Clenching your Fist to bullet-proof your self-control

What a journey it has been so far Fabulous Traveler!

We’re halfway done with this journey, which means it’s time to review the things we’ve learned together.

We’ve established 3 mechanisms to help you confront the barriers of the mind:

1. Your daily Performance statement: Through constant repetition and visualization, you can prepare yourself to call upon your self-discipline in critical moments. Your performance statement acts as a nudge coming in at the right time to convince you to stick to your good habits.

2.  Focusing on Mind Weeds: In the exercise journey, we learned how to start focusing on our mind weeds, how to recognize them, and that mind weeds are opportunities for you to evolve and to grow your self-discipline. Don’t hate them, embrace them.

3. The Commitment Device: By committing in advance and using Ulysses contracts, you’ll find yourself in positions where the only available choice is to perform the habit you’ve committed to accomplishing.

And today we’ll learn about...

4. A mechanism to help you resist temptation when you are most at danger.

The Journey So Far

We’ve learned a lot together in this journey. Maybe you’ve noticed the challenges have been getting harder and the commitments longer. That’s because we know you’re really determined, seeing as you’ve made it this far.

At this point in your journey, you’re ready for the world-class behavior change techniques, the one's beginners wouldn’t be able to stick with. While you’re clearly ready for some more advanced learning, it’s important we don’t lose the foundations we’ve built.

I’d like to ask you to take a minute to reflect on the journey so far. This is a very important step and will help to solidify what you’ve been built so far.

Think about each of your habits and how your relationship with each has evolved. Chances are, there were a few habits you really struggled with, and that’s great.

The harder something is to learn, the better it sticks. Setbacks are a natural part of the process, so be grateful for the learning opportunities they present.

But not all people are the same, and not all habits are created equal. You’ve probably dropped some of the habits you’ve picked up and also hopefully added a few of your own. This is ok, and we encourage you to make this journey your own.

We only ask that you fully experiment with each new habit before you decide to stop doing it. This is why we have multi-day challenges after introducing each new habit.

You might not notice the benefits of a habit until you’ve been performing it for a few weeks. Other times, you might not realize the benefits of a habit until you stop doing it.

I used to think meditation just “wasn’t for me”. But after a 10-day meditation retreat, I felt so great I knew it was a habit I needed.

If you’ve only tried meditating for a few days in a row and then quit because it wasn’t helping, you might be missing out on a huge opportunity to grow.

In his book, “The First 20 Hours”, Josh Koshman suggests a great method of trialing new skills: Before you start meditating, painting, or learning a new language, commit to spending at least 20 hours on it before you decide to stop.

If you’ve been a Fab for a while, maybe you’ve noticed we’re reviewing a few habits from older journeys. We’re doing this because we want to make sure you’ve tested out these habits long enough, and also to remind you what their purpose is and to show you a bit more of the science behind them.

A New Self-Defense Device against Temptation

At the Center for Advanced Hindsight, while researching self-control, we reviewed different ways to boost self-discipline in the face of obstacles.

While facing a self-control dilemma, such as whether to grab a free cookie, have you ever noticed your jaw or maybe your fist clenching?

That’s because the body mirrors the mind. When the brain is combating a temptation, the body tightens in response.

In one study from the University of Chicago, participants who were instructed to tighten their muscles while trying to exert self-control demonstrated greater ability to withstand pain, consume an unpleasant medicine, or to refuse tempting foods.

As the study shows, it turns out the body and the mind respond to each other, it’s a two-way street. So if you clench your fist, your brain will prime itself to handle a mental dilemma.

Remember the meditation session I described in the previous letter? Each time I felt like quitting, I clenched my fist and said to myself “Concentrate!” and found new strength.

What’s great about this scientific finding is that it’s both simple, and 100% practical right away. But before you start using this technique, remember that the timing is important.

Clench your fist as soon as you are tempted by something but before it has a chance to seduce you.

"Firm muscles can firm willpower and increase self-control…. Put simply, steely muscles can lead to a steely resolve," says a study recently published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Another effective technique you can use when you’re in the heat of the moment is self-talk. The body listens to the mind, and the clearer the message, the better it can respond. This is why people often talk to themselves when they are stressed or nervous.

In a study on self-talk during tennis matches, players using instructional self-talk trended towards winning the next point.

Professional singers use this tool to fight stage fright before a performance. When they feel fear creeping up on them, they say to themselves “STOP!” and it silences all negative thoughts.

This works because it’s a physical reminder to focus.

In Shirlee Emmons’ Power Performance for Singers: Transcending the Barriers, one soprano trained herself to stop negative thoughts by combining the word “Stop!” with a clenched fist. The clenched fist helped her resist the temptation to listen to her fears.

After practicing this many times, she got to the point where she could just clench her fist and the negative thoughts would stop.

Remember, it’s important to clench your fist at the right time. At the moment of choice, when you're deciding between the brownie and the apple.

What we need to do now is to create the fist clenching ritual so that you can invoke it whenever you’re on the verge of being seduced.

It’s essential that you practice this ritual every morning for the next few weeks so that you don’t risk forgetting about it when the moment of need arises.

For this reason, we’re going to make it a part of your daily mental fitness program.

This Week’s Plan

One Time Action

Create your Emergency Self-Discipline ritual.

This is a ritual you will perform whenever a bad decision tries to seduce you or negative thoughts swarm your mind.

Here’s the standard Emergency Self-Discipline Ritual, but feel free to adapt it for yourself:

• Say “Stop!”, “Concentrate!”, or “Focus!” to yourself depending on what the ritual is used for
• Clench your Fists, the harder the better. The greater the physical stimuli, the bigger the mental response

When you clench your fist, visualize the power and energy it provides coursing through you, it will make it more effective. Also, make sure you always follow through.

After a while, your mind will associate the fist clenching with success, and then expect to succeed after you clench. But if you use this tool but fail to avoid the temptation, it will become less effective the next time. For me, sometimes just the fear of losing this tool forces me to follow through.

This Week’s Goal:

For the next few days, after waking up in the morning and completing the Get Inspired habit (where you repeat your performance statement and visualize yourself succeeding with it), practice the Emergency Self-Discipline Ritual. Can you commit to doing this Fabulous Traveler, and continuing for at least 20 hours?

You’ll do this in the morning to prime yourself to use it later during the day, as well as to practice the ritual so you know it’ll work. Think of this habit as a martial arts training: you’re training your mind to respond to negative thoughts and temptations with a memorized and well-practiced attack. You’re going to face the temptation and order it to stop, meanwhile, you’ll be clenching your fist for some extra strength.

What are we doing?

We’re creating a ritual that you can call upon when temptation seems to have vanquished all other mechanisms you’ve put into place. This is the Emergency Ritual, something to evoke, like a guardian angel, when you feel like you’re on the verge of failing. It’s your plan B when all other behavior change techniques have failed.

It’s important to practice this skill until it becomes valuable. If you don’t practice, it won’t evolve into a tool you can call upon. Remember the rule of 20 hours? Commit to practicing this ritual for at least 20 hours, which means you need to practice it for several weeks until it becomes a part of you: an Emergency Button, programmed into your body, that you can call upon whenever you feel the need.

Good luck this week. I'll talk to you soon Fabulous Traveler.