Category: Mental Game

“I don’t” vs. “I can’t”

by Troy Edwards, posted in 5 Minute Journal, Mental Game

A better way to use the affirmation section of The 5 Minute Journal

I’ll confess that I have had difficulty with the affirmation aspect of The 5 Minute Journal. It feels cheesy and forced to me, and I can’t even begin to do it without feeling like Stuart Smalley.

However, there have been a few interesting studies that talk about the power of “I don’t” vs. “I can’t” as far as following through with our intentions.

It makes sense. Think of the difference between, “I can’t start my day with sugary foods”, and “I don’t start my day with sugary foods”.

One is a restriction put on you, the other is a statement of a personal choice.  Or as they phrase it “…we argue that a refusal framed to connote a sense of empowerment and control is likely to be effective in self-regulation”.

So I recently started using this portion of the journal to remind myself of the habits that will produce the results I want, but stated as a “who I am” statement, like, “I don’t skip workouts”.

 

Here is the research document, which contains three studies:  “I Don’t” versus “I Can’t”: When Empowered Refusal Motivates Goal-Directed Behavior by Vanessa M. Patrick and Henrik Hagtvedt. by Boston College and the University of Houston

 

It’s a pretty technical document, so here are some tldr highlights…
120 undergraduates were asked to rehearse the strategy by saying: “For instance, when you are tempted by an unhealthy snack, you say ‘I don’t eat X’ or ‘I can’t eat X’.”.

Upon exiting the experiment, they were given a snack choice of chocolate candy bars or granola health bars.

64% of the participants in the “don’t” condition chose the granola health bar vs. the chocolate candy bar. Whereas 39% chose the healthy option in the “can’t” condition.

In another study with a much smaller sample size, 20 women were split into two groups of ten, and told to use the “I can’t” or “I don’t” strategy for fitness goals over the next 10 days. The results were 1 out of 10 vs. 8 out of 10 following through, favoring the “I don’t” strategy.

Using The Salad Principle To Improve Your Mood

by Troy Edwards, posted in Mental Game

My usual advice to someone wanting to switch to a healthier diet is to follow what I call “The Salad Principle”.

The Salad Principle is the idea of just adding one healthy item to your daily routine. Maybe replacing one meal with a salad. And when that becomes effortless, you add a smoothie. And so on, and so on. It’s not that you make an intentional effort to eliminate unhealthy foods, you just eventually don’t have room for them anymore.

So what I’d like to share here, is how applying “The Salad Principle” to your thoughts can be very effective at changing your outlook to one that is far more optimistic.

The principle, applied to your happiness, is that the more you focus on the positive in your day, the less room there is for negative thoughts. On top of that, when you create a habit of spending time each day, focusing on what you are grateful for and what made your day great, your brain will naturally start finding the positive in your every day.

Too often, we ruminate on things we wish were different in our lives. We spin them around, and end up holding a magnifying glass to them. We turn the volume up until there is nothing else we can hear.

So here I’ll list three approaches that will make it easy to include gratitude as part of your everyday, so that it’s the good events and people in your life that are made big and loud.

A gratitude journal, the 5 Minute Journal, and Compassion meditation (also known as Loving Kindness). OK… that last one is more for the truly driven. You know… the five friends you have that say they meditate, and the one that actually does… sometimes.

 

The simplest way is to just keep a gratitude journal. Buy a notebook to keep by your bedside, and start your day off by writing down three things that you’re grateful for.

If you need something more than a bedside notebook, maybe having an app reminder will make the difference. Zest, by Tapabit, is a straightforward app, available on the web, Android, and iOS. https://zest.tapabit.com/#/home

What I especially like about the Zest app are the examples from other people. If you are having trouble thinking of things to be grateful for, you can get ideas by seeing what other people have listed. And though they are anonymous, you can curate what you see by blocking users.

 

The next option is my favorite. The Five Minute Journal. 

Of everything that I’ve tried, this has been both the easiest and the most effective way to be more optimistic throughout my day.

It’s simple, quick, and very effective. It not only trains you to be more grateful for what you have, but also helps you focus on important tasks for the day, as well as help you reflect on how you could do better.

It just requires a few minutes in the morning, and a few minutes at the end of your day.

In the morning, you list three things that you’re grateful for, three things that you’d like to get done that day, and a daily “I am…” affirmation.  (Next week’s article will focus on how to best take advantage of this section)

At the end of the day, you take the journal out again to list three things that made your day kick ass, and something that you could have done better.

Gratitude, planning, and reflection with intent to improve, all in one spot, and in just five minutes a day.

It takes such a small part of your day, and feels like so very little, but it really has been the most significant self improvement tool I’ve ever come across.

Let me give just one specific example of how this can make many aspects of your life better. Relationships. You know the phrase, “There’s someone for everyone”? Yeah? Well it’s not true. Some people are terrible at relationships.

It’s not a matter of never having found “The right one”, it’s a matter of not having the skills or mindset to be a good partner.

Before you can be in a good relationship, you have to be the type of person that is good in a relationship. And two key features are being able to focus on what is positive about your partner and your relationship with that person, and a willingness to work on that relationship.

The daily reminders of things that you are grateful for, as well as acknowledging the parts of your day that were great, really go a long way towards training your brain to look for the positive in your life. If you include aspects of your relationship in these, you will be far more likely to hold the memory of a loving squeeze, than an irritated eye roll.

Also, the exercise to ask what you could have done better should have you finding moments where you could have been more kind. Or maybe you could ask yourself, no matter what the argument was about, “How could I have handled it better?”.

These things go a long way towards reminding you that you care more about your partner than you do about being right.

 

Option three takes a different approach, since the focus is not gratitude, but rather on compassion.

Richard Davidson, University of Wisconsin, did a 12 year study on meditation, making Matthieu Ricard known as “The happiest man on the planet”.

Brain scans actually showed an unusual “capacity for happiness”

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-be-happier-according-to-matthieu-ricard-the-worlds-happiest-man-2016-1

The specific meditation used by Matthieu? Compassion meditation. Also known as Loving Kindness meditation.

You can find a guided version of it on this page:

http://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/

One by one, you think about someone you love, an acquaintance, yourself, sometimes the focus is even on someone you might think of as “an enemy”. And for each individual (or group), you focus on feeling compassion for them. You hold onto it, and nurture it until you feel love in your heart, then you focus on that.

Yeah… that’s a lot more work than the previous two exercises. But considering it’s what “The happiest man alive” does, I’d feel remiss for not including it in a discussion on how focusing on positive thoughts can crowd out negative ones.

As someone who’s done it everyday, for years… tried it for a month… done it a couple of times, I can tell you that it leaves you feeling almost euphoric.

Where a negative brain sees problems, a happy brain sees possibilities

Achieving Goals Through Habits

by Troy Edwards, posted in Mental Game

The results we see in life, come from processes… habits. We set goals, but in order to get there, we don’t just “eat better”, or “stop procrastinating”. We decide that we’re going to “get healthy”, but then we have to decide what exactly that means. What habits do you need to create or change. Once you decide that, the daily focus isn’t on the result, but rather the process.

It’s the persistence of repeating this process every day that will help you reach your goal.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
~ Calvin Coolidge

So the challenge of any goal is to figure out what process will work for you, and developing that into a habit.

I’ve found two books that sum up what, for me, is the most useful information in making or changing habits. The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It, and The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.

In The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal, she discusses how the forebrain is the central control for our willpower, and how various things throughout the day draw from this limited resource. Traffic, choices of any kind, pain, low blood sugar, and many other things pick away at our reserves so that by the end of the day, we may not have the energy left to choose what to eat for dinner.

It’s a fantastic book that draws mainly on the research of Roy Baumeister, who has his own book on the subject, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. I just found McGonigal’s book to be more on point, with better examples, and specific ways you can make your willpower work better for you.

The real magic for me happened when I serendipitously read The Power of Habit as my next book. In it, Charles Duhigg goes deep into how advertisers use their knowledge of habits to get us hooked on their products. “Cue, action, reward” is a mantra that he covers from many angles, including how you can get this process to work for you.

It’s another great book that I highly recommend. But I believe when you combine the principles taught in both books, that it truly becomes life changing.

First, the idea that building a habit does take willpower, but once you make it a true habit, one that is harder to avoid than to perform, one that is medulla oblongata deep, it no longer takes willpower. Meaning it won’t matter that reserves are depleted, or that this will take away resources for another habit you may want to develop.

And second, is the knowledge that willpower is limited, so it’s much easier to change one thing at a time, until it becomes habit.

The books go far deeper into the research, the what’s, and the how’s, so if these concepts interest you, both books are worth a read.

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