What Everyone Gets Wrong About Self Control

Productive people actually don't need much self control

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Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash

When I tell people I wrote a book about personality change, they often say they want to change one trait in particular: conscientiousness.

Conscientiousness is the trait associated with productivity, timeliness, and organization. It means getting places on time, eating salad instead of cheeseburgers, and never forgetting to respond to emails. It means keeping your New Year’s resolutions.

And it’s associated with an array of good “outcomes,” to use the social-science term: health, wealth, longevity, and so forth. Conscientious people tend to eat right, exercise, and get shit done, and all of those things help you live long and prosper.

People who want to cultivate conscientiousness often wish they had more self-control, or willpower. Then, they think, they could make it to the gym, or finally finish that big project, or stop hitting snooze on their alarms. But the funny thing is, people who are conscientious don’t actually use much self control. Conscientious people are less tempted by desires like food, sex, or alcohol, and they report spending less time trying to control their desires. They don’t need self control because they aren’t actually trying to control themselves; they’re already under control. Conscientious people don’t need to constantly remind themselves to get on the elliptical machine … they’re itching to hop on that thing from the minute they wake up!

“Success in life might be the result of engaging less in day-to-day state self-control and more in cold calculation before a temptation is ever met,” write Michael Inzlicht and Brent Roberts in a recent academic article on this topic.

This makes sense when you consider how various kinds of conscientiousness-boosting mechanisms work. Ozempic doesn’t give you more self control; it makes food less appealing. A screen-time limit on your phone doesn’t give you more self control; it keeps you from looking at Instagram when you’re not supposed to. Non-alcoholic beer doesn’t give you more self control; it allows you to drink “beer” without getting drunk.

This finding is a little depressing, or a little uplifting, depending on how you look at it. Unfortunately, this means that the secret to getting your beach bod and big promotion is more than just white-knuckling through a few stomach crunches and work sprints. If you’re not very conscientious, trying to brute-force some self control might work in the short term, but not in the long term. (Just ask any dieter ever).

But on the plus side, this means you can pretty much stop yelling at yourself to develop more self control. You likely won’t be able to, and it won’t work very well anyway. Instead, focus on setting up your environment such that you won’t need as much self control. Don’t keep alcohol in the house. Delete Instagram. Bind yourself to the mast of hot yoga with an obscenely expensive CorePower membership. You won’t be as tempted by various vices, and you’ll probably take part in them less. Maybe you’ll become more conscientious without even realizing it.