Gaining the Upper Hand Over Temptation
We are all beset by temptations that make mincemeat of our best promises to ourselves. We commit to quit smoking, lose weight, start exercising, finish writing the book … only to find ourselves still reaching for the pack, still overweight, still driving by the gym, still on page three. The challenge we have resisting immediate temptation for longer term reward has been around as long as people have. Ulysses avoids the sirens luring song by lashing himself to the mast of his boat and instructing his crew to ignore his agonized cries to join the sirens where he will encounter sure death.
Because we are fallible to start with, how can we best manage ourselves in an environment rife with temptation so that we can accomplish our important personal and professional goals?
The nub of the problem is that the part of us that identifies and desires the longer term goal is constantly trumped by the lure of the immediate. New Year’s Resolutions feel great – we really do intend to meet our commitments successfully, but it is really hard to pass up chocolate mousse now in favor of being thinner sometime in the future. In the battle of Now vs. Future, Now wins hands down.
One successful approach is to reframe the battle from Now vs. Future to Now vs. Now. We have to give the long term battle such powerful emotional impact that it is more compelling than the short term win. There’s a fantastic Radiolab show on this topic that I highly recommend.
Years ago I worked with a talented writer who was not writing. In fact she spent her time doing just about anything but write. She helped friends move, baked cakes, volunteered her time—anything but sit down at her computer and work on her screenplay. Nothing motivated her to get past her block until one day I said: ‘what non-profit would you HATE to give your money to?’ She selected a neo-nazi organization. I then asked her to mail me a check made out to that organization for $5000. We then made a deal: if she had not written a draft of her screenplay in 30 days, I would mail her check to the neo-nazi group she abhorred. She got the draft done in 3 weeks, emailed me a copy and I cut the check in two and mailed it back to her.
This either or scenario – the screenplay or money to Neo Nazis – focused her mind. Now the choice wasn’t bake a cake or write the screenplay. We had fashioned a choice that was so emotionally loaded that writing the screenplay was truly her only option.
So next time your own worst enemy is you, consider creating a compelling choice for yourself. The choice can be draconian or delightful—but whichever it is, it needs to be meaningful and powerful enough to help you take the immediate action that enables you to achieve your goal in spite of the myriad temptations that surround us daily.
Category: Executive Coaching
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