The Strange Way Being "Good" Hurts Your Willpower-Nir&Far

Hi, I'm Nir Eyal and this is the near and Far Podcast. This podcast is about business, behavior and the brain. On this show, I do a few things. I read quick articles I've written about topics shaping your behavior. I interview authors of books I enjoy, and from time to time I devote episodes to answering your questions. If you want to ask me a question, visit the podcast page on itunes, go to Ratings and Reviews and ask me a question. By leaving a review, I promise to read it and possibly include your question of future episodes. So please ask me anything now. Enjoy the episode and for more, you can always Visit me@nearandfar.com.

The Strange Way Being good hurts your willpower this guest post is by Paulette Verhack I learned how to respect authority from my father at the top of a huge water slide at a theme park. He put me, my siblings, and cousins in a huge round raft, then started to get in himself. No sir, that's too many, said the attendant. My father simply replied, hup. Too late, then jumped in and shoved off. We caught air in the bumps, making the ride much more wild than it would have been if we followed the rules. Dodging the regulations of anyone with a whistle or a name tag became my favorite game. I voted homework in the sixth grade, and when I had a solid 0% in the class at midterm, my parents grounded me for six weeks. I filibustered my way out of the punishment by the second weekend. For years at school, I did the least amount of work possible, then crammed for tests. In high school, I had the best fake id, but the same sass and laziness I used in my home life got me nearly fired from almost every job I had in high school. When I graduated, I stood in a cap and gown knowing I was supposed to be educated, but I only looked educated on paper. Drinking too young as well had its consequences. I'm lucky nothing terrible happened, but I still wish I hadn't been so out of control so young. As an adult, I learned that there are consequences and then there are consequences. Little consequences are the human imposed rules that I can work around, hack, or ignore. They are a parent's training ground for real life, a boss's way to make sure the organization runs smoothly, and a government standards for building a society. They are human, so they are also flawed and breakable. I find it fun to find the cracks in a system and sneak through. Consequences with a capital C are life's natural effects of our human actions. I can't sneak past the guard and ignore the sign at the aquarium that says don't touch the marine life, but it doesn't mean a turtle won't bite my finger off. I can smoke cigarettes when no one's looking and douse myself in perfume to hide the smell, but I can't sneak a smoking habit past lung cancer. Much later than it should have taken me, I finally understood that discipline is the way you obey the laws of the universe. But still, I don't think I'll ever rid myself for the part of me that loves to be bad. There is perfect Paulette I know and should be and want to be. That woman I could be is just six months out, more fit, more dedicated to her craft, more chick and not so loud, less likely to order the steak burrito with sour cream and guac. When I move towards her by reading, writing, working, yogaing or meditating, I feel good. When I cut out to go to a band, join my friends at the beach, or hop in a car for a four day weekend, I feel bad in the way that it induces guilt but also alternatively, satisfies my inner Bart Simpson laughing and thinking. Suckers. The problem arises when the only sucker is me. As an adult, I have no more teachers, no parents, guardians. I'm my own boss and would love to keep it that way. The important distinction is that the me who is a sucker is me tomorrow or me 10 years from now, entirely separate from me today. When reflecting on the future self, the brain's activation is identical to when it's considering the traits of another person, writes Kelly McGonagall in the Willpower Instinct, a book that has helped me change the way I see and move towards my goals. So the Paulette of next year can feel like the other kind of authority figure, someone trying to make me do something I don't want to do today. When I screw myself over by getting in debt, being hungover, or procrastinating on the work until it becomes a flurry of panic typing, I rail against this person inside. You're the worst, I tell myself, according to McGonagall. I'm going with this all the wrong way. Firstly, she says, berating yourself for being bad is only more likely to keep you from acting the way you want to act. Guilt is a stressor, firstly, and stress weakens your willpower. Secondly, by moralizing my behavior, labeling it as good or bad, I'm opening myself up to the risk of moral licensing. When you do something good, you feel good about yourself, writes McGonagall. This means you're more likely to trust your impulses, which often means giving yourself permission to do something bad. We don't really want to be that good, her research has found. I'm just not that motivated to be perfect Paulette. I really just want to be good enough Paulette. So, for example, if I have a kale smoothie for breakfast, a behavior I label as good as that, I'm more likely to feel like I deserve to be bad for lunch and go to make chunky fatty special. As Nir Eyal points out in his post about why fitness apps make us fat, exercise causes many people to overeat by giving them permission to indulge. McGonigal cites in a study in her book that showed that people who felt they had expressed statements proving they cared about equality were more likely later to display sexist or racist biases. People are more likely to cheat and steal after they've purchased products that are good for the environment. People donate 60% less to charity after they've been primed to think about the time they acted morally. So every time I high five the angel on my shoulder because I worked out or finished an article, it induces a little wink to the devil on my other shoulder and a knowing meet me later for pizza in a Netflix binge because we deserve it. Meanwhile, when I average out my habits, I'm no closer to perfect Paulette. Anything you moralize becomes fair game for the effect of moral licensing, writes McGonagall. If you tell yourself that you're good when you exercise and bad when you don't, then you're more likely to skip the gym tomorrow. If you work out today, tell yourself you're good for working on an important project and bad for procrastinating. And you're more likely to slack off in the afternoon if you made progress in the morning. Simply put, whenever we have conflicting desires, being good gives us permission to be a little bad. What you should DO instead, says McGonagall, is label your behavior as either getting you closer or further away from what you really want. Instead of focusing on the progress that you've made by being good, focus on how committed you are to your goal and remember the why behind it. Anytime you catch the voice in your head berating yourself for being bad, remind yourself that you are the only increasing the likelihood that you could repeat this undesirable behavior. When I remind myself that whatever I'm doing is only getting me further away from what I want, there's no imaginary future boss that I'm sneaking past. There's only myself in the now, hoping to enjoy the fruits of my labor and in the future, instead of the unpaid bill for my neglect. I feel a certain shift in my attitude away from the enjoyment of breaking the rules and fully realize that no one is being fooled except myself. It feels like maturing, a process long awaited by my family. This is a shift that has taken the joy out of being bad and replaced it with a centered knowledge that I am the one taking care of myself for my deepest reasons. I'm not perfect, Paulette, and never will be, but I'm me today, taking responsibility for me tomorrow, not because it's good or bad, but simply because it's what feels most integrated with the life I envision for myself. Here's the Moralizing your choices as good or bad opens you up to the risk of moral licensing. Berating yourself for being bad when you make the wrong choices only increases your chances of messing up again. Labeling your behavior as getting you either closer or further away from your ultimate goals is a powerful way to get around moral licensing. Congratulating yourself on your progress induces the effect of moral licensing. Using your progress to instead remind yourself how committed you are to your goal will re up your willpower to achieve it. Catching the inner voice, berating your past behavior and turning it towards planning a different outcome for the next day will make you less likely to repeat that undesirable behavior and get what you really want in the long run.

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