What Do You Want to Stop Doing?
I wanted to stop yelling at my kids because it wasn’t who I wanted to be. But, I couldn’t seem to stop. It seemed like the only thing that worked! I would ask a child to do something. They didn’t. I’d remind them. Still nothing. My voice would slowly increase in intensity and eventually I’d get so frustrated, I’d yell!
I felt terrible after I yelled. Every time I’d promise myself to do better next time. I really wanted to change this behavior. I tried to depend on will power—the sheer grit of my belief that I shouldn’t yell—to stop.
I’d give myself pep talks. I tried to take deep breaths and remind myself to stay calm. I’d make a plan about how to respond better, be better about following through on consequences, I read parenting books and went to seminars. Sometimes I’d be successful for a few days. But eventually I failed. Every time.
Willpower is Not Enough
As powerful as grit and willpower can be for getting us going, most of us know from experience that willpower is in limited supply. We can’t depend on it for a permanent solution to change behavior because it runs out. It’s a little like holding up a weight. You can only do it for so long before your muscle gets tired. The same is true for our brains. This is the reason most diets fail, most addictions continue and most bad habits feel impossible to break.
Emotions Drive Our Actions
If will power isn’t enough, what’s the other alternative? Are we doomed to a life of white knuckled restraint followed by indulgence when our will power runs out? No. We don’t have to be. The alternative is to understand what drives behavior.
Emotions drive our actions. Think about it. What makes you willing to run out in the street and save your child from a car that is about to hit them? Panic. What causes you to help your child when they ask for something? Love.
If we want to change our actions without depending on willpower, we have to look at what emotions are driving them. As we we change the emotion, it naturally changes our behavior. Instead of resisting and enduring to go against what we feel like doing, we work with our human nature and act in accordance with our feeling. It’s like removing a weight we’ve been trying to lift–it makes it so much easier to raise your arm without it!
Choosing an Emotion
Did you know you can choose the emotion you operate from? We often think of emotions as our immediate response to an event. But, our emotions are caused by the thoughts we think. If want to have a different emotion a powerful place to start is what thoughts are driving our emotions.
Changing My Feeling Changed Everything
When I yelled at my kids, one of my main emotions is frustration. The thought causing me to feel frustrated was, “My kids never listen to me.” While it felt true, it actually made me frustrated and caused me to yell. Nobody wants to listen to yelling, so I kept making my thought true because my kids didn’t want to listen to me!
In order to act better, I knew I needed to change my feeling. I asked myself what emotion do I want to operate from? Love. I asked myself what thought would help me feel love? I decided I might think, “I wonder how I can best teach my girls to respond the first time I ask.” This thought was much more helpful. It created a feeling of curiosity instead of frustration. Curiosity helped me show up in a way that was more creative, consistent and calm. The more often I act in this way, the more likely my kids are to listen to me the first time! So, I make my new thought true.
I don’t always feel curious or calm when my kids don’t listen, but I am frustrated less often because I re-direct my mind to thoughts that drive more helpful emotions. Sometimes I even write my thought on a sticky and put it on the fridge or a significant place to remind me of my thought at the crucial moment.
Emotion Amplifies our Capacity
When my emotion is different, it doesn’t require will-power to act differently. I naturally act differently. It’s easier and more sustainable because I’m not resisting my humanness, I’m responding to it. Changing our behavior by changing our emotions is like multiplying our capacity by ten.
Emotions also gather momentum. They are like a snowball rolling down a hill; emotion usually creates more of the same emotion in us and in others around us. When I get frustrated at my kids, they get frustrated and I end up feeling more frustrated at them and frustrated at myself for getting frustrated! It keeps me in a negative loop of feelings and behaviors.
The good news is; the opposite is also true. If I feel calm when my kids are being disrespectful, they act more calmly and I act calmly. Afterward, I feel calm about how I handled it.
Helpful emotions increase our capacity because they reduce our need for will-power and because they build on themselves.
Stop Depending on Will-Power Alone
Ask yourself these questions to stop depending on will-power:
- What is a behavior you’d like to stop/start doing?
- What is the current emotion driving you to do/not do the behavior?
- What thought is creating that emotion?
- What emotion would allow you to naturally do/no do this behavior?
- What would you have to think to feel that emotion?
Write that thought on a sticky note in a place to help you remember. (Remember sometimes it can take many times for the brain to remember to re-route to new thoughts on it’s own. At first you’ll have to supervise it and re-direct it every time it offers you a new thought.)
