power of Habit — are a response to an increasingly evident need. Demand in our lives is truly outpacing our capacity.

The sheer number of choices we must make each day — what foods to eat, what products to buy, what information merits our attention, what tasks to prioritize — can be overwhelming. As Roy Baumeister puts it in Willpower, "Self-regulation failure is the major social pathology of our time."

Each of these books provides compelling studies and fascinating stories that illustrate the challenges we face in exercising more self-control. All of them also come to the same paradoxical conclusion.

Put simply, the more conscious willpower we have to exert each day, the less energy we have left over to resist our brain's primitive and powerful pull to instant gratification. According to one study, we spend at least one-quarter of each waking day just trying to resist our desires — often unsuccessfully.

Conversely, the more of our key behaviours we can put under the automatic and more efficient control of habit — by building something I call "Energy Rituals" — the more likely we are to accomplish the things that truly matter to us.

How different would your life be, after all, if you could get yourself to sleep 8 hours at night, exercise every day, eat healthy foods in the right portions, take time for reflection and renewal, remain calm and positive under stress, focus without interruption for sustained periods of time, and prioritize the work that matters most?

Right now, the vast majority of what we do each day occurs automatically. We're often triggered, as these authors make vividly clear, by subtle cues we're not even aware of — a smell, a visual image, a familiar sight. These cues prompt us to move away from any potential pain and discomfort, no matter how minimal, and toward immediate reward and gratification, no matter how fleeting.

The primary role of our prefrontal cortex is to bias the brain towards doing the "harder" thing. Unfortunately, our rational capacity is often overwhelmed by the power of our own most visceral and primitive desires.

We're often captive to our biochemistry. When the neurotransmitter dopamine is triggered, for example, what we feel is craving, not pleasure. This explains not just why we fall into a range of self-destructive addictions, but also why we don't take better care of ourselves and make wiser choices day in and day out.

The solution is to learn how to co-opt the more primitive habit-forming regions of our brains, so that rather than reinforcing our negative impulses, they become the soil in which we build positive rituals that serve our long term interests.

So how do you get started? The first step is simply to understand better what you are up against. That requires slowing down. Speed is the enemy of reflection, understanding and intentionality. When we slow down, we can begin to notice both what's driving us, and how to take back the wheel.

Eat slower, for example, and you not only begin to notice how rarely you savor the food you eat, but also how often you eat for reasons other than hunger and how rarely you notice when you've had enough.

To begin strengthening your capacity for self-observation, take two or three minutes at several designated times a day to breathe in to a count of three and out a count of six with your eyes closed. Notice the thoughts, feelings or sensations that arise, name them, and then let them pass. Return to the breath. You're training mindfulness.

We each have an infinite capacity for self-deception — endless ways that the awesome power of our desires cause our prefrontal cortex to defend the indefensible and rationalize behaviours that aren't serving us well. The first step to building willpower and self-control is recognizing how little we currently have.

You can't change what you don't notice.