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Will power, self control and the need for mindfulness (a lesson in mindful leadership)

January 24th, 2012

I just finished reading “The Power of Self Control” in APA’s Monitory on Psychology. The article summarizes recent research by Roy F. Baumeister. The links to mindfulness are hard to miss—a summary and some tips follow.

Decision making and self control use the same brain resources—and those resources are subject to regulatory depletion (i.e. they get “spent” over time). Making decisions depletes self control (also known as will power). The more decisions you make, the less energy available for self-control. The same holds true in reverse. The more you exercise self-control, the less energy available for other types of decisions.

You may think, so what, I’m not often tempted or infrequently need to exercise self control. Not true! The equivalent of half a work day is spent resisting desires! And those 3-4 hours don’t include the effort put into emotional regulation.

When those decision making resources are depleted, we are more likely to give into temptations and are more emotionally fragile (having stronger reactions to feelings, good and bad).

The link to mindfulness is enormous. Ego striving is almost constant. It is behind our desire to control outcomes, conversations and other people—to somehow make the world give us what we want or keep us away from what we don’t want.

What to do?

• Mind your glucose. A glass of OJ or piece of fruit can help restore depleted glucose and has been shown to improve performance.
• Improve your self-control resources. Like a muscle, self control can be strengthened with practice. Anything that breaks the habitual works. Use your non-preferred hand for something; take a different route to work; listen to a different radio station; etc.
• Learn to still the mind and become more conscious of unconscious drivers—meditation, reflection and contemplation are key.
• Use 12 Mindful Leadership Practices: Brief easy-to-apply concepts that distill the wisdom of ages into simple leadership practices that are useful and easy to apply.” Available March 1, 2012 from Take Charge. Click here to request an advance, no-cost copy which will be sent to you prior to the March publication date.