C. Beth Blog.

I'm hanging on to this clutter spot

2013-05-22T16:23:00.003-05:00

I am so happy to report that my decluttering efforts have continued, even though Sonnet and I finished our Willpower Experiment almost two months ago. I've settled into a three- or four-day-a-week routine of tackling clutter spots. Sometimes I'm even tackling one that I've tackled before. (That's usually the kitchen countertops or the school room, areas that just build up clutter so easily.)

I'm almost done with the downstairs and am a little nervous about what's waiting for me upstairs! But I'm loving the difference that my small efforts, compounded over time, are making. It's far from perfect, but it's so much better than it was before!

I've noticed something interesting. My mom is very organized, and she has been kind enough to organize some of my cabinets, etc., on her trips here. But I have never been motivated to keep most of those spots organized. However, now that I'm the one putting in the time and effort, I am so much more motivated to keep my spaces looking nice!

But there is one spot I have decided is going to stay cluttered most of the time, and that's okay. It's my refrigerator, covered with kid stuff.

Occasionally I go through the artwork and other memorabilia hanging on my fridge. I toss some of it and save some of it, and enjoy the sight of an "empty canvas" for a short time.

Soon, though, one of the kids brings me some sort of piece of art, and they are so proud of it, and I am so proud of it...and on the fridge it goes.

And you know what? That's okay. Keeping my house less-cluttered isn't about some sort of moral or ethical requirement. It's about being happier. A less-cluttered house makes me happier. But my kids' artwork, displayed for me and others to see--well, that makes me happy too. Even as my house becomes more organized, my messy fridge still belongs here!

When being social is a learned skill

2013-04-26T05:00:00.000-05:00

Did you feel socially awkward as a kid?

I did. I felt different. And sometimes I felt lonely.

You know what's crazy? As I talk to fellow adults now, I realize that many (maybe even most?) of us felt socially awkward as we grew up. And if lots and lots of us felt that way, I guess we really weren't as "different" as we thought we were.

But the fact remains, it's hard when you don't feel like you fit in. I have so badly wanted to protect my kids from that feeling. I want them to naturally make friends. I want them to be well-liked.

Source

I don't want my kid to be too hyper, or too awkward, or too intense, so that another child rolls their eyes and pulls away. It hurts me when I see one of my little ones, flesh of my flesh, struggling to fit in.

But there are some truths I'm learning, and I need to remind myself of them. Frequently. Here they are:

It's okay to be different. It's okay to not be liked by everyone. I'm just now learning this as an adult, and I'd love for my kids to learn it earlier.
If my kids are finding other children they do relate to, I probably shouldn't be so concerned. They don't have to be the most popular kids on the block as long as they have some good friends they can count on.
Many of us have to learn how to be social. It doesn't always come naturally. It certainly didn't for me--but as I grew, I learned it! Sometimes I still feel socially insecure. Most of us do. But in general, as an adult, I feel good about who I am, and about my ability to relate to others. If I can learn it, my kids can too. It's okay for them to stumble along the way--it's called trial and error!

My kids are learning to swim. It's proving to be a long, challenging process for Zoodle. And that's okay.

Chickie has to work hard to understand math concepts. Sometimes it's really hard for her, but I know that it's okay.

See, my kids have plenty of talents; they just don't have every talent.

When I look at a child who is a natural swimmer, I don't expect Zoodle to be like that. And when I see kids who are math whizzes, I don't expect Chickie to learn that quickly.

So when I see kids who are naturally social butterflies, why should I expect my kids to "measure up"?

Socializing is a learned skill, just like swimming or math! And some kids get it more easily than others! But that doesn't mean there's something wrong with one of my kids if he or she has to work harder at it.

So I want to accept my kids just as they are. If I see some social awkwardness here or there, I don't want to panic. I want my kids to feel totally accepted by me (even if they are acting "different") so they can be confident enough to just be themselves around their peers.

This one is hard for me, but, like my kids...I'm learning.

Green time

2013-04-17T09:43:00.001-05:00

Last weekend I went on an overnight women's retreat with others from our new church. It was so nice to get to know new people, and to spend time with an old friend whom I was rooming with.

By the time an hour of free time rolled around on Day 2, however, I was ready to recharge with some time alone. So I took a walk on the lovely retreat grounds, enjoying the gorgeous spring. This "green time" was just what I needed.

I brought a little journal and did some writing under a tree. How can you not be peaceful and inspired, surrounded by such beauty?

Two milestones

2013-04-16T16:04:00.002-05:00

Just over a week ago, we were at church on a Sunday morning. Church had just ended. "Kids," I said, "We're going to a baptism."

"Can I get baptized?" Chickie asked.

Before I move on with the story, I'll explain what our family believes about baptism. We see baptism as a step that someone takes after they've decided to give their life to Jesus. (That's a decision Chickie made a long time ago.) By being immersed fully in the water, and then lifted back out of the water, the person being baptized is symbolizing Jesus' death and resurrection. It is also a symbol of that Christian's "new life" in Christ. Baptism is a way to tell others, "I am a Christian."

We want our kids to make faith decisions themselves, without ever feeling coerced. And we want to make sure that they really understand when they take a big step like baptism. I was so glad that Chickie had asked on her own, but I wanted to make sure she was ready! So I talked to her, and discussed talked to the leader of the elementary-aged kids at church. She understood the significance of what she was doing, and was certain it was something she wanted to do.

So about an hour later, we were at the river with others from our church (many of whom were also being baptized), and Chickie got dunked!

A little later in the afternoon, she said, "Daddy, can I get my ears pierced?" Daddy and I agreed she could, so we took her to the mall, where she chose Hello Kitty earrings. She was nervous but didn't cry!

I am loving life with my kids these days. I've fallen into the habit of not posting on my blog--something I thought I'd avoid! But recently I've been thinking about how many of these big milestones--and how many every day happenings--I'm not recording. I post them on Facebook, but that's not the most easily-accessible record for posterity! So I'm not making any promises, but I hope I sit down to write a little more often. It's such a sweet time of life, and I never want to forget it.

A little birdie told me...

2013-04-01T17:29:00.000-05:00

Cool thing about decluttering...you come across stuff you hadn't seen in years. Sometimes that's cool because you get the thrill of throwing it away. And sometimes it's cool because the item is full of sweet memories.

When I was a girl, someone carved this little pendant for me. He made one for my twin sister Becki too. Before birds were popular, I might add! I forgot who made it.... Maybe my mom will chime in with that information.

I enjoyed wearing it then, and I love that I can wear it again.

And this time I have a little girl of my own to share it with too.

The Willpower Experiment: The Final Chapter (Week Ten!)

2013-03-25T11:28:00.000-05:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Ten--the last week--of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here. The last chapter of the book is just a short summary/conclusion, so Sonnet and I will use this post to sum up what we've learned through this Experiment.

My big eye-opener? Willpower is about figuring out what I really want in the long term, and making more decisions to support what I want. It is NOT about having a miserable life that replaces joy and spontaneity with strict discipline and structure. It's about figuring out how to actually be happier. Willpower is, surprisingly, very, very freeing! I love that I'm making more choices based on what will make me happy in the long run, because I'm finding it makes me happier in the short run too.

My Willpower Experiment has centered around decluttering my house. I love the progress I'm making. I'm quite surprised about the extent of clutter I still have to tackle. It was worse than I'd realized, but I'm headed in the right direction. And I've learned that instead of patting myself on the back for my progress (and giving myself an excuse to let go of my goal), I need to keep reminding myself that every day I declutter a small area, I'm proving my commitment to this long-term life change. I want to stay committed, because my house is becoming a more and more pleasant place to live, and I want to continue that.

But remember way back when we talked about willpower being like a muscle? It gets stronger as you train it. I'm seeing that happen! I'm finding that it's easier for me to say no to sweets. (I tend to have quite a sweet tooth!) I'm procrastinating less on some things. Yes, I focused on decluttering as my willpower challenge, but I love that I'm seeing willpower increases in other areas of my life.

I have not become some sort of Willpower Superhero! I still have days when I sleep too late, or eat too much junk food, or create more clutter. But another thing I've learned is that I need to let go of the shame that comes with making mistakes. It's part of being human. I can learn from it instead of beating myself up. That's not always easy for me, but I'm trying!

This is one of those books that has truly been life-changing, and I recommend it to anyone who wants really practical advice about how to create more of the life you really want. Here it is on Amazon. It just may be the best $16.50 or so (a little more for Kindle, gah) that you can spend!

One more time...heeeeeeeeere's Sonnet!

Wow! Ten weeks and we have finished the entire book! This week falls right after I faced a particular challenge with my parents being in town and the difference in the way we approach food, so that was a great case study for me to try out so of the stuff I had learned.

So, what were some highlights for me from this book? I’d say that for me, the most mind-blowing and insightful concept was the understanding about how dopamine works, and how it is tied to high-sugar, high-fat foods. That dopamine triggers not only pleasure but an anxiety response, and that I was in essence self-medicating my anxiety by creating a dopamine rush by encountering high sugar foods, then “washing it away” with the pleasure and relief of eating them. Yes, I had heard people use the phrase ‘self-medicating’ when they talked about food before but never had I heard it elaborated on so well. It really made sense for me in this context, and I saw the emotional component of it so clearly. Ever since reading that one chapter, I have had so much more control over my tendency to binge eat when I am anxious.

I also love the new understanding I have about the way willpower works in our brain. That we have, in a sense, two brains that have evolved differently, and both are valuable. When we’re functioning optimally our self-control brain can make choices for the long term; but when we’re threatened or stressed emotionally or physically our impulse brain kicks in and makes survival choices for the short term. When we say willpower we usually are referring to making choices that have long-term benefits. In order to make those choices we need to support our bodies and brains so they know what to choose.

So how did this all play out in my ‘real-life’ willpower challenge? Well, let me set the stage for you. I have wonderful parents who are amazing grandparents. They are kind, generous, and fun and they love their grandkids fiercely. They live on the opposite coast, and I am blessed that they come and visit every 6 – 8 weeks. However, we disagree on what constitutes a healthy diet, both for us adults and for my kids. So my willpower challenge during this last visit of theirs was to resist the junk food temptations and maybe even hold my kids to a normal, healthier eating standard. Conveniently, March is “March Into Fitness” month at the kid’s school, and the girls are filling out charts where they try to eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day - a great tool to help navigate the food dilemma. I spoke to my mom about it the first day, and she asked me to drive her to the grocery store so she could pick up some fresh produce for the kids to eat. I kept the receipt from her trip. Want to know what was purchased?

Bananas and grapes – great!
Fruit juice with HFC (“Does juice count for their 5 a day?” “No…”)
Ice cream
Cookies
Lunchables
Cupcakes
Sausages
Coke
Potato Chips
Beef Sticks
Green Food Coloring
Whipped Cream
Sugared Cereal / Mini-Boxes

So this is what I was up against. Mom also arrived with two batches of homemade cookies in her carry-on, and we ate out several times during their visit, almost always including dessert. It was a LOT of temptation!

To help fortify my willpower, I used the techniques I learned in Chapter 8 that related to “immunization:” spending time each morning thinking about my goals (eating a nutritious diet) and considering what kinds of enticements might come up during the day. I made plans for how I would handle them, and thought about how proud I would feel for making good choices. I brought to mind a quote from my ‘role model,’ Michael Pollan. I also used a technique from early on in the book where I reminded myself that I was committed to my goals.

The results: Well, I was not able to stop my kids from eating junk all weekend. The food was in front of them and they ate it. I also found I was not able to say ‘NO’ firmly enough sometimes. I would say, “I don’t want my kids to eat that,” and I would be ignored or discounted. My mom eventually resorted to guilt trips, telling the kids, “Your mother wants me to feed you nothing but celery!” Argh. That was really frustrating.

On the other hand, when it came to my own choices about myself, I did fantastic! I was not even tempted to eat the cookies that were set out the first day. I made a conscious choice to eat pancakes and sausages one morning with everyone for breakfast, and didn’t feel bad about it. One night we all went out to eat. While everyone else ate large bowls of pasta or enormous plates, I ordered a small salad off the diet menu (which was still enormous, not to mention very good!) In the past, I know if I had done this I would have felt deprived and would have possibly eaten something later to ‘make up for it.’ But this time I felt full and happy with my choice. Willpower success!

Food became my willpower challenge by Week Ten, but I started off with a willpower challenge of writing just 15 minutes a day. I’m proud to report I have more than exceeded that (some days by several hours!) every day since about Chapter 2. Meditation helped, and finding the right triggers and motivators to get me to stop procrastinating. This really works!

My conclusion: It comes down to understanding, “What is willpower?” I had a skewed view of willpower before reading this book. Willpower is NOT, as I previously understood it to be, a kind of steely resolve, denying yourself happiness, making hard choices and suffering. Who would choose it then? And to what end? Willpower IS reframing the way you think. It’s not letting myself be fooled by my surroundings, and remaining true to my inner voice. Then I am able to care for myself and make good decisions.

I’m so grateful that Beth talked me into going through this book with her. It’s been one of the most educational experiences I have had in a long time! I’d recommend the journey to anyone looking to gain a better understanding of their decision-making process.

This is so, so cool to read, Sonnet. I'm thrilled that the book ended up affecting your life in profound, positive ways, just as it did mine. Thank you so much for joining me--it was way more fun and motivational to do this with someone else!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Nine!

2013-03-18T18:22:00.004-05:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Nine of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here. This week we're covering Chapter Nine, "Don't Read This Chapter." This chapter (which I did read!) has proven to be one of the most-helpful chapters in the book for me, and reading it again, I think I'll be able to use the techniques even more effectively.

To start this week's post, I want to show you my New and Improved Linen Closet! (A decluttering project that took 5 days deserves some upper-case letters, don't you think?)

I'm not sure what I'll do with that nearly-empty shelf, but it sure looks better empty than it did crammed with stuff. Again, I have no Before pic--and I might have been too embarrassed to share it if I had taken one!

And, this is what I've been dealing with today:

That's my poor Zoodle, who fell asleep watching TV today (multiple times.) He is really sick. Vomiting, fever, lethargy, the whole works. This picture proves that there are valid reasons for not doing decluttering (which I probably won't get done today.) I sure hope my little guy feels better soon. And I'm committed to continuing my decluttering, even when I do take a day off (very) occasionally.

I'd like Sonnet to give her input on this chapter first, and then I'll explain why it's been so helpful to me.

My oldest daughter is nine years old, and has ADD (and is normally extremely well behaved.) As I mentioned last week, my parents have been here and have been spoiling the girls rotten in wonderful grandparent fashion. So on Sunday evening, we headed home from their place and my daughter had to sit at the kitchen table and put in some time with her homework before bed. She was overstimulated, exhausted, and homework was the last thing she wanted to be doing right at that moment.

“I’m too tired to be doing this,” she whined. Then a few minutes later she got up and went looking for a snack. Maybe two minutes later, after eating it, she started crying that her tummy hurt too much to face homework. Then her head was hurting. She kicked her feet, slumped over in her chair, flicked pencils across the table, and chewed on her hair. She started yelling that she hated school and was never going to go to school again and definitely not on Mondays. After a while she bolted from the table, ran downstairs “just to change into pj’s so she could work better,” and we heard the TV turn on.

If you’re a parent, have you ever faced this battle? Kids can just pull every excuse in the book out of thin air in order to avoid doing something they don’t want to be doing; ranging from the likely (I’m too tired) to the impossible (I’m never going to school again.) Well guess what? We adults do it too, and we add our own layer of self-destructive impulse behaviors onto our avoidance. That’s what Chapter Nine deals with: How we use and abuse impulse behaviors to avoid feelings, cravings and compulsions we’d rather not be dealing with… and how that doesn’t work.

My daughter tried pretty hard to get out of doing her homework this weekend, but in the end she still had to do it. In just the same way, no matter what method we try and use to dodge our uncomfortable feelings and thoughts, they’re going to come back and force the issue. They’re going to insist that we deal with them one way or the other. I’m pretty sure everyone has heard of the famous psychological experiment where subjects are asked not to think of white bears (or white elephants, or a pink rhinoceros?) Well once you try to control your thoughts, once you try to shove something away from you and suppress it, it comes back ten times stronger, doesn’t it. If you’re dieting and try tell yourself you don’t want chocolate cake, guess what you will dream of all day long. A recovering alcoholic will fantasize about the forbidden martinis. Tell yourself you can’t check email until your work is done for the day and you’ll spend a good portion of the day wondering what’s in your inbox.

We can’t just pretend like impulses, cravings and strong feelings aren’t there. If we avoid them, they demand our attention by becoming stronger. The trick is to recognize them and the place they have in our lives without giving them too much power, and without becoming afraid of them. If you can face a negative feeling head-on, and just be with it, you learn that you don’t have to give in to impulse behavior to handle it. It’s just a feeling, it doesn’t have any special meaning, it is just a part of life and it happens. You learn that you are a strong enough person to handle hard feelings. Cravings and compulsions lose their power.

This all sounds very zen, but I also think it’s extremely powerful. What are so many of our unwanted behaviors if not our unconscious ways of trying to handle uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that frighten or upset us? Learning that we can let our emotions flow through us instead of master us is remarkable stuff and opens up so many possibilities.

I do have to say that this chapter really only applies to I WON’T challenges. Try as I might, I could not find a way to make these theories work for I WILL challenges like the one I am working on. Still useful stuff, but unlike so much of the rest of the book, this info can’t be simply flip-flopped backwards and forwards to work either way. You can’t ‘ride your physical craving sensations’ and come out the other side motivated to do something.

We convinced my daughter to get moving Sunday night by acknowledging her discomfort, (“I’m sorry you’re tired and headachy. It’s been a busy weekend.”) providing her some means of physical support (snacks, hugs) and working together with her so she had the emotional support she needed to face her I WON’T fear and get her job done. I think the same techniques can work for all of us when we’re struggling. Listening to those feelings and recognizing them, along with paying attention to our bodily needs and a healthy dose of love and support from others, can get you pretty far in life.

All right, it's time for me to open up a bit.

My biggest and most-destructive willpower challenge is not the clutter in my house, though that's the main thing I've focused on through this Willpower Experiment. The bigger challenge I'm talking about it something I'd started working through a few months before I read this book. And I don't even think I realized it was a willpower challenge until I came to Chapter Nine.

My Big Huge Challenge? WORRY. Since I was very young (early grade school) I've struggled with worry. We all worry about different things. My major source of worry tends to be tied to my desire to please people (and God). When I'm afraid I've disappointed someone, made them angry, or had some sort of relational break, I can get positively torn up inside about it. Little tiny things--interpreting (possibly misinterpreting) someone's text, or lack of response to a text, or tone of voice--can put a big cloud over my day, and that's just not cool. And when it's bigger stuff, when someone is actually upset with me, I can have trouble focusing on anything else.

So I tend to reach out to people and try to smooth things over, even apologizing for things that really weren't my fault. I feel I have to do something, but doing something isn't always the best plan. Because by the fact is, I worry about relationships waaaaaaay too much. That means I apologize and try to make things right waaaaaaay too much. While jumping straight into action gives me a temporary reprieve from my anxiety, it doesn't ever teach me to actually deal with other people's negative feelings towards me (or my perception of their possible negative feelings). So that anxiety ("Did I make that person upset???") returns, over and over.

Chapter Nine teaches some very powerful things to help worrywarts.

Don't try to shove that worry away, or think about something else. You may be able to temporarily, but it will come back. (White bear/purple elephant, anybody?)
When a worry comes up, acknowledge it. Describe it to yourself. ("I am worried that this person might be upset at me because she (fill in the blank).")
Think about how that worry feels, physically. Does it put a sinking feeling in my stomach? Am I breathing faster? (I've been forgetting this aspect of acknowledging worry and am so glad I reread this chapter.)
Breathe deeply. Man, deep breathing comes up over and over, doesn't it? Focus on what that breathing feels like. Think about the worry dissolving as you exhale.
Know that you don't have to act on the worry. It's okay to feel worried, and if I acknowledge the feeling and DON'T act on it, it will run its cycle. I am finally learning this, and it is so freeing to realize I don't have to do what my worry tells me to do! Eventually my mind comes to a point of greater peace, without me taking that action that I always thought was necessary but was actually perpetuating the cycle!

There is so much more amazing stuff in this chapter. For someone who tends to fixate on a problem or potential problem, and worry about it, this chapter could be worth the price of the whole book.

But of course there are other books that deal specifically with anxiety and with other negative thoughts, and I'd like to recommend a couple that have been helping me.

The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques by Margaret Wehrenberg (Written from a secular perspective but easy to adapt to a faith-based framework)

Living Beyond Your Feelings by Joyce Meyer (Deals with negative feelings in general, not just anxiety. Christian book.)

This book in willpower is helping me in a way I never expected. I'm so excited to be seeing changes (sometimes itty bitty baby steps, sometimes two steps forward, one step back) in something that has held me back for so long--unnecessary worries!

Next week is Chapter Ten, the final chapter! It's really short. I think Sonnet and I will just recap how we're doing and sum up what we've learned. See you then!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Eight

2013-03-11T13:17:00.003-05:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Eight of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here. This week we're covering Chapter Eight, "Infected! Why Willpower is Contagious."

First I want to make something very clear to you.

Daylight Savings Time is stupid.

Now, my future self may disagree, when I gain an hour of (potential) sleep in the fall. But today, one day after losing an hour, I stand on my premise that Daylight Savings Time is stupid.

Clearly I'm tired today. And I think it's a good time to talk about what I'm learning about succeeding in my willpower challenges when life is extra, well, challenging...when I'm tired, blue, stressed, etc. Then we'll jump into the new content from this week's chapter.

Last week I wrote about a mini-challenge I've taken on: getting up with my alarm each morning. I did great last week with my double motivators (moving my alarm further from my bed, and telling myself that if I slept in, I'd have to take a day off Facebook.) But then we had the time change, and last night I went to bed about an hour "later" than usual. So this morning when that alarm went off at 6:30, my body told me it was 5:30, and I really wanted to stay in bed!

I spent almost 15 minutes arguing with myself, but I did eventually get up, which I counted as a willpower win! How did I convince myself? I asked myself what would make me feel better later today--getting up and walking (which I normally do on Mondays), or sleeping an extra hour. I knew I was more likely to benefit from getting up and exercising, and, sure enough, I was very glad I'd walked today. Yes, I'm extra-tired now...but that should help me go to bed at an earlier time tonight, which will help me adjust more quickly to this time change.

Thinking about what's good for my future self...that's a skill that I am building, thanks to this book! It was really cool to see it "work" in a practical way.

But that leaves me with this extra-tired feeling, which means that my motivation to do anything productive today tends to be lessened. So when it came to my main willpower challenge, decluttering, I gave myself permission to do only a very small spot. Specifically, I reorganized one very small plastic bin in my linen closet (a multi-day project I'm currently working on.) It took about 5-7 minutes. I proved to myself that I was still committed to my goal, and 5-7 minutes worth of work is better than none. I like this strategy of doing a little of an "I will" challenge, instead of doing none, when my resources are in some way depleted.

On to Chapter Eight. I'm going to let Sonnet take the lead, and I'll chime in occasionally with my thoughts. As always, Sonnet's words are in bold.

When it comes down to it, we all just want to be liked and accepted as a part of our social group. That’s it – this truth is the message behind Chapter Eight in our Willpower series. Humans are social animals, and being accepted and valued by our society is probably one of the biggest motivators we have.

What does this mean for willpower? Well first, we tend to do what everyone else is doing. Group think at its finest! It’s not always a bad thing, and even if it was, it is our instinct – we can’t always escape it. Don’t believe me? Then why do political poll numbers sway the undecided? Why do we click on the “most read stories” link on news websites? Why do we read bestsellers and see box office hits instead of bombs? Because everyone else is doing it. Second, we can use this instinct to motivate ourselves. If we think we will lose social standing by making poor choices, we’ll be less likely to make those choices. Or alternately, if we can attach a feeling of pride or being upwardly social mobile to making positive willpower choices, we’ll almost certainly stick with the good choices. Put another way, in a modern world where everything is open for social media scrutiny, we’re all hoping for ‘likes’ on our actions.

One thing that interests me is that sincerely-held religious belief can help us in our willpower challenges. When Christians are asked to think about Bible passages that encourage health "such as 'do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat' (Proverbs 23:30, NIV)" (p. 198) and then to consider whether or not their lives line up to the Bible they believe in, it helps motivate them to make better choices. I like this type of motivation, if it stays positive. In other words, I want to think, "Wow, it feels great to live my life in a way that is pleasing to God and that matches my beliefs!" rather than, "Ooh, I don't want to displease God by making hypocritical choices."

I have a pet peeve about this chapter. When a negative behavior is reinforced by a social group, the term ‘epidemic’ gets used because of the way actions can spread like a virus. I confess, I hate this term, especially because it so often gets applied to obesity. I’m pretty darn fat thanks to a variety of endocrine disorders, and I have spent a lifetime trying to reassure people that hugging me will not give them ‘the fat.’ That I am not contagious. I’m not saying this tongue in cheek – there are people, many people, who will outright refuse to touch me because of my size. I’ve been refused services from professionals such as massage therapists and doctors before because of it. Look, touching my body isn’t going to spread obesity germs onto you, I promise. And talking about it this way doesn’t help. In this chapter Dr. McGonigal even refers to other contagious willpower challenges…. like depression. Since when is depression a willpower challenge? It was a disease last I checked, and treating it like something you can will yourself out of is aggravating.

I agree with this, Sonnet, now that you point it out! I think it would have been more effective to talk about how specific behaviors (such as overeating or having a negative attitude) are contagious, rather than conditions (obesity, depression) being contagious. On the flip side, eating healthy food and having a positive attitude can be contagious too.

My issues with wording aside, I decided to take a look at the experiments for this week. My challenge is to stop procrastinating and write just 15 minutes a day, every day. Now, this week’s challenges focus on your social group, and with writing I don’t have a very social group. It’s kind of just me and my laptop. So I am changing things up a bit for this week, changing my challenge and my time frame. This weekend my parents are coming to visit, which is wonderful – they are incredible grandparents and it will be fun to have them here! When they are here visiting, however, I know I always adopt their laid-back attitude about junk food, and I usually gain several pounds every long weekend they visit. The candy flows free, and I notice even my young daughters gain weight. We have a great time together, but this is a good example of social behavior impacting a willpower challenge.

So, my plan is to use some of the ideas presented in this chapter to mitigate the issue, and I’ll check back in next week on how it went.

First off Chapter Eight suggests creating an ‘immune response’ to social contagion by spending some time at the start of every day to simply think about your goal and how temptation might happen during the day. Make a plan. I can do that. Goal: stick to healthier, whole foods and minimal processed foods and sugar over the weekend.

Part two of having a plan is to help my kids with the goal. Conveniently, March is “March Into Fitness” month at their school and they are filling out daily charts where they are trying to eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day and to get one hour of physical activity a day. I can use the charts to remind my kids of their goals, and if they are eating their 5-A-Day they won’t be as tempted to overdo it on sugar.

Finally another technique from the book is to bring to mind a role model when you are in need of a willpower boost. It’s funny, but as I was thinking through my friends I was surprised to consider how few of my friends I eat regularly enough with to really know their food habits – closely enough to consider them role models anyway. Obviously my girlfriends and I need to go out more! In the meantime, I’m choosing author Michael Pollan as my role model, of the famous dieting quote, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” I think that’s so reasonable, it inspires me.

Alright, that’s my plan. Everyone will be here through next Tuesday so on week 10, I’ll let you know how it worked out!

I think it's really cool that you found a specific way to put this chapter into practice, Sonnet, and I'm really looking forward to hearing how this week goes for you!

I had some trouble relating my specific willpower challenge (decluttering my house) to many of the principles in this chapter. I don't know anyone else who is currently tackling this willpower challenge, and I'm not even sure I want a role model. I tend to look at people who are naturally clean and organized, and I feel ashamed and guilty, so I don't want to focus on them! It's been so helpful to me to focus on myself, and how much this new way of living affects me positively.

However, I appreciate McGonigal's point that we can be positively affected by others who are tackling different willpower challenges than we are. She also points out the benefit of making our goals public. Sonnet and I have both been staying consistent with reading and reviewing this book--and maybe more consistent with our challenges too--because we know the other person is counting on us, and because we've made our commitments public!

A couple of other things that caught my attention in this chapter...

When McGonigal is discussing how likely we are to "follow the herd," she points out, "In the classroom, I find that just about every student believes that he or she is the exception" (p. 197). Guilty!! In fact, when I read that, I'd just been thinking, "Maybe this chapter isn't really 'hitting' me because I'm really not that affected by what others do!" But McGonigal points out that "we cannot separate ourselves from our social instincts" (p. 197). In other words, I'm not the exception, and neither are you! So I'm going to try to be more aware of how I'm being positively and negatively affected by the actions and attitudes of those around me.
After reading Sonnet's comments (above), this quote rang so true to me: "Willpower 'failures' like addiction, obesity, and bankruptcy often come with a stigma in our society. We may wrongly assume that a person is weak, lazy, stupid, or selfish, and convince ourselves that they deserve to be shamed or excluded from the tribe. But we should be especially aware of shunning people who do not control their behavior in the way we would like. Besides being a pretty cruel way to treat people, it is a lousy strategy for change" (p. 205). What a great reminder!! Not only do I not know the whole story behind what appears to me to be someone else's willpower failure; I also have plenty of true willpower failures of my own! While I might occasionally need to separate myself from someone who is influencing me badly, I want so much to interact with others in a nonjudgmental way and to support those around me.

Next week's chapter is one that was immensely helpful to me the first time I read it! It's called "Don't Read This Chapter: The Limits of 'I Won't' Power." It's a great one. See you next week!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Seven

2013-03-04T09:45:00.004-06:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Seven of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here. This week we're covering Chapter Seven, "Putting the Future on Sale: The Economics of Instant Gratification."

Decluttering has lost some of its lustre, but I'm continuing to do it, because I'm committed and I know its worth it. Here's a cabinet I tackled over a period of three days last week:

There's extra space in there now--what a concept!!

McGonigal opens Chapter 7 with an interesting story (pp. 156-157). In 2007 a study was published that compared how much self control humans and chimps have. The human or chimp subject was presented with two treats (grapes for the chimps, and various bite-sized snack foods for humans.) They were allowed to eat those two treats right away, or they could have six treats if they waited just two minutes.

Chimps are self-controlled creatures! Seventy-two percent of them waited for the larger reward (six treats.) But guess how many humans waited? Only 19 percent! And they were students from Harvard, people we'd expect to have a lot of self-control! I'm going to let Sonnet explain this phenomenon as she introduces the chapter to us.

It’s time for Chapter Seven, and we’re going Back to the Future! (That was a great movie, by the way.) The theme of this chapter is all about how we view our future: incorrectly. So, how is that screwing up our willpower?

The basic problem is this: we have this huge disconnect between our experience of now and our ideas about what the future might be. The future just doesn’t seem real to us, it is hard to imagine. When we think about our future, even our future 20 minutes from now, we like to predict that we’re going to have more free time, and more money, and more ability to resist cheesecake. We like to think the world will be a better and easier place free of temptation or fears or obnoxious bosses or jeans that are too tight. And in this magical world, our future self (who is amazingly NOT us) will conquer all this stuff that’s been piling up. So let’s let her deal with it. Sound good?

This was one of the most interesting concepts to me in Chapter Seven. We think of our future selves as different people entirely! McGonigal calls your future self You 2.0. "You 2.0 is future you," she writes. "Future you is the person you imagine when you wonder whether you should clean the closet today or leave it to your future self. Future you is the person who will be much more enthusiastic about exercising than you are right now.... We think about our fututre selves like different people. We often idealize them, expecting our future selves to do what our present selves cannot manage" (pp. 171-172).

This was so eye-opening to me. (I keep saying that, don't I?!) I know I have fallen into this trap more times than I can count. I see a cluttered spot and know that someday, future me will take care of it. I won't be so busy in the future, or I'll be more motivated. In reading this book for the first time a couple of months ago, I faced the truth: My house was becoming more and more cluttered, because present me never turned into the idealized version of future me. And if I want a house that is more pleasant to live in, present me has to step in and take responsibility.

McGonigal does a great job giving options for how to motivate our present selves to do what we've always expected our future selves to do. Sonnet does a great job explaining these techniques.

One of the suggestions in this chapter is called precommitting, and is basically comes down to creating situations ahead of time that build in carrots and sticks for your willpower goal. Such as, for example, taking bets on whether or not you will lose weight. Or, say, setting up a plan to donate money to a charity you find repellant every time you don’t meet your goals. You plan ahead to make life easier for your future self to do the right thing when temptation hits. I’m sure this is really motivating for some people. You know what it makes me feel? Stress. Big time stress, almost panic-level stress. I could feel my heart racing and my breath coming faster just reading about it. And stress makes me want to run for comfort, which makes me want to act impulsively, which makes me want to do things like curl up on the couch with a pint of ice cream and do nothing until it goes away. There is no way this is going to work for me. Even the thought makes me want to avoid any activity associated with this ‘motivator.’ So… next.

Clearly precommitment isn't a strategy that works for everyone! But one of McGonigal's precommitment suggestions hit home with me. "Put your alarm clock across the room so you'll have to get out of bed to turn it off" (p. 169). While decluttering is still my primary willpower challenge, I have had a strong desire lately to get back on track with getting up early so I can spend quiet time alone with God. This is a mini-challenge I want to take on! So last night I put my alarm on the far side of my bedside table, with books and a lamp in between me and it. I had to get out of bed to reach it.

But I needed more motivation than that. It's far too easy to get back in bed! So I also followed McGonigal's advice to "make immediate gratification more painful if you give in" (p. 169). I decided that if I don't get up on time, I'll have to take a day off Facebook. I really don't want to do that! Maybe that's a problem in and of itself, but for now, it's a motivator for me. I got out of bed at 6:30 this morning, and I'm excited to see if these techniques continue to work. But let's get back to Sonnet, who needed to find a technique that works for her!

An interesting one suggested was the “wait ten minutes” strategy. The idea is, if you are faced with an ‘I Won’t’ willpower challenge (such as having a cigarette or eating a doughnut) tell yourself you can have it… after you wait 10 minutes. If you place the temptation into the future, alongside the concept of the future rewards, you take away the short-term impulse appeal and are able to manage it much better. For I Won’t challenges, I think this has enormous potential. I can see myself using this one quite often when I have the impulse to binge eat when I am angry or upset.

On the other hand. The book also claims you can use this for I Will challenges by turning it around, saying “do X for 10 minutes, then you can quit.” So let me be honest. I procrastinated on writing this summary like a crazy woman. I read the chapter on Monday and I am writing this almost a full week later, late Sunday night. I messed around doing anything but writing all day today. I finally tried the “do it for 10 minutes” trick to see if I could get it done, and you know what happened? Nothing. Not a thing. I didn’t write a single word. I wasn’t motivated at all by it. I suppose because I like writing, it’s not that I didn’t want to do it. I was fine with doing it. I just felt like taking the short term reward more. So for I Will challenges, at least for me? No dice.

What finally did motivate me, for the record, was using the dopamine reward trick. I made a large mug of my favorite tea, got a small bowl of chocolate eggs, and set both on my work desk by my laptop. There. I can have them if I am writing, I told myself. Sold! It wasn’t even a difficult decision, I was happy to get cozy in my office and get to work. So, now I know what motivates me!

I love that this book gives so many suggestions--so when one doesn't make sense, we can find another that does! And it's interesting to me is that Sonnet and I have both managed to find the motivation, every single week, to read this book and write the blog posts--even if we had to fight for that motivation. This is the type of thing I tend to have good intentions for, but I often don't follow through.

So why have Sonnet and I kept up with this? Because for the last seven weeks, we've both followed another of McGonigal's suggestions from this chapter: Find someone who will support you and hold you accountable to your goals. Honestly, I've procrastinated on these blog posts every single week. The earliest I've written any of my Monday posts has been Sunday--and a couple of my "Monday" posts have been written later in the week! Sonnet admits she procrastinated this week too.

But we've both kept up with it, because we are depending on each other. I think this is a huge key! Ann and I usually have our kids learn about one particular topic each week (in addition to our regular schoolwork), and we do lapbook projects on those topics most weeks. Why do I make sure my kids keep up with it? Because I know that we'll be getting together with Ann so all the kids can present their projects. Knowing someone else is counting on me is huge motivation!

Back to Sonnet...

Alright, other good ideas for connecting with the nebulous, intangible future do come up in this chapter. If we can really grasp that the ‘future self’ is going to be our self, the same person instead of a stranger, then we are more likely to make wise long term decisions. The chapter has some great suggestions for reconciling the two that are simple, effective, and even fun. Think about what you’re going to be doing next week. Just next week. Grocery shopping? Going to the board meeting? Really picture yourself in those situations. That’s it – those few moments of imagery will cause you to think twice about putting off cleaning the carpets until next week. You can write a letter to your future self. There are even services who will mail or email them to you.

Note from Beth: McGonigal suggests the site FutureMe.org for sending an email to yourself in the future. Here is the one I am sending to myself in one year:

Talking about your hopes and dreams, deciding what you think your future self would thank your present self for – those concepts make the future real. Finally, taking the time to daydream about possibilities, imagining future outcomes from your choices, also solidifies the future. Who is next year’s best possible you? Who is next year’s you who is struggling because of bad decisions? Thinking through the ins and outs of what your actions mean leads to taking care of yourself long term, and being more mindful of your choices over time instead of in the right now.

To me, I think this is really a key part of willpower. This is what it is all about: making the future as valuable as the present. We’re not wired to think that way, but if we can, planning ahead pays off in big ways.

Thinking in specific ways about future me has been an important part of my decluttering willpower challenge. I'm a real estate agent. When I am helping a client prepare their home for sale, I hire a home stager to come and give them specific suggestions to get the house ready. So many times, I've thought to myself, "Whew, whenever we decide to sell this house, I'm going to have a lot of work to do, getting this place decluttered." Not wanting to deal with that stressful concept, I've shoved the thought aside, figuring that future me would find a way to handle it!

Now, I think about how good it will feel if and when we want to get our house ready for sale. Because I'm committed to continuing to declutter, my closets and drawers will already look good! I'll need to do some prep work, of course, but it won't be so overwhelming. My home stager will come in and compliment me on my bathroom countertop already looking nice (instead of being crammed full of bottles and things as it was a few weeks ago.) And I know that on all the days in between today and that day, I will enjoy my home more because I'm making it a more peaceful and pleasant place to live! I'm thinking about what future me wants, and it's making present me happier too!

If you're trying to find motivation to tackle a willpower challenge, use some of the techniques from this chapter to connect with your future self. Our future selves ARE US! When we make that connection, we can start making more decisions that will benefit us in the long run!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Six

2013-02-25T11:52:00.000-06:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Six of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here. Pardon my language, but Chapter Six is called "What the Hell: How Feeling Bad Leads to Giving In." I'll let Sonnet starts us off this week!

“Our stresses, anxieties, pains, and problems arise because we do not see the world, others, or even ourselves as worthy of love. (9)”
― Prem Prakash, The Yoga of Spiritual Devotion A Modern Translation of the Narada Bhakti Sutras

I decided to lead with this beautiful quote by Prem Prakash because it captures so much of what Chapter Six is about. The world is a stressful place, driving us to seek out comfort in our actions. When we react to these choices in ways that aren’t loving and supportive of our selves, we end up hurting; and the unhappy person within us makes repeatedly worse decisions as we seek even greater comfort. The only way out, the only way to make good willpower choices, is to act in love.

Stress is all around us, affecting every one, every day. Work, family responsibilities, financial struggles, health issues. Loud noises and traffic can cause stress. This chapter showed how just watching the news can be a source of stress as we subconsciously note all of the terror attacks, earthquakes, floods, car accidents, kidnappings and school shootings in our world. Our brains are driven to seek relief, to find comfort in any manner available. And what is the obvious choice? Dopamine rushes, just like we talked about in Chapter Five. These hit our reward center in just the right way and promise us happiness, calm, relief. So we turn to food, sex, money, spending hours on the internet, and other impulsive or even harmful behaviors because they promise to make us feel better.

Beth chiming in here! It's fascinating that "according to the American Psychological Association (APA), the most commonly used strategies for dealing with stress are those that activate the brain's reward system: eating, drinking, shopping, watching television, surfing the Web, and playing video games.... The most commonly used strategies were also rated as highly ineffective by the same people who reported using them" (p. 134).

We're back to my confession last week about repeatedly checking Facebook, being convinced I'll somehow find pleasure there. And I can definitely see the stress connection. When I'm stressed out, sometimes my brain rebels against doing anything that requires more focus or energy than clicking "Like" and "Comment"! Hearing an expert tell me that this is an ineffective way of dealing with stress is making a difference. It's making me think twice before I spend long periods of time scrolling through my News Feed! Why do we automatically return to behaviors that aren't helpful, and may be harmful, when we're stressed? Sonnet explains it here:

Stress triggers your fight-or-flight response, and it will always favor the short-term over the long term. So as stress and anxiety in your environment increase, so do impulsive behaviors. Willpower goes right out the door.

What’s funny is we know what behaviors work to reduce stress. This chapter has a great list of them...

...and I'm going to put that whole list here, because I found it so insightful. These behaviors genuinely work to reduce stress (quoted from p. 137):

exercising or playing sports
praying or attending a religious service
reading
listening to music
spending time with friends or family
getting a massage
going outside for a walk
meditating or doing yoga
spending time with a creative hobby

When I watch TV, I usually want to be doing something else. I used to sit there on my computer, on Facebook or blogs, as if combining two ineffective stress relief activities would help. (All it did was annoy my husband, who knew I was only half-watching the TV!) But since I started crocheting a couple of years ago, that's usually my go-to television activity. And when I see the list above, I realize that's a great thing to do! Television itself doesn't reduce my stress. But crocheting is relaxing. I can spend time with my husband watching a show we enjoy, while I practice my "creative hobby." To me it feels so much better than just zoning off in front of what the "boob tube."

Those activities have all been well studied and always come through to dramatically make us really feel better, when chocolate binges won’t. But we don’t choose them. Why not? Because they don’t have an associated dopamine rush. They don’t feel heady, they don’t have that “rush” to them, so we underestimate the effect they will have. We assume activities need to feel “dopamine-y” to make us feel better, when that’s not the case.

"Rather than releasing dopamine and relying on the promise of reward," McGonigal explains, "the real stress relievers boost mood-enhancing brain chemicals like serotonin and GABA, as well as the feel-good hormone oxytocin" (p. 137).

Both last night and this morning, I was feeling stressed out, not quite prepared to take on what I expected to be a busy Monday. And I knew I needed to exercise, but I didn't want to. Last night, there was certainly no dopamine promising me pleasure if I got off the couch. And this morning not only was there a lack of dopamine telling me to exercise; I was also being begged to stay in bed by my warm covers, who can be very convincing.

McGonigal suggests that you find "a way to remind your stressed-out self what actually makes you feel better"( p. 139). Both last night and this morning, I just reminded myself that I would feel better if I got up and moved. I know that's true from personal experience. It was late last night--too late for a full workout--but I took a few minutes to get up and just move a bit, in my living room. I felt so much better! And this morning I (eventually!) convinced myself to get out of bed, and sure enough, a brisk walk was just what I needed to start my busy day on a positive note. When dopamine isn't telling us that a positive action is rewarding, we have to depend on what we know is truly rewarding instead.

So let's talk about how guilt keeps us from meeting our goals. If you're "good at guilt" like me, you need to read this part! Here's Sonnet:

Making poor choices can be a vicious cycle. You begin by being worried about one thing, which leads you to make a negative willpower choice, and then your guilt about that choice makes you feel bad, so you seek relief from that feeling and you make another poor choice. How often have you been tempted by “just a bite” of a rich dessert, felt bad about giving in, and ended up eating the entire thing? (I know I have!) The idea that guilt over a lapse in willpower makes us feel bad, so we are driven to make more unhealthy choices, is a well-known one.

Says Dr. McGonigal, “‘I’ve already broken my [diet, budget, sobriety, resolution], so what the hell, I might as well really enjoy myself.’ Crucially it’s not the first giving-in that guarantees the bigger relapse. It’s the feelings of shame, guilt, loss of control, and loss of hope that follow the first relapse. Once you’re stuck in the cycle, it can seem like there’s no way out except to keep going.” When we talk to ourselves in a critical way, like an angry parent scolding a child, we make this cycle worse. We deepen our feelings of shame and make it more likely that we will have little choice but to continue making bad decisions.

The way out, as Prem Prakash said, is love. Treating ourselves gently and kindly, with respect and compassion, stops this cycle. Reminding ourselves that everyone makes mistakes, or indulges once in a while, or struggles to always make the ‘right’ decisions, means we don’t feel the shame and guilt so acutely. Then we aren’t as driven to seek further dopamine comfort. We’re also more willing to face our lapses and really examine what went on, and make changes so we can do better in the future.

"As soon as I mention self-forgiveness in class," Dr. McGonigal writes (p. 147), "the arguments start pouring in. You would think I had just suggested that the secret to more willpower was throwing kittens in front of speeding buses.... To many people, self forgiveness sounds like excuse-making that will only lead to greater self-indulgence."

Do you relate? I do! However, "Study after study shows that self-criticism is consistently associated with less motivation and worse self-control. It is also one of the single biggest predictors of depression, which drains both 'I will' power and 'I want' power" (p. 148).

If I believe in a God who forgives my sins, then that begs the question, would He really want me to beat myself up over my mistakes and bad choices? Yes, God wants me to become more like him--but surely that includes being a forgiver...even forgiving myself.

In addition to remembering that mistakes are part of being human, McGonigal also suggests thinking about how you'd talk to a friend who'd made the same mistake, and then talking to yourself that way. These perspectives help us to move past the guilt feelings, which actually get in the way of learning from our bad choices. And what a relief to live in grace instead of guilt!

I'll let Sonnet close our discussion for this week.

When we hear the word “WILLPOWER” we so often associate it with cold hard strength. With being able to shut off emotions and get the job done, powering through the temptations of physical comforts. This chapter turns all that on its head. This chapter shows the true power of kindness and gentleness, especially towards our selves. It’s impressive!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Five

2013-02-21T11:23:00.000-06:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Five of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here.

Whew, what a week it's been for me! My husband has been sick, and just as he was starting to feel better, I came down with it. I've been sick since Monday, but today I'm starting to feel much better. I haven't done any decluttering this week--I've been doing well just to get through each day! I may be able to take on a decluttering project today or tomorrow, and I'm committed to continuing toward my goal!

Let's start with Sonnet's recap of Chapter Five, "The Brain's Big Lie: Why We Mistake Wanting for Happiness."

Five weeks in, and this chapter takes on one of the most powerful forces that affect how we respond to temptations. You probably have heard the slang term dope, which comes from dopamine, a neurotransmitter that controls the reward system in our brain. There’s a reason something as bizarre as a neurotransmitter has made it into our everyday lexicon: a dopamine rush is a very, very potent force; one we all will happily turn our bodies (and homes, marriages, or wallets) over to given half a chance.

What causes dopamine to start flowing? Anything that gives us the promise of reward. This can be anything from food to sex to money to technology to an alcohol buzz to leveling up in your video game. Images or scents of good food do it. The sound of your aroused mate purring in your ear does it. The icon on your phone that says you have a new text message does it. There’s a rush to your reward center, and your brain starts telling you to act now - that this immediate gratification is absolutely what you are after, and bugger everything else.

Notice though, that dopamine works on the reward center of the brain, and not the pleasure center. It produces intense feelings of desire and motivation, not gratification. Dopamine can also cause a significant stress response when we think about not being able to act on our desire. Dr. McGonigal talks about a study where researchers showed women simple images of chocolate while monitoring their brains. The women all showed a ‘startle response,’ reacting with alarm. The women reported feeling pleasure when they saw the chocolate, but also anxiety and a sense of being out of control.

This one observation (that a dopamine rush produces anxiety as well as pleasure) was the biggest “ah-ha” moment for me so far in the book. All of a sudden, I saw with distinct clarity the pattern that has plagued and confused me for years with binge eating. I normally have very little appetite, but when I am anxious and frustrated, sometimes I binge on junk. I have never understood why – it’s not like I am hungry. The explanation of ‘emotional eating’ never really made much sense for me either. But this does, completely. My pattern goes like this:

I feel anxiety, and I don’t know how to deal with it.
In desperation, I create more anxiety by starting a dopamine rush, looking at or thinking about high-sugar food. I feel huge amounts of tension until I can eat it.
I eat it, and whoosh, there is an enormous sense of relief
I mistake this for relief about the anxiety I couldn’t solve before

This was huge for me. In the days since understanding this process, my whole relationship with food and with my stress levels has changed. It has only been a few days, and I need to work on finding more healthy ways of relieving anxiety and anger without “doping,” but I think that can be done. This is mind-blowing, life changing stuff!

Speaking of life changing, this chapter had another fantastic suggestion that really reframes the way I look at chores. Dopamine is one of the most effective marketing strategies ever utilized. Businesses use sexy models, half-off sales, scents and sounds to lure you in all the time. The lottery wants you to just imagine what you would do with $1 million. There’s a prize in every box. And we fall for it, all of it – we can’t help it. Dopamine is that strong. So if it works for selling junk we don’t need, why not make it work for the stuff we actually need to do?

Seriously. Imagine a world where instead of blowing your last $2 on a lottery ticket, you were entered in a million dollar prize drawing every time you made a savings deposit or filed your taxes on time. People would totally do that, wouldn’t they? You can use dopamine the same way for a “I WILL” challenge. Having trouble getting motivated to exercise? Try going for a run with the hot guy from across the street. Doing homework? It’s always easier with a supreme pizza. And, in the best example from the book: Hate decluttering? Hide scratch-off lottery tickets in your piles. You’ll be sorting through them in no time!

This chapter was so compelling for me. This was the chapter where I really saw my own reactions laid out, and found resources that are actually going to work for me and changing how I react to temptations. It’s amazing!

What an awesome recap, Sonnet! I love hearing about how this is changing the way you understand yourself, and helping you to change your actions!

This chapter helped me understand why sometimes I compulsively check Facebook. It used to be email. And then blogs. And then Twitter. "Because we know there's a chance we'll have a new message, or because the very next YouTube video may be the one that makes us laugh, we keep hitting refresh, clicking the next link, and checking our devices compuslively" (p. 114).

My brain's reward system (fueled by dopamine) promises me that if I see one more Like or Comment on the photo I posted on Facebook, I'll feel pleasure. But rarely do those online responses provide me with the amount of pleasure dopamine has promised--and, as Sonnet pointed out, there is a considerable amount of anxiety that comes along with my compulsive clicking! I think that just being aware of that trap--of the lies dopamine tells me--has helped me to be a little less compulsive about "checking my devices"--sometimes. Honestly, I have a ways to go on fighting this battle, but at least now I understand the battle better!

And do you know anyone who plays video games for hours upon hours? If so, you may find this just as eye-opening as I did: "Computer and video game designers intentionally manipulate the reward system to keep players hooked. The promise that the next level or big win could happen at any time is what makes a game compelling. It's also what makes a game hard to quit. One study found that playing a video game led to dopamine increases equivalent to amphetamine use--and it's this dopamine rush that makes both so addictive" (pp. 114-115). Wow!

Clearly Facebook and video games aren't actually the best ways to relax. Chapter Six, which we'll review next week, goes into more detail about what activities really do bring us stress relief, since the prompting of dopamine so often steers us in the wrong direction.

McGonigal makes it clear that dopamine isn't evil, though. When people don't have enough dopamine, "the result isn't so much total contentment as it is apathy" (p. 131). Seeking rewards is a very important part of being a healthy human. But, as Sonnet said, we can use dopamine to work for us.

I was intrigued by what McGonigal calls "the power of an unpredictable reward" (p.123). Some drug and alcohol recovery programs use a "fish bowl" reward system. The fish bowl holds slips of paper, half of which have rewards on them, from $1 to $20, with one $100 prize. The other half are printed with the message, "Keep up the good work." Patients who test negative on their drug tests are allowed to pick from the fish bowl. One study showed that patients who get fish bowl rewards are far more successful in staying off drugs or alcohol than those who don't get a reward. In fact, the fish bowl (which, as you'll recall, only gives monetary rewards half the time) even works better than guaranteed payments for passing drug tests. "Our reward system gets much more excited about a possible big win than a guaranteed smaller reward," McGonigal explains.

So I've put this into practice with my kids. For the last several weeks, we've been using an "unpredictable reward" system. When my kids are extra-helpful, or do a great job cleaning up their rooms, they get to dip their little hands into a canister that has rewards ranging from "One episode of television" to "Special date with Daddy." They love the new reward system and are so motivated to earn the right to choose one! And it's giving me the motivation to spend more time doing special things with them. When one of them gets the "Be Mommy's Assistant Chef" reward, I know I need to take the time to let that child help me in the kitchen.

Next week we'll talk about how GUILT and STRESS make it much more difficult to reach our goals. Get ready to hear scientific reasons to stop beating yourself up when you mess up! See you next week!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Four, Part Two

2013-02-13T05:00:00.000-06:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Four of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, including the first half of this week's review, click here.

Let's talk about progress. In the past, when I tackled a clutter spot, I felt really good about it. I was one step closer to having a tidy house--progress! But somehow by the time I got around to tackling clutter again, it had usually built up to more than the amount I'd originally tidied up. I really hadn't made any "progress" at all!

So when I read that "making progress on a goal motivates people to engage in goal-sabotaging behavior" (p. 89), I definitely related! Thankfully, this trap is pretty simple to avoid, just by shifting your mindset. "Progress can be motivating," McGonigal writes, "but only if you view your actions as evidence that you are committed to your goal. In other words, you need to look at what you have done and conclude that you must really care about your goal, so much that you want to do even more to reach it.... A simple shift in focus leads to a very different interpretation of [your] own actions--'I did that because I wanted to,' not 'I did that, great, now I can do what I really want" (p. 90).

Sonnet further explains this idea. Here’s another story from the book that most people can relate to: How many times have you made a To-Do list, and then proudly sat back, your work for the day done because you made the list? This is an example of “goal liberation,” the concept that thinking about the progress we have made actually silences our willpower temporarily. We get so pleased with ourselves, we give in. A better choice is to remind ourselves that we are committed to our goals. Remember the theme of this chapter: We are the kind of people who want to do the right thing! When we stop and remind ourselves WHY we are making progress, we go on to achieve more.

These days when I keep up with my decluttering, I congratulate myself for proving that I'm committed to my goal, and I look foward toward the next weekday, when I will again prove it (and again, and again!) Once again, I am learning to come back to what I really want, which is to live in a house that is a more peaceful place, with less clutter.

I'll let Sonnet introduce another concept that made it seem like the book's author was reading my mind--and apparently Sonnet's mind too!

Alright so a mind trick that I am definitely guilty of? Over-optimism about the future. As Dr. McGonigal puts it: “We wrongly but persistently expect to make different decisions tomorrow than we do today.” I seem to always believe that tomorrow I will have more time, more energy, more ability. Challenges will always be easier to face tomorrow. And yet somehow, that is never the case. I started working on challenging this belief this week, and I tell you, it is hard! I don’t always recognize when I am doing it, and even when I catch it in time, it is a huge effort to bring myself back around. Hopefully with more practice, this will become easier for me.

Studies show that most people, like Sonnet and I, "wrongly predict we will have much more free time in the future than we do today" (p. 94). What's helping me is to find a way to get ever-closer to my goal of a decluttered house, even though I'm busy. For me, this means one clutter spot (sometimes a very small one!) per weekday. Even on extra-busy days, I can usually do that. And if I do miss a day, I just make sure I'm extra-motivated to pick up where I left off the next day.

I am trying to incorporate all these new willpower techniques while also giving myself grace when things really are extra-crazy. Yes, it's true that in general, I'm not going to suddenly find a ton of extra free time in the future. However, it's also true that I do have some weeks that are genuinely much-busier than my normal. I've been working with real estate clients, including some work that has been extra-complex and time-consuming. I don't want to expect that sometime in the nebulous "future" I'm suddenly going to have tons of extra time, but I can very reasonably expect that this week will be much less busy than the last two weeks have been.

So I've needed to give myself some extra grace lately! As I'm writing this post Monday, I'm considering not tackling a clutter spot. It's not because "I've earned it"; it's because I genuinely need some recovery time (mind and body!) after the craziness of my last two weeks. So while I don't want to fall into the "moral justification" traps in this chapter, I also don't want to get so uptight about my goals that I can't give myself a break when I'm genuinely exhausted. Maybe the key is for those "breaks" to be the exception rather than the rule!

It really is exciting to see the practical effects--all around my house--of what I'm learning. My decluttering is a process, but I'm committed to it! And Sonnet is finding success too! In her own words...

On the plus side, practically speaking I have had a very successful week. I have been meditating most days, especially before bed; and I have much more than exceeded my writing goals every day! It has been a busy week with many social demands for my time, and I have even been sick for a few days, and I still was able to accomplish everything in my willpower challenge. That feels really – unusually - good! Per the chapter, I have to remember why I am doing this. Why? Because I want to continue to improve as a writer, I don’t want to see my skills or contacts atrophy. I like the way accomplishing something every day feels, and I love being able to point out things that I have published to family or friends and say, “I created that.” Writing every day is my goal-supportive action to meet this aspiration. And this book is going to help me get out of my own way to get there!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Four, Part One

2013-02-11T16:07:00.002-06:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Four of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here. Chapter Four has this tantalizing title: "License to Sin: Why Being Good Gives Us Permission to Be Bad." This chapter has so much "meat" to it that I'm going dividing our review into two parts. I'll post the second part on Wednesday. Let's start with Sonnet's introduction to Chapter Four.

Chapter Four! We have made it four weeks, that’s almost a month into this series. I think we’ve all earned a little something for doing so well and staying with our willpower challenges for a whole month! Plus, it’s Valentine’s Day this week. Here, have some chocolate hearts… Oh wait. Oops. This kind of pitfall is the focus of this chapter: How we use what’s called “moral licensing” to convince ourselves that we’re such great people and we’ve made such awesome progress on our goals that we really, truly should choose to go against our willpower challenges. So this chapter shifts from talking about the physical issues at work behind willpower struggles to the mental games we play.

I will admit, either I am deeply in denial or I didn’t find much of this chapter ringing true for me. I am the kind of person who does make choices to slack off, eat cookies, and ignore the piles of clutter… but then I’m also happy enough to own those choices. Yep. I ate that entire chocolate cake. It was awesome, too. Yes, I spent the entire day while the kids were at school napping. Maybe not the best choice for me, OK, but it felt good and I got what I needed from it. Maybe I suffer from inflated self-esteem?

It's funny--and cool--that Sonnet and I are finding different chapters to be eye-opening. Last week was "her week," and this week was mine! This chapter really helped me understand what is behind most of my willpower failures. When I look at Chapter Four of my copy of the book, there's practically more underlined in it than not!

I tend to frame things in terms of "right or wrong." And I try to motivate myself by "doing what's right," but somehow that often doesn't work. The biggest reason for that, according to McGonigal? "If the only thing motivating your self-control is the desire to be a good enough person, you're going to give in whenever you're already feeling good about yourself" (p. 86).

As Sonnet puts it, The theme of this chapter, I would say, is summed up in this quote from the book: “We need to feel like the kind of person who wants to do the right thing.” Wants to, not has to. If you tell yourself that _____ is the right thing to do, you are going to talk yourself out of it. Moralizing is not going to get you there. ______ needs to be an action that helps you meet your goals if it is going to be something you can stick with.

"When it comes to right and wrong," McGonigal points out, "most of us are not striving for moral perfection. We just want to feel good enough--which then gives us permission to do whatever we want" (p. 83, emphasis mine).

Wow--I do that! In the past, I've moralized the idea of having a decluttered house. It seemed like decluttering was a "good" or "right" thing to do. So why didn't I do it? "I can't be good at everything," I told myself. "I do a lot of things well. Keeping a clean house just isn't one of them. And that's okay." In other words, "I don't need to declutter. I'm a good enough person without doing that!"

And really, it is okay to have cluttered areas in my house! It's not a moral failing, though I've certainly attached enough guilt to it through the years! The problem is, I wasn't paying attention to what I really wanted. I've realized that I like living in an uncluttered environment. I was so stuck in the "right vs. wrong" cycle, justifying my "weakness," that I was robbing myself of something I really wanted! Now I'm moving towards what I want--not because it's "the right thing to do," but because it brings me more peace and contentment.

Let's delve more into how we use "good" things to justify willpower failures. Here's Sonnet:

Chapter Four talks about the hazard of moral licensing, where we feel so good about ourselves because of some real or perceived action that we give ourselves permission to behave badly because we’ve ‘earned’ it. There’s the related “halo effect” where we look for any reason to say yes to something we should say no to (It’s organic! It’s on sale! It’s for charity!) and then feel good about saying yes instead of feeling guilty. My mom tells a story from her childhood that is a great example of both these effects. When she was a teen, she decided one summer that she was going to swim every day in order to lose weight. She took the bus to the pool downtown with total devotion, but after weeks of swimming her weight wasn’t budging. What she hadn’t counted on? The bus route had her transferring at a stop right next to a doughnut shop, and she ate a doughnut every day on her trip. She ‘earned’ it because she was being good about her exercise (moral licensing) and because she is a diabetic, it was a healthy choice to keep her glucose up (halo effect.) I love this story, because can’t everyone relate?

When we feel good about ourselves, we tend to make less-than-positive choices. It's like we've already put a checkmark in our "Good" box on our personal report cards, and we don't feel the need to put another checkmark there. The scientific studies that support the "halo effect" and other types of moral licensing are so fascinating to me! Here are some examples:

"People who first remember a time they acted generously give 60 percent less money to a charitable request than people who have not just recalled a past good deed" (p. 84).
"Another study found that merely considering donating money to a charity--without actually handing over any cash--increased people's desire to treat themselves at a mall" (p. 85, emphasis mine).
"In one study, [researchers] reminded successful dieters of how much progress they had made toward their ideal weight. They then offered the dieters a thank-you gift of either an apple or a chocolate bar. Eighty-five percent of the self-congratulating dieters chose the chocolate bar over the apple, compared with only 38 percent of dieters who were not reminded of their progress" (p. 89).
And my personal favorite: "Researchers have found that if you pair a cheeseburger with a green salad, diners estimate that the meal has fewer calories than the same cheeseburger served by itself" (p. 99). That's quite a halo effect!

It's such a crazy trap--we do something good, or even think about doing something good, and then sabotage ourselves by "rewarding" ourselves with something completely counterproductive! Just being aware of this reasoning can really be helpful. But Wednesday we'll share more about the moralizing that goes on in our crazy heads, and practical ways to change that reasoning so that we can succeed in our willpower challenges!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Three

2013-02-06T12:26:00.004-06:00

My friend Sonnet and I are on Week Three of our Willpower Experiment, based on the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. To read the previous posts from this series, click here.

I've been keeping up with my willpower challenge, tackling one area of clutter each weekday. In each of the last two weeks, I missed one day, but then I picked up the habit the next weekday! Here are a couple of my recent successes:

The Plastic Storage Stuff Cabinet in the Kitchen

I really wish I'd remembered to take a "Before" picture of this! I did take a photo (top) of the pile of stuff I dug out of the cabinet before I organized it and threw away much of it. And, as you can see, the area is now nicely-organized, and I can actually find containers with their matching lids!

Beneath the Cabinet, and on the Countertop, in the Master Bathroom

Once again...no "Before" photo. But look at my bathroom countertop and cabinet! Wow. I know what I have and where it is, and I threw away a LOT of old hair products, makeup, and expired medications. This was a two-day project; that kept it from being overwhelming.

Sonnet's recap of Chapter Three is fantastic, so I'll get right to it, and then I'll write a quick wrap-up at the end. Heeeeeeere's Sonnet!

Wow. Last week was so difficult for me to just trudge through, and this week couldn’t be more different – the light is breaking through! At the same time this is a chapter just bursting with information and a whole lot of ground to cover. It became a challenge just to keep up with reading and understanding all of the concepts presented.

Let’s see. I guess the best way to break Chapter Three down would be to explain the theme. Chapter Three makes the analogy of our willpower function being like a muscle in the body. This analogy holds true in many different ways: the willpower ‘muscle’ can be fatigued through overuse, the willpower muscle needs fuel, the willpower muscle can be trained. If we want to be experts at utilizing our own willpower, it is useful to think like athletes, and treat our brain as if it were a muscle.

So that overview barely grazes the surface of this very in-depth and practical chapter, but at least it will help give you some context.

First: I found this chapter / week to be extremely useful. I felt like I was finally having some success. I was able to look back at the previous week and say my obstacles and frustration weren’t about the book really; they were about my situation. My parents (who, God bless them, tend to be critical) were coming to visit. I wasn’t feeling well. I was trying to round up a birthday party for my youngest child. I was PMS-y. All of those things combined to leave me at my weakest self, struggling just to keep my head above water. No one can exercise willpower in that situation, because there just are no resources left. This realization has been good for me. I’m able to look more kindly at myself, to not feel like a failure but like a person who endured a crummy week. Instead of saying in my head, “You couldn’t even write 15 minutes a day, you lazy git,” I find myself saying, “Wow, Sonnet, you made it through all that and survived intact. Way to go!” What a nice change!

So last week my argument was that we couldn’t do all these behaviors that increase our willpower – eating right, sleeping well, meditating, exercise – because if we were able to, we’d already have willpower. A line from this week’s chapter gives me the answer to this dilemma. “Committing to any small, consistent act of self-control… can increase overall willpower.” Small, did you get that word? In fact Dr. McGonigal addresses this directly by talking about a study where participants were asked to do one very small, very unthreatening task every day. Don’t clean out the entire closet, but maybe just look inside it every day. Say ‘yes’ instead of ‘yeah.’ Put one item in the recycle bin every day. These tiny tasks are easy to do, build confidence, and aren’t overwhelming. But just the act of doing them every day trains and strengthens your willpower muscle. It teaches your brain how to pause and check in before acting on impulse with something you want. So here is the answer to my confusion and frustration!

START SMALL.

That’s it, that’s the secret. Really small. Like meditating 5 minutes a day, or writing down every time you walk the dog, or hitting the snooze just once instead of twice. Simple, easy efforts that you know you can do without feeling deprived or discouraged. Then do that act every day and – surprise! – your willpower will increase. You will find like magic that other acts requiring willpower, the big ones like jogging and cleaning the basement and eating kale, will start to come more naturally.

I found this to be true this week. I focused only on meditating, because I could do that. And I did manage it, all week. I also managed to write every day without much trouble, and to my surprise the house is less cluttered, the kitchen is cleaner, the dog has been walked, the laundry has been folded. Okay, I still ate a lot of junk and slept at odd hours, but hey. One step at a time. It really did work for me, when I had the physical resources to do it.

There are so many concepts in this chapter that I want to discuss, but for a blog post this would end up being far too long and I’d lose everyone. So I’ll leave you with some of the ideas just briefly so that you can mull them over yourself before we check in again next week.

“People who use their willpower seem to run out of it… trying to control your temper, stick to a budget, or refuse seconds all tap the same source of strength.” Like a muscle, your willpower only goes so far before it succumbs to fatigue. And it isn’t just your hard challenges that sap your strength. Everyday challenges we all face can really run our willpower muscle down, and we often end up exhausted and powerless by the end of the day.
“If you never seem to have the time and energy for your ‘I Will’ challenge, schedule it for when you have the most strength.” Your willpower resources are depleted through the day. For most people, their reserves are highest in the morning, so doing the thing that is hard for them is easiest then. Trying to go to the gym after work when you are empty and fatigued is setting yourself up for failure. Make a choice to schedule your toughest challenge when you have the most willpower.
Losing the ability to make willpower choices when blood sugar is low is purposefully chosen by evolution. Making long-term plans (i.e. willpower: choosing a greater reward in the future) would be seen by the prehistoric brain as a luxury, only available in times of plenty. If blood glucose is low, it tells the brain food is scarce and times are dangerous, so start taking risks to survive. Those impulse behaviors are the result of thousands of years of development perfecting a survival system… not a personal weakness.

There’s a lot to think about here, but it’s all good. If you’re still on the fence about doing a willpower challenge or reading the book, I’d suggest making this chapter a priority. Personally I feel like I am finally starting to see some real changes in behaviors that have dogged me for a lifetime. It’s surreal and wonderful!

Awesome recap, Sonnet! I only have a few things to add.

I'm glad I'm only focusing on ONE major willpower challenge right now. I have ideas of other challenges I want to tackle once I'm really on top of my clutter. But "if you try to control or change too many things at once, you may exhaust yourself completely" (p. 56). I'm keeping up with my decluttering, even though my schedule has been extra-busy the last two weeks...because I'm not trying to take on ten other willpower challenges at the same time.
In this chapter, McGonigal writes about finding your "I Want" power. Readers are asked to think about what they really want that can motivate them to succeed in their willpower challenges. She writes about someone named Erin who was trying to stop losing her temper when her kids acted up. I relate to that! Erin wanted "To be a better parent" but then she just felt guilty for not being a good enough parent! "Erin realized that an even bigger motivation was the desire to enjoy being a parent" (p. 75). Next time I'm tempted to yell at my kids, I want to think about how I'll enjoy parenting if I communicate kindly with my kids instead of acting like we're enemies! Maybe that will help motivate me.
Harnessing my "I Want" power has been motivational for me in keeping up with my decluttering. I think about how much I enjoy being in my house when I'm not surrounded by clutter spots. I think about how good I feel when I complete one of my daily tasks. And I think about how wonderful it will be when we are ready to sell this house (if we ever decide to!), not to have to frantically declutter in a matter of weeks to get the house ready to show to buyers. I used to think, "I really should declutter." Now I want to declutter because it benefits me in so many ways!

This book is so powerful...and the next chapter is one of my favorites. Here's the title, just to pique your curiosity:

"License to Sin: Why Being Good Gives Us Permission to Be Bad"

Chapter Four was so eye-opening for me the first time I read it, and I'm looking forward to reviewing it again! See you next week for that discussion!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week Two

2013-01-28T12:20:00.002-06:00

Sonnet and I are continuing our Willpower Experiment, as we read The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, PhD. To read my initial review of the book, click here. Week One's blog post is here.

I'm continuing to take care of one clutter area (usually a small one) per weekday. I missed one day last week, an exceptionally busy day. That's okay! I proved my commitment by finding time to tackle a small area the next day. Remember my junk drawer?

Well, that was one of my projects this week. Here's the new and improved junk drawer:

Much better, right?

Chapter Two is called "The Willpower Instinct," and it goes into the biological basis of self-control. "Heart rate variability" is the amount your heart rate naturally goes up and down throughout the day. It is a GOOD thing. People with greater heart rate variability statistically have higher self-control and are less likely to give in to willpower challenges.

McGonigal details several ways to increase your heart rate variability, which "sets you up" to be more successful at building self-control! You don't have to focus on all these at once! That can be overwhelming (as Sonnet expresses below.) Choose one thing at a time to work on. Here are some tips you can choose from to help you increase heart rate variability and self-control:

Slow your breathing to four to six breaths per minute. I tried this for five minutes while we were doing school this morning--and then continued past five minutes because it was working so well! I was more patient with Zoodle and Chickie. I was able to discipline Zoodle by sending him to his room, and help Chickie with her least-favorite subject (math), all without raising my voice or losing my temper. I like this exercise because I can do it even when I'm doing other things--I don't have to focus as much as I would during traditional meditation. And "it takes only one to two minutes of breathing at this pace to boost your willpower reserve; it's something you can do whenever you face a willpower challenge" (p. 41). So whether your challenge is staying patient with your kids or staying away from ice cream, you can try this easy technique.
Exercise! Of course, regular exercise is a great thing in many ways. But you can boost your mood and your willpower just by going outside and being slightly active (like walking) for five minutes. Five minutes! I've found this works so well for me. I've been more willing to go outside with my kids lately, hanging out with them while they ride bikes. (Zoodle is still mastering bike-riding, so I'm pretty active while I'm out there, since I'm helping him.) It improves my mood, which makes me more likely to say "yes" to decluttering.
Sleep. Did you know Americans get, on average, two hours less sleep a night than they did in 1960? Wow!! I know on days (like today) when I'm extra-tired, being self-controlled feels extra-hard. I usually sleep a lot, but we all have rough nights. McGonigal explains that if it's too hard for you to consistently get a good night's sleep, you can "catch up" with one good night, or "stock up" by getting extra sleep in advance of times you know you'll be sleep-deprived. Or you can take short, ten-minute naps to recharge your body. There are studies showing all of these techniques to be effective.

There are a couple of other things I want to share from this chapter.

"So often we believe that stress is the only way to get things done, and we even look for ways to increase stress--such as waiting until the last minute, or criticizing ourselves for being lazy or out of control--to motivate ourselves. Or we use stress to try to motivate others, turning up the heat at work or coming down hard at home. This may seem to work in the short term, but in the long term, nothing drains willpower faster than stress" (p. 51). This was an eye-opener for me, because I tend to try to motivate my kids through stress. I get frustrated and tense. I raise my voice and pressure them to do what they're supposed to do. I'm trying to find better ways to motivate them, because I know that yelling really doesn't work! They may (eventually) obey me, but it isn't teaching them the internal motivation they need to do the right thing when I'm not there.
"Just like living under chronic stress is unhealthy, trying to control every aspect of your thoughts, emotions, and behavior is a toxic strategy. It's too big a burden for your biology.... Even as you strengthen self-control, you cannot control everything you think, feel, say, and do. You will have to choose your willpower battles wisely" (p. 49). This is freeing to me. I can easily feel guilty that I don't have perfect willpower. It's good to be reminded that it's actually unhealthy to be a control freak!

Now, here is Sonnet's input on Chapter 2:

I’ll admit it, this week was really difficult for me. Maybe it’s because we had family visiting, and my schedule was out of sync. Maybe it was just starting new techniques. I am not sure, but I really belly flopped this week with the willpower stuff. And the very premise of this entire chapter leaves me shaking my head – it seems so backwards to me. We’re only two chapters in, and I feel like I’m starting to sink!

In this chapter Dr. McGonigal talks mainly about situations where our willpower reserves will be depleted, and we’ll be more likely to give in. Some years ago in therapy for compulsive behavior I remember being taught to think of these situations as “HALT” triggers: are you Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired? If so, “halt” (stop.) Your compulsion is about those needs, not about your craving at all. Dr. McGonigal speaks about the exact same principals here, backing them up with the science behind willpower and the physiological responses to the choices we make.

Physical or emotional stressors – fatigue, hunger, anxiety, etc – these kinds of things all put us in a less than ideal state for coping. That state flips chemical switches in our brain that tell us that things aren’t going well, so go for the fight-or-flight options - which are impulsive. It is actually, on a physical level, harder to make good willpower decisions if you tired or hungry or upset about something. In one way everyone recognizes the truth of this. You’ve been doing great with that new diet until you break up with your boyfriend and then the ice cream and chocolate come out, no holds barred. You stick to a tight daily budget until your boss makes you work late and then you’re too tired to care and just buy dinner on the way home. But knowing that it’s not some ephemeral sort of ‘weakness’ that causes these lapses, but real changes in how the brain functions in order to protect us, is powerful. I do feel much better about it now!

So the idea is, then, to minimize these stressors on your life. In doing so you avoid shifting your brain into survival / impulse mode, and gain more willpower and control. Eat regularly, and eat nourishing foods. Sleep enough. Use the daily meditation breath practice to help let go of tension. Exercise, exercise, exercise. If we take care of our physical and emotional health, we’ll be able to make good choices.

And this is where it breaks down for me. In order to gain more willpower and be able to do the healthy things that don’t come easily to me, I need to exercise daily, stop eating junk food, go to bed early every night, and meditate. Well, obviously – if I could DO those things, I would HAVE willpower! It’s a spiral you can’t get out of. I have read and reread this chapter and I can’t figure out how someone such as myself (who struggles in basically all areas with willpower) is supposed to simply start just knowing how to eat better, exercise more, and sleep more. There are no suggestions as to how to do this either, except for a sentences stating reasons that these actions are good for me (which I already knew, of course.) I’m also struggling with the author’s suggestion to take a 5 minute ‘green willpower fill-up’ break every day to get outside and enjoy nature. It has been 40 below zero and we haven’t had anything green outside in months! Going outside for 5 minutes gets you frostbite and is not exactly relaxing. So, no go on that assignment either.

I guess I’m stuck with just the deep breathing and meditation suggested in chapter one. I’m not giving up on the book or the program, so I’ll continue to do that part and just do my best with everything else. Maybe future chapters will help me find my way to more practical willpower solutions.

That does sound like a frustrating week, Sonnet! I do think other chapters will help you with some of this. I hope next week is more encouraging to you--and when the sun is out and your area of the world has gotten warmer again, I bet that will help too.

I'll end with this quote, which sums up the chapter nicely:

"Focus meditation...is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve the biological basis of willpower. It not only trains the brain, but also increases heart rate variability. Anything else that you do to reduce stress and take care of your health--exercise, get a good night's sleep, eat better, spend quality time with friends and family, participate in a religious or spiritual practice--will improve your body's willpower reserve" (p. 39).

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

The Willpower Experiment: Week One

2013-01-21T20:48:00.003-06:00

Last week I posted about the book I read for BlogHer Book Club, The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, PhD (Penguin, 2012). I invited C. Beth Blog readers to get a copy of the book and read it with me. I'm thrilled that my cyber-friend Sonnet has agreed to join me. Hi, Sonnet! (Everybody wave hello!) And for those of you who didn't get the book, no problem. Our posts will give you some useful tips. This is a very practical book!

I'm going to let Sonnet share her recap of Chapter One and her experiences from this week, and then I'll wrap up with my own input. Here we go!

Beth posted on Facebook that she was looking for people to read a book about Willpower with her. Willpower, I thought. Now THAT is something I could use!

According to the author of the book, Kelly McGonigal PhD, this is the reaction everyone has when they hear she’s teaching or writing about willpower. Apparently everyone thinks they lack it somehow. But let me be brutally honest with you about my life.

I’m the oldest child, and if you believe in birth order you know that the oldest child should be the one who has their life all together. However, it’s my brother and sister who have lovely jobs and lovely savings accounts to go with them. My sister never leaves the house without every strand of hair and molecule of makeup in model-perfect order; and my brother – I kid you not – moves his couches so he can vacuum underneath them. Every day. Somehow I have completely missed out on this gene, and I lack what my mother calls “gumption.” I am fat, dowdy, have never made a financial success of any career, don’t even bother opening the overdue bills before I throw them out (or stack them up in piles on the kitchen table,) repeatedly start projects I never finish, and have a whole ROOM of the house you can’t even go in it’s so cluttered. Can anyone else relate to this mess? So yes, more willpower. That would be excellent, thank you.

I excitedly read through the preface of the book, but then began to feel uncomfortable. This book wasn’t just going to magically grant me more willpower, it was asking me to choose a specific area to work on. Yikes. That was so overwhelming and frightening to me, I almost gave up right there. I’m going to have to change. I pictured my future self after reading this book: eating nothing but high fiber vegetables and spending all my free time steaming the carpets and organizing our financial portfolio. It was terrifying, and that’s not the life I want. That’s not me.

So I decided to start small, and choose something I actually enjoy doing but tend to put off. My very modest goal: Write every day for at least 15 minutes. Don’t get distracted by Facebook. No goofing off, no deciding today would be a great day to take the kids sledding or wash the dog or learn to bake popovers instead. It’s just 15 minutes of focus, it’s work I like doing, and that’s not so scary. Okay. I can do this.

As I got into the meat and potatoes of the first chapter – and there is a LOT of deep stuff to think about in here, despite it being an easy read – I considered that maybe I was letting myself off too easy. Dr. McGonigal was asking questions like, “What makes [your challenge] so difficult?” and that was tough for me to answer with such an easy task. I thought about all those other willpower challenges I had run away from. Losing weight, going to bed before midnight, paying bills on time. Chapter One also talks quite a bit about being self-aware and paying attention to the circumstances and feelings that lead up to a willpower choice. With something as minor as 15 minutes of work, I don’t know how many choices I’m actually making, but we’ll see!

McGonigal went through a lot of the science behind impulses and willpower, and how those two governing areas of the brain developed. Particularly helpful for me in this section was making peace with the impulsive part of the brain; to realize that it is still there for a reason. Wanting to dive into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s at midnight isn’t bad, it’s an instinct that was honed for thousands of years to protect us. It is still there to provide us with emotional health and protect us from depression.

Chapter 1 ended with instructions on daily meditation and some scientific background as to why this practice is so effective for ‘willpower training.’ If you have ever meditated, say during shavasana at the end of your yoga class, you know that one of the core ideas is to focus on the breath. Inhale, exhale. When the mind wanders, you gently bring it back to the breath. This practice helps your brain learn the skills that can also be applied to willpower. When your willpower focus wanders, you don’t castigate yourself or give up. You just gently bring yourself back to the goal. Meditation is something I have been doing already for years, so (phew!) I got this first exercise down. So far, so good.

I’m still anxious about the possibility of failing. On the other hand, I’m three days in, have been more regular about both my writing and my meditation, and that feels really good! Baby steps.

Awesome, Sonnet--thank you for the great overview!

As I shared in my original post, I decided that my willpower challenge is reducing the clutter in my house.

McGonigal stresses the importance of figuring out why you lose control. Statistically, "people who think they have the most willpower areactually the most likely to lose control when tempted.... They fail to predict when, where, and why they will give in. They expose themselves to more temptation..." (page 4). She encourages each reader to examine what makes their willpower challenge so difficult.

So why do I pass by clutter spots...over and over...instead of taking care of them? I hesitate to tackle clutter because I find it boring. I avoid tasks that are boring. But you know what? In trying to avoid boredom, I actually add stress (which is sort of opposite of boredom!) to my life. And it's not a good trade-off!

I've been tackling one clutter spot--usually a small one--every weekday. And you know what? I am more at peace. Choosing to do these "boring" activities (like cleaning the books off my bedside table) is proving to be so rewarding. I love looking at a formerly-cluttered spot and seeing it nicely-organized. I'm realizing that sometimes I have to do some boring things to find more peace.

As for the main technique Chapter One suggests--meditation--I'm not as consistent with it as the author suggests. However, I'd already started doing some deep breathing recently, thanks to another book I've been reading. Reading this book has reminded me to get back to that breathing. I don't do it for five minutes at a time (as suggested), and honestly I can't tell if it's helping at all with my clutter willpower challenge. But it does bring me more peace, so no matter what it's worth it.

One thing I have realized is that "meditation" doesn't have to be weird. Really, it's just breathing deeply and focusing on that breathing. It's that simple. And I even find I can pray when I'm doing my breathing. For instance, I like to invite the Holy Spirit in on my inhales, and release my worries to Him on my exhales.

If you'd like to join us this week, it's easy.

Think about your willpower challenge, and why you say "yes" when you should say "no," or vice-versa. Just being aware may help you resist impulses later.
And take a few minutes to focus on your breathing...slowly in and slowly out.

There you go--your first two willpower exercises! See you next week.

I was given a complimentary copy of this book and paid for my initial review; however, this in-depth series is uncompensated.

Honey instead of vinegar

2013-01-18T14:09:00.001-06:00

You've probably heard that phrase, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." I had a chance to test it out yesterday.

The kids and I walked a couple of blocks to a neighbor's house so they could all ride bikes. In our neighborhood, the kids generally ride in the street, but my friend and I aren't ready to let our kids do that without us--they just aren't yet aware enough of traffic. So we stood outside, watching them and shouting out frequent reminders. ("WATCH FOR CARS!!!")

After the kids had been riding awhile, their energy was waning. A couple of them were hanging out on the sidewalk, and a couple others were on the grass.

Suddenly, a car turned onto the street and zoomed past. The speed limit is 30 miles per hour, and I bet the driver was going at least 45.

"That makes me so mad!" I said to my friend. I saw the driver park several houses down. "I kind of want to give her a piece of my mind!" Even though our kids were out of the way, they could just as well have still been playing in the street.

I'm not normally a very confrontational person, but when drivers are unsafe in residential areas, I take it personally. So I started walking toward the house where the car was parking. It took a minute to get there, which gave me time to cool down. And I decided if I wanted this neighbor to listen to me, I should treat her in a neighborly way.

"Excuse me," I called as I approached. I had a smile on my face and used a polite tone of voice. "I'm not sure if you realized how fast you were going," I said. "Honestly, it kind of freaked us out, because our kids are playing outside."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the woman replied.

"Maybe you can just keep that in mind next time," I said, still in a friendly tone.

She was smiling, in an embarrassed sort of way. She wasn't defensive or angry. "Okay," she replied.

I don't know if our little conversation made a difference or not. At the very least, I bet it was more effective than if I had come to her screaming and cursing. (Mommy Rage can be more potent than Road Rage!)

Let's hope this is one time that a little "honey" worked!

Fill-in-the-blank thank you notes

2013-01-17T09:32:00.005-06:00

I am having both my kids do thank you notes for Christmas this year. (Chickie is doing them for her birthday too.)

Chickie can write her own thank you notes, but that would be a lot of writing to expect Zoodle to do. I've seen fill-in-the-blank thank you notes for small children before, so I made some for him. He wanted to be able to attach them inside real thank you cards. These will fit inside a small card, if you cut them out (including cutting the side margins.) Hope these help others too!

Fill-in-the-blank thank you notes by Beth Norris Anderson

Prime Numbers Week!

2013-01-16T15:00:00.001-06:00

Chickie turned 7 on Monday, and yesterday The Engineer and I celebrated 13 years of marriage! I guess that means it's Prime Numbers Week in our house! (If the kids were a little older, maybe I'd even incorporate that into our homeschool curriculum....)

The Engineer is awesome. He's kind and holds firmly to his beliefs. He is a man of integrity. He works really hard and he's really smart. And call me crazy, but I love the flecks of gray in his beard! He definitely makes "growing older" look good. He's my guy, and I love partnering with him in this life.

Photo by Whitney Runyan Photography.

And with this beautiful cross pendant and gorgeous roses, he did good this year! (Much better than I. I didn't even manage to get him a card, and I ordered him a gift that won't be here for weeks! Oops.)

What a prime family I have! I'm blessed beyond measure.

Seven

2013-01-14T05:00:00.000-06:00

Chickie is seven years old today.

Seven.

Somehow that's a really big milestone to me. I remember so much starting at age seven. Sure, I remember snippets of those years when I was six and five and even four and maybe three...but at age seven the memories get sharper and more frequent.

Chickie is seven, and she's becoming less of a little girl and more of a big girl. It's both sweet and scary, my first baby growing up.

At age seven, Chickie loves...

...science.

Chickie and her new microscope from Uncle Becki and Uncle Donal

...climbing trees.

...old cartoons.

...pink and other pretty colors.

...her new camera from Uncle Sean.

I downloaded photos to the computer the other day. In her first 19 days of camera ownership, she took over 500 pictures.

...reading.

Mommy is SO happy about this! In this photo, she's reading to her great-grandma Kitty.

...riding her bike.

...drawing and using her imagination.

Click to read the whole thing. It's worth it.

...tying her shoes.

Well, okay, she doesn't really LOVE tying her shoes, but she's sure gotten good at it quickly.

And what do I love? I love my girl.

From the tips of her short toes to the top of her tender little scalp. From one marker-stained hand to the other. From her sparkling hazel eyes to her gap-toothed mouth to her long, skinny legs.

Boy, do I love that seven-year-old girl.

The Willpower Instinct (a lifechanging book)

2013-01-10T12:05:00.000-06:00

I have a junk drawer. It's full of pens and pencils and notepads and stamps and glue and coupons and lots more. You probably have one too.

Problem is, my junk drawer isn't my only "clutter spot." There's my end table in my room, piled with books. There's that one corner of my kitchen counter...and that other corner...and that third one. There's the mail that piles up on the countertop bar. Need I go on?

I'm sick of my clutter.

So when I started reading The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., I decided that reducing clutter is my willpower challenge. Not eliminating clutter, but reducing it, and keeping it at a manageable level.

And this book makes me believe I can actually do it. Not because it's full of empty optimism. But because it's crammed with practical techniques that help the reader find his or her willpower, and increase it.

There are simple tips in the book. (One example: Stress leads to willpower failures. So McGonigal clearly lays out what works to relieve stress, and what doesn't. Walking outside for five minutes works. Playing a game on my phone doesn't.) There are counter-intuitive tips. (For instance, I learned that if I'm craving something--like more Facebook time in lieu of decluttering time--I can "surf the urge." If I pay attention to the urge--instead of trying to ignore it--it will lose much of its power and eventually subside.)

And all these tips are backed up with scientific study after scientific study. (Really, really interesting stuff, not dry, journal-eque recaps.) Who knew so many scientists had studied willpower and self-control?!

It's hard for me to write this review because I'm so enthusiastic about the book that I am overwhelmed and know I can't cover it all! Also, the book is meant to be read slowly. (The author suggests one chapter per week; it's a 10-chapter book.) But I read the whole book in about a week and a half, so I felt like I wasn't able to put everything into practice immediately.

So I'm going to start a blog series here. (I suppose this is another willpower challenge!) I'll be re-reading this book, one chapter every week. I'll put that chapter into practice, and then I'll blog about it. I'll include plenty of the practical tips I'm learning.

Would anyone like to join me? The book is about $16 (hardcover) or $13 (Kindle) on Amazon. Click here to check it out. It has great reviews. I plan to do my first blog post (covering Chapter 1) one week from today, but if anyone wants to join me on this adventure, I can put it off a bit so you have time to get the book. Just comment here or email me at cbethblog@gmail.com.

And if you're thinking, "Well, I might want to, BUT..." then let me share a few things with you that I learned from the book:

If you think you'll have more time (or more of a book budget) "later" you may be deceiving yourself. We all tend to think we'll have more time, money, and, yes, willpower, in the future. But you'll always have responsibilities, including unexpected ones. You'll probably always be on a budget. If you are waiting for some "better time" to do something, you may never get it done! But you can invest in your future self now!
One of the big willpower challenges many of us have is how we spend our money. With the tips in this book, I bet you can find a way to recoup the $13-$16 the book cost (and probably a lot more than that.)
Many of us have religious beliefs that affect the way we live our lives, and we can be cynical about self-help books. We might think, "I can pray my way through my willpower challenges!" Rest assured, this book is not anti-religion. In fact, the author speaks positively about prayer and about faith as a motivation. I am finding that many of the suggestions are easily integrated with my faith. For instance, the book talks about how counterproductive guilt and self-criticism are. That goes right along with my beliefs about God's grace and forgiveness.
You may be afraid that you will get the book and it will sit on your shelf, unread. (I've got books like that!) But studies show that if you are tackling a willpower challenge with others in your community (including your online community!) then you are far more likely to succeed. We'll figure out a way to stay in touch as we read this together, so that we can hold each other accountable!

I hope someone will join me! If not, I'm still going to do the blog series myself. This is just such good stuff!

To check out The Willpower Instinct on Amazon, click here.

I'm reading this book as part of BlogHer Book Club. I'll be participating in discussions on their site. To check out those discussions (and to participate, even if you aren't reading the book), click here.

One more thing: I'm already finding more willpower. When we got home from vacation on Monday afternoon, I unpacked everything...that day. That's a big deal for this clutter-prone girl!

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book and am receiving compensation for this review. All opinions are my own.

I apologize in advance...

2012-12-17T20:10:00.000-06:00

...if you're hungry right now. Or on a diet.

I've discovered a couple of new recipes that you really should try. People will want to be your friend if you make this stuff for them.

A-Little-Over-One-Hour Dinner Rolls

These claim to be a one-hour recipe, but honestly they do take a little bit longer. You've got 5 minutes of kneading (in your mixer, if you have one), 40 minutes total of rise time, and 13-15 minutes of cook time. I cook a lot, but I can't mix the dough AND form it in the remaining 0 to 2 minutes. But, whether one hour or 75 minutes, these are worth every second you put into them.

A note: I have been using regular yeast (instead of the fast-acting stuff) since that's what I have. I allow a little extra time for the yeast to proof and also increase the first rise time. Also, I tend to make these earlier in the day and let them rise for the second time (formed and in the pan) in the fridge. They take a few minutes longer to cook, but that way I'm not scrambling at dinner time. And I know, I know...my modifications totally defeat the "one hour" purpose of this recipe. But, hey, it works for me.

Click on the photo for the recipe!

Once you've gorged yourself on dinner rolls, it's time for dessert, right? (Carb-lover here....)

Carmelitas

So make a batch of these Carmelitas...bar cookies full of oats, butter, caramel, chocolate, butter, brown sugar, and butter...and get ready to melt in a blissful, buttery carb coma.

The recipe-writer points out that she reduces the butter when she makes these, and they turn out well, though more crumbly. I didn't reduce the butter, and they were (of course) fantastic.) In the future, I may reduce the butter for the topping, but I'd want to keep the crust as-is since it holds its shape well that way. Actually...I'll probably just use all the butter and try to limit how often I make them!

Again, click on the photo for the recipe, and...enjoy!

I'm going to save you .025 seconds. You're welcome.

2012-12-16T12:57:00.003-06:00

I kinda hate word verification. And yet...it's on my blog because it eliminates most spam. (Blogger's spam filters work quite well, but those spam comments still all get emailed to me, individually. And they were out of control until I re-instituted word verification.)

But...drumroll, please...recently I discovered something. When using Blogger's word verification, which currently consists of a string of numbers and a string of letters, like so...

...you don't have to put a space between the numbers and the letters. In the above example, you could type "11819folsire" and it works. You don't have to type "11819 folsire." Get rid of that needless space!

I just saved you .025 seconds, every time you use Blogger's word verification. Use this tip consistently, and by the end of 2013 you may save up enough extra time to take a nice, deep breath.

And don't we all need that during the holidays?

Homeschooling...a very simple tip for staying sane

2012-12-05T09:15:00.003-06:00

We are enjoying homeschooling, but I'm definitely not an expert. Some days I feel like I'm just flying by the seat of my pants! But there's something we started from Day One that has really helped me.

We have a "Daily Schedule."

You'll notice that it's not an overly-scheduled schedule! I'm not the type of mom who wants to say, "From 8 to 8:05 I will pour cereal in the breakfast bowls" or "From 10 to 10:10 we will do a math worksheet." Even the "15 minutes" of journaling is flexible.

But having a general routine to help us get started every day has been so helpful! At breakfast, our "Devotions" are built around my kids' AWANA books. (AWANA is a Christian club that focuses a lot on Scripture memorization.)

Next we do the Pledge of Allegiance (as well as pledges to the Christian flag and our state flag), and it's time for Chickie to do her daily journal (which is a combination of writing and drawing.) The beauty of daily journal time is that it also gives me the chance to do any last-minute curriculum plans!

Chickie checks the weather, and uses a little chart we have to mark what the day's weather is. We use our calendar to talk about the day of the week and month, and then we go over our weekly character trait.

By that time, it's natural to go right into school work. I love having this morning routine; I think it helps us both to get focused so that we can get down to the business of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic! And the day is usually ended by Chickie having about 20 minutes of independent reading time, a great time for her to pursue her own budding interests.

I'm far from being a homeschool expert, but it's nice to be able to share one thing that's working for us!

A sad phase indeed

2012-12-02T20:17:00.003-06:00

Zoodle is growing up.

Silly boy.

(Don't worry. I still steal plenty of kisses. And he laughs when I do it.)