| How to Increase Your Willpower Posted: 22 Feb 2022 12:00 AM PST Willpower is necessary to complete many trying tasks. If you want to lose weight, quit smoking, or achieve certain career goals, willpower is vital. There are ways you can work on increasing your willpower over time. Set goals for yourself, have follow through, and make lifestyle changes to strengthen your resilience. [Edit]Setting Goals - Break things down into manageable chunks. It's ok if you are over whelmed but that shouldn't stop you from trying to feel better. You won't be able to sustain your willpower if you feel like you're setting impossibly high standards for yourself. You can increase your willpower by breaking down difficult tasks in small, manageable chunks.
- In her memoir Bird By Bird, writer Anne Lamott describes her brother working on a school report cataloguing different types of birds. Having put off the project to the last minute, her brother felt overwhelmed by the task before her father came, wrapped his arm around the boy's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, Just take it bird by bird." What this means, of course, is that enormous tasks can be broken down in manageable chunks.[1]
- If you want to get something done and feel overwhelmed, take things bird by bird. If you have a 20 page term paper, promise yourself to write two pages a day in the weeks leading up to the deadline. If you want to lose 40 pounds, set a goal of eight pounds lost per month. If you want to be able to run five miles, use an application like "Couch to 5K" to gradually build your speed and strength over time. When we break big tasks down into small components, they suddenly seem doable.[2]
- Set reasonable deadlines. If you want to increase your willpower, you need to make deadlines for yourself. No one can function without a schedule. Set deadlines that you can reasonably achieve and stick to them.
- If you want to, say, start exercising five days a week and you currently do not work out at all, you'll burn out in a week going straight to your goal. Instead, set a schedule. Decide to work out two days a week for a week, then move that up to three days, then four days, and then five.[3]
- Keep track of your successes. Invest in a large calendar you can display on the fridge or wall. Write a small note about your success that day on the calendar. For example, on October 3rd write something like, "Ran three miles today." Seeing your success concretely can help you feel a sense of pride that will motivate you to continue.[4]
- Make a plan. A technique that may help when your willpower is tested is to use an "implementation intention," or an "If, then" statement to plan for situations in which you might face temptation.[5]
- For example, you may be trying to give up sugar, but you're going to a birthday party and you know there will be cake there. Make your plan before the party: "If someone offers me a piece of cake, then I will have some of this fruit salad I am bringing instead."[6]
- Having a plan already in place may reduce strain on your willpower, as you have essentially already made the decision and don't need to battle your desire for sugar in the moment.[7] This can work even if your self-control has been depleted.
[Edit]Staying On Task - Hold yourself accountable. A vital step to increasing your overall willpower is to take some personal accountability. Do so for both your successes and obstacles as you work towards your goals.
- Talking or writing out loud about your actions can help. State what you did, why you did it, and how it made you feel. For example, ""I was feeling stressed about getting my paper done, so I decided to distract myself and watch television instead. I will work on managing my stress better so I can complete my paper so I can get things done instead of feeling lazy and bad about myself." Conversely, something like, "I wrote two pages of my term paper today because I wanted to stay on task and this makes me feel productive and positive about myself."[8]
- Laying responsibility solely on yourself requires tremendous honesty. It also increases your ability to manage impulses and "look before you leap," and your sense of responsibility as you cease blaming external factors on your circumstances. This can help your willpower as you'll embrace the fact change is within your power.[9]
- Manage negative thoughts. Negative thoughts will inevitably pop up during your journey. You may take one setback to mean you can never change, or you may simply have a voice in your head, chattering away that you won't succeed, putting you down. If you want to increase willpower, negativity does not help as it makes you feel defeated and hopeless. While it's impossible to stop negative thoughts completely, you can change how you react and deal with them.
 - Keep a record of your negative thoughts. Journaling is beneficial in many ways, and one thing you can do is log the negative thoughts that occur throughout the day. Soon you will be able to identify any patterns in the negative messages and begin to explore their origins.
- When you identify a negative thought, such as "I am not capable of achieving my goals," question whether or not it is really true. Do this by looking at actual evidence, not just what your negative voice tells you. You can make two columns in your journal, one with evidence "for" the belief, one "against." In the "For" column, you might write: "I tried to go a month without eating sugar and I couldn't do it. I feel like I'm not strong enough to change my habit." In the "Against" column, you might write "When I set smaller, more attainable goals, I can accomplish them. When I take things day-by-day or week-by-week, I have a lot of success. In the past I've met goals to finish school, get a raise at work, and quit smoking. It was probably unreasonable to quit sugar cold turkey when I love it so much. I need to try again, maybe using a different method."
- For a more in depth look at negative thoughts and how manage them, check out the article How to Deal with Negative Thoughts.
- Be yourself. This means knowing your limits and setting appropriate goals. If you are trying to quit smoking, for instance, it would of course be great if you could just quit all at once and be done with it. But maybe that's not you — maybe you still really enjoy smoking and you've been doing it for years. Instead of holding yourself to an ideal, i.e. someone who can just drop an addictive habit, maybe you need to slowly taper off instead. In this way you are being true to yourself while also setting yourself up for success by setting goals based on your knowledge of yourself.
- Reward yourself. It's important to stay on task and take responsibility for your actions. However, it's also important to know how to reward yourself for good behavior. No one's willpower is strong enough to keep going without a treat now and then.
- Build up a system of rewards for yourself. If you're trying to lose weight, for example, promise yourself you can buy one new item of clothing for every week you follow your diet and workout schedule.[10]
- Everyone has their own system that works for them. Find something you enjoy and find a way to treat yourself to it now and then. Working in occasional rewards means you can keep going on your path to your goal longer, resulting in sustained willpower.[11]
[Edit]Making Lifestyle Changes - Develop good habits. Stress is a major killer of willpower. When we're overworked and frustrated, we succumb to behaviors we'd rather work against. By developing good personal habits, we're more likely to stay on track when stressed.
- Incorporate certain activities, like working out and studying, into your daily routine. This can help combat stress. If activities that take willpower are seen as a necessary part of day-to-day life, like brushing one's teeth at night, you're less likely to shirk on those duties when stressed.[12]
- Also, people with good habits are less affected by stress. Regular exercise, a healthy diet, and a solid sleep schedule can all help lessen how much stressful life events affect you.[13]
- Do not procrastinate. Procrastination can kill willpower. Putting off duties that are seen as a burden makes us more likely to not do them at all. Avoid procrastination as much as you can if you want to ramp up your willpower.
- Procrastination is often rooted in perfectionism. People tend to put things off as they're stressed out about not doing them perfectly. Understand delaying work does not actually reduce this stress and can actually heighten it. You're better off just getting to work despite reservations than ruminating over the task at hand.[14]
- Keep a journal. Journaling can help increase willpower as you can see a log of your progress. Setbacks will feel less harsh when you can look at them in comparison to your achievements. Say you gained five pounds over the holidays. Look back at your journaling from when you started your weight loss journey to remember how far you've come.[15]
- Seek support. No one can do everything. If you want to sustain your willpower, seek out support from others.
- Certain specific tasks, like quitting drinking or smoking, have support groups at hospitals and community centers that can help.
- Talk to your friends and family members about what you're trying to accomplish. Ask them to support you along the way. If you're trying to cut back on drinking, for example, ask that your family members not drink in front of you.
- Don't be afraid to get back into something worthwhile, if you have had a break or a setback. Rome wasn't built in a day, and so take breaks when needed.
[Edit]References |
| How to Teach Your Child to Blow Their Nose Posted: 21 Feb 2022 04:00 PM PST Teaching your child to blow their nose is a lesson in hygiene and etiquette. Children as young as two years old can start to learn this skill by imitating their parents and older siblings. The easiest way to teach your child to blow their nose is to teach it in its two component parts, with lots of praise. Making the new skill fun, rather than a chore, will help both parent and child to stick with it. [Edit]Learning to Intentionally Blow Air - Teach your child the concept of blowing air intentionally. Blowing air, whether through the mouth or the nose, is a learned skill. Unlike breathing regularly, blowing involves intention. If your child likes to imitate your actions, start by encouraging imitation when they are well. You should do the action first, and your child can imitate what you do.[1]
- Practice first by blowing with the mouth. Blowing bubbles, using a soapy bubble mixture and a plastic bubble wand, is a very satisfying way to learn to control breath by blowing.
- The tradition of blowing out birthday candles offers another perfect opportunity to practice this skill in a fun way. You can pretend to blow out the candle, while allowing your child to actually blow it out.[2]
- You can also hold a piece of tissue paper about six inches from your child's face, and show them how to make the tissue move by blowing on it. Other things your child can blow with their mouth include pinwheels, straws, and balloons, all of which help reinforce that air should come through their lips.
- Teach your child how to blow air out of their nose. Have them put their hand below your nostrils so they can feel the air as you blow. Show them how you can cover one nostril, then the other, to blow through each nostril individually.
- When you're first teaching your child to blow through their nose, remind them to keep their mouth closed. It can help to cover one nostril, then the other, to reinforce the feeling of air blowing through the nose. This will be easier to do when he's well, both because they will likely feel better and be more interested in learning new things, and because they will have more of a sense of air moving through the nostrils.
- Make a game out of blowing air through the nose. Children often are motivated by races. You can create a "race" for two extremely lightweight objects (a sequin or a feather works well) and see who can blow it from one end of a table to the other the quickest.[3]
- Explain what is happening with blowing. Have fun taking air inside the body quickly, and blowing air outside the body quickly. This is a process of teaching your child to control the air that goes through their nose.
- Explain the purpose of blowing the nose. Show your child what mucus is. Use pictures, or hold a mirror up to your child's nose so that they can see what's inside.[4]
- By teaching your child to connect excess mucus to colds, allergies, etc., you'll increase their understanding of why blowing their nose is important. This will help them make sense of why you might ask them to "blow their nose" when they needs to.
[Edit]Teaching Your Child To Use a Tissue - Practice holding a tissue to your child's nose. Provide plenty of praise for trying this new thing, even when they're not sick. Try getting a fun box of tissues with interesting patterns or designs on it to encourage your child to use them more often.
- Try different varieties of tissue paper, and have your child tell you which one they prefer. Some children may be extremely sensitive to texture or scents that you may not even notice. Having a tissue paper that the child doesn't mind will help this teaching process tremendously.
- Make sure you have plenty of the kind of tissue paper your child prefers ready when they're sick. When your child is sick, it's likely that he'll resist doing anything new. They will likely want to be left alone, or cuddled, so be gentle.
- Point out when yourself or other adults use a tissue to blow their noses. When you have a cold, you can use this opportunity to model using a tissue to blow your own nose, encouraging your child to imitate.[5]
- Siblings can also serve as role models for your child as they learns how to blow their nose. Younger siblings might be distinguished by the fact that they aren't old enough to blow their own nose. Often, this comparison has a good deal of attraction for an older sibling.
- Explicitly point out the steps of blowing the nose, as you do them or as others do. Narrate the process as you go through the steps.
- Help your child blow their nose when they're sick by holding the tissue to their nose and telling them to blow. They might need to be reminded to close their mouth.
- Keep a gentle, light tone of voice when teaching this new skill.
- If your child wants to hold the tissue themselves, let them! While it may be easier for the child to learn simply by blowing into a tissue you hold, some children may prefer to be in charge of their own tissue.
- Consider using a humidifier or saline spray to help loosen the mucus if your child is struggling to blow their nose while sick.
- Teach your child to throw away the tissue immediately after they finish blowing. This may mean that you go through more tissues than you'd like, but teaching the routine of throwing the tissue away will benefit you, and your child, in the long run.
- Sometimes the routine of throwing the tissue into the trash can will be a fun incentive for the child in itself. Provide plenty of praise for each tissue that goes from tissue box, to nose, to trash.
- Always have a trash bin close by as you are teaching this process. If you don't actually have a trash bin so close at hand, improvise by finding another receptacle (such as a plastic container, or an empty bowl) that can function as a temporary trash location until you can move it.
[Edit]Warnings - Some children ages 2-10 are susceptible to nosebleeds. Your child should not attempt to blow their nose if experiencing a nosebleed. For more information on treating nosebleeds, see Stop a Nose Bleed
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