The Science of Self-Control and Long-Term Improvement

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My first book, Called to Greatness, will be out at the start of the new year! Here’s an excerpt from the book on self-control… timely for me, if no one else, for the holiday season.

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Here’s an example most of us are familiar with. We know intuitively that self-control takes a degree of mental strength. You might habitually reach for the ice cream at the end of a long day and, before you realize it, you’ve eaten a whole pint. This behavior is not a sign that something is wrong with you, but that your ability to engage in self-control is depleted.

Like a muscle, self-control is built through practice. And, like a muscle, self-control is drained as it is used. Some of our most famous leaders counteract that exhaustion by adjusting how much self-control they must use for regular tasks, like getting dressed or choosing meals. For example, Steve Jobs’ famous turtleneck sweater was an attempt to minimize how much effort he had to spend choosing what to wear. Little bouts of using self-control add up quickly, but we can mitigate that risk by putting routine choices on autopilot.

Self-control became a popular topic in psychology since the release of the book The Marshmallow Test.7 Written by psychologist Walter Mischel, the book highlights the outcomes associated with children who are able to control themselves in the face of temptation and those who give in (to see for yourself, type in “marshmallow test” on YouTube). 

In this now-famous line of research, Dr. Mischel and his team gather young kids and a research assistant in a room with an enticing treat on the center of a table—marshmallows. The research assistant tells the kids she must leave the room for a few minutes. While she is out of the room, she tells the kids they can eat a marshmallow right away, or not eat a marshmallow and be rewarded with a second marshmallow when she returns. She then leaves the room. 

What unfolds after the researcher exits is equal parts adorable, genius, and fascinating. Only a few kids rush to get a marshmallow. Often, these were kids living in tough circumstances where items, including food, were scarce or taken away from them. 

The kids who resisted eating a marshmallow employed a host of distraction techniques, from picking up a marshmallow and playing with it to hiding it under the table and everything in between. When the researcher returns their smiles are a mile wide as they may eat not just one, but two, marshmallows. 

The researchers then followed these kids for some time, tracking a host of outcomes from academic performance to levels of stress and obesity. The data consistently reflect one finding: the kids who controlled themselves long enough to wait for a second marshmallow did better on all measures than their less-patient counterparts. So, what is it about waiting for a second marshmallow that ends up mattering over the long term? The answer has important implications for developing our mental strength. 

Underpinning this ability to wait is self-control and delayed gratification. Self-control is what allows these young children to wait for an outcome that they really want and that is in their control, and to use skills to help them reach their objective. Though each child is enticed by the marshmallow, self-control allows them to stay focused on what they really want—a second marshmallow—and to behave accordingly, even if it means climbing under the table. And what motivates this self-control is delayed gratification or the knowledge that waiting just a little while will produce better outcomes than plunging ahead straight away. 

These two traits are inextricably linked. We exercise self-control in service of a larger reward. In the case of mental strength, exercising self-control shows up in avoiding distractions along the path of sustainable success. Those distractions might be the temptation to quit a task that is not going well, go down alternative paths, or cave into a persistent feeling that our time might be better spent elsewhere. Self-control and delayed gratification allow us to override those distractions and stay focused on our end goal and the best way to get there. 

When you’re ready, there are a couple of ways I can help you:

Book a Call with Momentum Labs

If you’re looking for 1:1 coaching, you can work with a mindset coach in my practice. Book a time here.

Sign Up to Preorder My Book

My first book will be out this fall! You can sign up to receive notice of the release here.