Two common terms from the psychological literature are self-regulation and self-control.
Self-regulation is your ability to control what you’re
thinking, feeling and doing in a way that promotes your goals. Self-regulation is a broad term and includes many different things,
including goal-setting, habit formation, emotional regulation and self-control. Since the topic of self-regulation is extensive, we’ll focus mainly on self-control in this guide.
What is self-control? It’s your ability to resolve conflicts between your short-term desires and your long-term
goals.
Shall I order a hamburger or a salad?Shall I revise for an exam or go to a party? Shall I watch my favorite T show or go for a run?
All these decisions share one thing in common: You can choose between an option that yields a smaller
immediate reward(pleasant taste of food, fun from
watching TV or pleasure from socializing with friends)and an option that yields a larger but delayed reward (staying healthy, maintaining good weight, or reaching a higher income).The immediately gratifying option is called a’temptation’
Successful self-control means sacrificing the immediate
pleasure (chocolate cake) and
choosing the delayed reward(healthy weight),while self-control failure means sacrificing the delayed reward and choosing the immediate pleasure.
Not all decisions between
immediate pleasures and long-term rewards cause a self-control conflict. For a self-control conflict to be triggered, there must be
trade-off between the options: You need to get pleasure from that chocolate cake and at the same care about your weight. If you don’t care about your weight or you don’t like chocolate cake, then you won’t experience a self-control conflict.
Success and Self-Control
Why should you care about self-control?
Name anything important to your life and selfcontrol plays a major role. In an extensive longitudinal study spanning across three decades, researchers from Duke university followed 1,000 children. At the beginning, they assessed their
self-control skills, intelligence and social class, and
examined what impact these characteristics had on their life success. Can you guess which of these factors was most important?
Unsurprisingly, children who were born to richer parents and who were more intelligent enjoyed greater physical health and a higher income What’s striking though is that self-control had an equally powerful effect on success in life as intelligence and social
class. The more the children improved their self-control skills during adolescence, the more successful they became30 years later.
In general, people with better self-control eat more healthily, do more exercise, sleep better drink less alcohol, smoke fewer cigarettes,achieve higher grades at university, have more peaceful relationships,are more financially secure, and enjoy stronger physical and mental health.
Self-control clearly matters for your long-term health and success in life. But can it also make you happy?
Happiness and Self-Control
You may be thinking that sacrificing a bit of long-term health and wealth is
sometimes worth it. After all, indulging in a bit of chocolate cake makes us happy and helps us enjoy our lives to the fullest. If we became too strict and never indulged in anything, we might deprive ourselves of life’s greatest delights.
Hyperopia,(the opposite of myopia,or short-sightedness) is a real issue, and
d can
prevent you from enjoying life. But will indulging in
temptations really make you happy?
To answer this question, scientists gave people smartphones which asked them at random times if they were currently experiencing a temptation. If they answered"yes", they had to indicate if they indulged or not, and how they felt about it. Although people did get pleasure from indulging,it didn’t raise their momentary happiness. On the contrary- people felt less happy immediately after they’d given in to a temptation.
People who have high
self-control aren’t missing out on enjoyment. Succumbing to temptation and enjoying life are not the same things. Additionally, many activities with long-term rewards are also enjoyable: eating fruits, playing sports, finishing a book. But they may still require some self-control to get started.
It’s actually people with poor self-control who suffer. After giving in to temptations, they tend to feel guilt and regret about their decision, which spoils the pleasure. In contrast,those who
successfully avoid temptations receive a boost to their
self-esteem.
People with strong self-control are more satisfied with their lives,experience less stress
and fewer negative emotions. Improve self-control and life gets better, not worse.
