5 Common Habits That Sabotage Your Self-Control

Healthy habits are important, we all know this. To build healthy habits we need a solid balance of discipline, willpower, and motivation. But knowing what we need in order to build healthy habits is only half of the battle. We need to learn how to develop the skills that are required. These things don’t just come out of thin air. For all of us, when starting something new we’ll probably feel an initial rush of willpower but that won’t last forever. We have to learn how to build up our reserves for our self-control mechanisms. Because let’s face it, our discipline will be tested at certain moments.

Developing consistency with our self-control is just as important as developing consistency with fitness, diet, or our sleeping schedule. If you can learn to develop self-controls consistency, you’ll be able to recognize all of the times you feel a dip. Doing this will allow you to avoid sabotaging your self-control.

You’d be surprised at how easy it is to sabotage your self-control. Even the most common, easily overlooked habits can be detrimental to your self-control. Below is a small sample of some of the most common sabotaging habits.

MULTITASKING

Multitasking is probably the most common habit on this list. Especially this time of year (around the Holidays) When you multitask you’ll experience a surge in your cortisol levels, this hormone helps you handle all of the stress you feel while multitasking.

Cortisol can be helpful in the short term, but if your cortisol levels surge and it becomes a part of your everyday life it could actually cause a negative impact when it comes to your self-control.

On top of negatively impacting your self-control, higher cortisol levels can also cause a loss in muscle mass and an increase in body fat.

CLUTTERED SPACES

So, this one surprised me, I’m not going to lie. I mean, thinking about it in the scope of my life it actually makes sense. Apparently, there was a study... This one in fact! That noticed a direct connection between high calorie snacking and clutter.

So basically, if you declutter your life / kitchen you’ll have a lower chance of eating unhealthily. Which means less sabotaging of your self-control.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION

This is huge! If you want to make a huge change to your self-control and increase it drastically. Improve your sleep.

At this point in life we’ve probably all learned about the link between a lack of sleep and overeating and weight gain. This is mainly because a lack of sleep messes with your hormones that relate to eating. According to Dr. W. Chris Winter “Your circadian rhythms inform your hunger and digestion”

“Your circadian rhythms inform your hunger and digestion,” he says. “Poor sleep can throw those signals out of whack. What many people find is that if they focus on creating good, consistent sleep habits, it’s easier for other healthy choices to come more easily, like eating better food and exercising regularly.”

WORRY ABOUT EATING THE “RIGHT WAY”

Taking on a new approach to eating can be a crucial first step toward your goals, whether those involve weight loss, addressing a chronic health issue or simply trying to get on a healthier path. But numerous experts note that using a discipline-only strategy doesn’t have great results.

If you focus on eating the proper diet and learning what works for you instead of trying to stick to something with will power only, you’ll be much more likely to make a positive impact on your self-control.

OVERLY AMBITIOUS GOALS

If you set huge overly ambitious goals there's a very large chance that you’ll experience a dip in your self-control. Try to make smaller goals, that way you don’t get discouraged if you don’t achieve the larger goal. If it’s crucial to you that you have an ambitious goal, break it in to smaller pieces. For example, if your goal is to lose 100 Pounds in a year, split that goal up in to smaller goals (8 pounds a month for the next year).

This is the top reason most people end up failing when they set their New Year’s resolutions. There’s typically a significant drop in motivation shortly after the start of a large resolution. Once that drop in motivation has started, that’s when we start to lose all of our discipline towards our goals. 

Develop your own Self-Control Mechanisms.

Sometimes when we hear the terms self-control and discipline, we attach a negative thought to them. Typically, because they sound restrictive and painful, but if you stick to it, they can actually become a freeing. 

Make an effort to learn your own self-control mechanisms, and implement those processes in to your daily life. I promise it’ll help you.