Skip to main content

Ego Strength

WLC Day #22

I recently listened to an audio book called "Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be" by Marshall Goldsmith. It is full of wonderful advice that is practical to every person at every level. He has an easy-going conversational tone that still challenges you to step up your game and truly become the person you want to be.

We all have an ideal us. The ideal us is probably 10 lbs lighter, with a better physique, makes better food choices, doesn't binge on Netflix, meditates regularly, exercises daily, and is super tuned in for every waking moment.

Then there is the real us. We give into temptation. We lack self control. We have limited will power.

Interestingly, there have been numerous studies that have shown that this is absolutely true. We do not have an unlimited reserve of will power. Will power is like a muscle--once we use it for so long, it grows tired and we start to give in to temptations more readily. This is a relatively new discovery, and you can read about its inception by following the Chocolate and Radish experiment.
Another great read about ego depletion...

Marshall Goldsmith calls this phenomenon Ego Strength. Apparently ego strength is the thing that the Whole Life Challenge is flexing. Yes, the goal is to develop healthy habits, but also, the goal is to have an 8-week discipline of developing ego strength.

Every day when I go downstairs for breakfast, I pour the kids a bowl of cereal. I want to eat the cereal with them, but it is not on my compliant food list. Therefore I use some of my ego strength and refrain from eating, thus exercising my will power muscle and also tiring it out a smidge. When someone brings in desserts to the office and I have to walk past them 5 times a day to get to my desk, I exert that much more will power and become that much more fatigued for later in the day.

So while I may be more cranky when I get home and more prone to snap at the kids, I also am building up a residual strength to will power that will enable me to withstand temptations even better after the 8 weeks are up.

Go about your daily activities flexing that will power muscle and know that every time you do, you will have better discipline tomorrow because of it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Casting A Conscientious Vote

Here's the thing America: you nominated two terrible representatives for public office--one "Republican" and one Democrat. Both of their campaign managers have decided that the strongest approach to get elected is to basically claim " at least I'm not them ." Both parties have released ad campaigns to bash the other candidate and both, I might argue, do so quite effectively. Now that I have successfully been persuaded that I should vote for neither candidate (thanks to the other candidate), I am left wondering who there is left to vote for. Certainly there is some candidate who is both qualified as a politician and as a person of reasonable morals?? Enter the 3rd party system. America was founded against a national party system (you can read about that here  for an enlightening time). And yet it is this national party system that has allowed a Democratic convert like Donald Trump to represent the Republican party. Trump knew that the only way to have a

Let's Stop Singing

S omeone recently shared an article with me titled " Let's Stop Singing These 10 Worship Songs ." The author, Corrie Mitchell, is making a point that there are some songs that have made it into the mainstream worship scene that are lyrically weak at best. I believe her ultimate goal is to encourage song writers both to be more conscientious of their lyrics to not neglect theological accuracy at the expense of prose--which is a noble and applauded effort. But with that said, here is my response to her article. Let's stop singing these 10 worship songs. That's right, there are too many important theological statements that are getting left out of worship songs. If congregants don't have the opportunity to proclaim the entire Gospel message in the course of one song then it isn't worth singing. After all, what if that is the only song they ever hear in a worship service? They will be left thinking that the Gospel message is incomplete. That Jesus only die

Jesus Doesn't Care Who You Vote For

There. I said it.  Of all the things Jesus cares about that you get to decide on a daily basis, who you cast your ballot for in the upcoming 2020 election is far from the top of the list.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Jesus doesn't care who the next president is--the Bible is pretty clear that God does care who the governing authorities are (Daniel 2:21)--fact is, he already knows who it will be!  What I am saying is that you have thousands of tiny decisions to make throughout your day. Most of which, God doesn't really care about: Do I wear my red tie or blue tie to work today?  Should I leave my house before rush hour traffic or at the last possible minute? How many helpings of Lucky Charms can I get away with before someone notices how light the box has become? Each decision has its own ripple effect and you have to live the consequences of each micro-decision. But most of our decisions on a day-to-day basis are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of thing