The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

ANYTHING BUT SELF - FORGIVENESS!
As soon as I mention self-forgiveness in class, the arguments start pouring in. You would think I had
just suggested that the secret to more willpower was throwing kittens in front of speeding buses. “If
I’m not hard on myself, I’ll never get anything done.” “If I forgive myself, I’ll just do it again.” “My
problem isn’t that I’m too hard on myself—my problem is that I’m not self-critical enough!” To many
people, self-forgiveness sounds like excuse-making that will only lead to greater self-indulgence. My
students commonly argue that if they are easy on themselves—that is, if they don’t focus on their
failures, criticize themselves when they don’t live up to their high standards, or threaten themselves
with horrible consequences if they don’t improve—they will slide into sloth. They believe that they
need a stern voice in their head controlling their appetites, their instincts, and their weaknesses. They
fear that if they give up this inner dictator and critic, they will have no self-control at all.
Most of us believe this at some level—after all, we first learned to control ourselves as children
through parental commands and punishment. This approach is necessary during childhood because,
let’s face it, children are wild animals. The brain’s self-control system does not fully develop until
young adulthood, and kids need some external support while their prefrontal cortices fill out.
However, many people treat themselves like they are still children—and frankly, they act more like
abusive parents than supportive caregivers. They criticize themselves whenever they give in to
temptation or fail in their own eyes: “You’re so lazy! What’s the matter with you?” Each failure is
used as evidence that they need to be even stricter with themselves. “You can’t be trusted to do
anything you say you will.”
If you think that the key to greater willpower is being harder on yourself, you are not alone. But you
are wrong. Study after study shows that self-criticism is consistently associated with less motivation
and worse self-control. It is also one of the single biggest predictors of depression, which drains both
“I will” power and “I want” power. In contrast, self-compassion—being supportive and kind to
yourself, especially in the face of stress and failure—is associated with more motivation and better
self-control. Consider, for example, a study at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, that tracked the
procrastination of students over an entire semester. Lots of students put off studying for the first exam,
but not every student made it a habit. Students who were harder on themselves for procrastinating on
their first exam were more likely to procrastinate on later exams than students who forgave
themselves. The harder they were on themselves about procrastinating the first time, the longer they
procrastinated for the next exam! Forgiveness—not guilt—helped them get back on track.
These findings fly in the face of our instincts. How can this be, when so many of us have a strong
intuition that self-criticism is the cornerstone of self-control, and self-compassion is a slippery slope
to self-indulgence? What would motivate these students if not feeling bad for procrastinating the last
time? And what would keep 
us
in check if we didn’t feel guilty for giving in?
Surprisingly, it’s forgiveness, not guilt, that increases accountability. Researchers have found that
taking a self-compassionate point of view on a personal failure makes people 
more
likely to take
personal responsibility for the failure than when they take a self-critical point of view. They also are
more willing to receive feedback and advice from others, and more likely to learn from the
experience.
One reason forgiveness helps people recover from mistakes is that it takes away the shame and
pain of thinking about what happened. The what-the-hell effect is an attempt to escape the bad

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feelings that follow a setback. Without the guilt and self-criticism, there’s nothing to escape. This
means it’s easier to reflect on how the failure happened, and less tempting to repeat it.
On the other hand, if you view your setbacks as evidence that you are a hopeless loser who screws
everything up, thinking about your failure is a miserable exercise in self-hate. Your most urgent goal
will be to soothe those feelings, not learn from your experience. This is why self-criticism backfires
as a strategy for self-control. Like other forms of stress, it drives you straight to comfort coping,
whether that’s drowning your sorrows at the nearest dive bar, or lifting your spirits with a Visa-
sponsored shopping spree.