We set certain goals, we are motivated to achieve them and we want to change our habits, we know what change we need and what benefits us, but we fail, why if this is rationally the best for me, I continue to participate in behaviors that harm me?Lack of self-control!
Has this happened to us all when it comes to dieting, exercising or quitting?Self-control can also be worked and improved. Read on for some useful tools for this task.
- The thing is.
- Sometimes we can’t help but do something that we know hurts us.
- We know rationally that we have to control ourselves.
- But at some point we have a relapse.
- We think of phrases like? Surely one more burger doesn’t make any difference.
- Tomorrow I go back to the diet and I can lose weight?.
- ?Well.
- I was thinking about going to the gym three days a week.
- But I miss maybe one?Etc.
To start exercising self-control in such situations, let’s look at the first tool we can use: personal records. What are they? Write on a sheet all those moments when you perform the behavior you’re trying to avoid and, above all, without obsessing over it!
The fact is that it will help us highlight how often we do what we would like to stop doing, to realize that we are not doing it “from time to time”. We can also point out the occasions when we replace this inappropriate behavior with what we want, so we will also highlight the efforts we are making and be able to strengthen ourselves with them.
From a psychological point of view, it has been observed that one of the pitfalls in which we fall the most when we perform an exercise of self-control has to do with the responsibilities we make about the responsibility of our actions, our style of attribution directly affects the self-assessment and subsequent behavioral adjustment that we make.
If we consider that we have no responsibility for the behaviors we have, self-control will diminish, consider that there is nothing we can do to change the situation, so what are we going to try?In addition, emotions such as sadness will appear, which can lead to depression.
Therefore, it is good to readjust the allocation we give to our actions, for this we can implement the following exercise: to observe the positive and negative facts of the last two weeks and indicate the degree of responsibility we have had in each of them.
It is important to indicate the percentage with which the factors themselves participated, others or chance, in this way we will be aware of the reality, in addition to situations in which we can change the positive or negative consequences for us, change our behavior, it will be highlighted.
Sometimes, problems of self-control stem from the fact that we set unrealistic goals; for example, if we plan not to eat carbs again or go to the gym 6 days a week, we’ll have a good chance of failing in our try to maintain such strict discipline.
That is why it is important that, once again, we adapt more to reality, it is more likely that there are small goals or objectives that we can achieve gradually, in this way we will be able to gradually increase the level of personal demand. as we reach the goals.
These goals should be positive, realistic, specific, concrete and under our control, so you can change the goal of going to the gym 6 days a week, can we start by planning to go 3 days a week for two months, then increase to 4 for the next two and so on up to 6 days a week?More accessible this way, don’t you think?
Strengthening is the easiest way to ensure that behavior is maintained and improved. What is it? Rewarding this same habit. This can be done in many ways: giving us a treat, like shopping, or with something less material, like saying the good we do, fostering a positive affection.
Then we can make two backup lists. At first we have to launch activities that are rewarding to us, they have to vary in magnitude, so they involve different levels of reward, depending on the different requirements of the behaviors that we want to acquire. go from buying a candy we love so much to booking a trip.
In the second, we will write compliments that include our own virtues. In this way, we can say, “I’m consistent, will I get it?”, Did I do a good job?, “Am I okay?”, Etc. Say these phrases immediately after the behavior we want to enhance.
It is important to implement and train the tools that we explain here, it is extremely relevant that we be constant in these exercises, because this is how we need to improve our self-control, the effort is worth it!