The Week in Review

Yes, I know about the spacing and the fonts.

Daily Practices for Lives That Are Anything But Routine 

By Mike Ethridge over at Lawyers in Search of Soul.  I have written before about the importance of a number of daily ore regular routines, including  exercise, mindfulness meditation, and expressing gratitude. What morning routine can you cultivate to get fired up for the day?

How to Turn Lawyers into Better Writers 

By  Cari Twitchell  and published on The Lawyerist. For all of the writing we do in the profession, it's hard to step back and assess how well we're doing it and how to improve upon it. Can you accept a little criticism in service of improvement? 
  

What’s The Future of Work?  

Not a short read, but a thoughtful piece on the different values we assign to different types of work.

The Intangible Law Firm 

By Jordan Furlong. What assets does your firm hold that don't walk out the door when an attorney leaves? 

Solving All the Wrong Problems 

For all of this talk about "hacking," it makes sense to consider what we are tearing down and our intention in doing so in the first place.

How Technology Disrupted the Truth  

A long read on the consequences for responsible journalism brought about by social media and other forces.

The Improbable Life of James Taylor 

As a native Chapel Hillian, I couldn't help but add this piece about Sweet Baby James. And if you really want your mind blown, listen to his podcast interview with Marc Maron.

And of course, this week would not be complete without a little of the augmented reality craze sweeping the world. I found this little fella in our attorney lounge yesterday ...

Fail, Feed, Focus, and Forgive- Lessons from The Willpower Instinct

Over the weekend I finished The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More Of It by Kelly McGonigal.  (I previously wrote briefly about this book in discussing effective New Year's Resolutions here). 

McGonigal defines willpower as the ability to do what matters most, even when it is difficult.  That definition is reminiscent of Bobby Knight's definition of discipline:  "Doing what you have to do.  Doing it well.  And doing it all the time.").

One reason doing what matters most is difficult is simply the way our brains are wired.  Bringing to mind some of the analysis in Thinking Fast and Slow (mentioned here), parts of our brain spring into action in response to perceived threats or in order to make sure we get enough to eat.  (If you are about to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, it pays to have all your faculties devoted to escaping that fate).

However, when those instincts take over, the deliberative area of our brain - the prefrontal cortex- shuts down.  And when the prefrontal cortex is "disabled" so too is the capacity to exercise self control. Our brains have not evolved to distinguish between real and perceived threats and needs, so a host of stimuli (the smell of popcorn, a loud noise, etc.) essentially cripple the ability to exercise willpower.  One specific example:  even though it is painfully obvious that we have more than enough to eat, our brains still respond to food as if we don't know where and when we'll get our next meal.

Accordingly, McGonigal offers practical ways to train yourself to mitigate the harmful fight-or-flight grip of the amygdala and the siren song of the sleeve of Chips Ahoy, and instead move toward the "pause and plan" realm of the prefrontal cortex.    

Five specific points really stood out:

1) To Succeed at Self-Control, You Need to Know How you Fail.  In order to get more of what you want, you have to identify what is keeping you from getting it.  How do you become aware of how you fail?  Become more mindful of your choices and your actions.  And one sure-fire way to increase mindfulness is to meditate, because it gives you a glimpse of what distracts you (and how you fail).  And for all of you who hesitate to engage in this practice because of its Eastern (and I don't mean the Pee Dee) connotations, I offer Professor McGonigal's succinct, practical, and wholly secular explanation of why it is good for you:  meditation increases blood flow to your prefrontal cortex, channeling more resources to "pause and plan."  Another way of putting it: "Recognize, Refrain, Relax, Resolve."

2) Feed Your Brain.  I have written before about the effects of glucose on willpower, and The Willpower Instinct examines why your brain may get tired even though you might have the energy to walk around the block:  if your brain detects that your energy reserves are dwindling, it will limit resources to the brain that are useful for self-control.  In other words, if your brain senses that you are "trending tired," it may go into reserve mode and "budget" energy.  And so you need to give your brain the fuel to help you exercise willpower.

3)  Consider Why You Really Want It.  I have asked here before "Whose Song Are You Singing?" in order to point out that our reasons for doing and being often have very little to do with who we are and what we really want.  McGonigal puts it this way:  "If you're trying to change a behavior to please someone else or to be the right kind of person, see if there is another 'want' that holds more power for you."  One example that resonated with me is the approach of "wanting to enjoy parenting" as opposed to "wanting to be a better parent."

4) It's the Goal, Not the "Good".  Similar to Number 3, if you keep score based on the number of "good" acts you accomplish, (as opposed to whether certain behavior serves your goals), then you are more likely to experience a "halo effect" and allow yourself some "goal liberation" or the license to do something "bad" as a treat. (The indiscretions of numerous public figures would appear to underscore this phenomenon).

 5) Take It Easy On Yourself: Guilt Doesn't Work.    Just as doing or feeling good may backfire, so too will using shame, guilt, and regret as a motivator.  Your brain wants to protect your mood as much as it does your life.  And if you are distressed by guilt, then you fall right back into seeking rewards (i.e. feeling better) instead of acting in service of your goals.  Instead of beating yourself up, follow some of the advice given in If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him:  "Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again."

Building Will Power: Feed Your Brain and Conserve Your Mental Energy

Bobby Knight once defined discipline as "Doing what you have to do, doing it as well as you possibly can, and doing it all the time." The problem, of course, is all of the distractions and temptations drawing us away from always doing the necessary well. And when we are tired and frustrated, concepts of self-control and discipline seem almost mythical, and largely a trait possessed or extolled only by others (Knight, Vince Lombardi, Lao Tzu, etc.) Accordingly, failures of will are typically chalked up to moral shortcomings.

However, self-control and discipline are not necessarily the product of some sort of "folk concept" or "free will." As described in Willpower: Discovering the Greatest Human Strength, and in two NYT articles about it (Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?, and The Sugary Secret of Self-Control) the exercise of self-control is largely governed by the machinery of the brain.

The brain has a finite amount of the mental energy necessary for self-control, and like a muscle can be depleted or exhausted over the course of a day by the decisions we make. Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney call this process "decision fatigue." Decision fatigue explains why trade-offs are difficult to make as the day wears on, and why some parole boards are less likely to grant parole in the late afternoon. Long term thinking gives way to the immediate, and the self-control to eat and act appropriately slips. And we suffer the effects of decision fatigue without even knowing it. Unlike physical fatigue, which manifests itself in ways visible to us, mental fatigue takes place without our awareness. So we think we are behaving rationally and intelligently even as our ability to do so grinds to a halt.

Decision fatigue manifests itself in two main ways: 1) reckless and impulsive behavior (this needs no explanation); and 2) doing nothing. "Doing nothing" may mean that you punt the decision to another day, or you make a decision involving less import (deferring action to the future, making interim determinations).

The authors reveal a very simple way to fight decision fatigue: glucose. The brain's power supply is sugar, and when it is low on power, the decision making process suffers. Replenishing with glucose reverses the effects of decision fatigue:

"The restored willpower improved people’s self-control as well as the quality of their decisions: they resisted irrational bias when making choices, and when asked to make financial decisions, they were more likely to choose the better long-term strategy instead of going for a quick payoff."

So how to make better decisions and exert self-control? According to Baumeister, conserve your willpower, know your limitations, and don't make important decisions while hungry:

“Good decision making is not a trait of the person, in the sense that it’s always there,” Baumeister says. “It’s a state that fluctuates.” His studies show that people with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. They don’t schedule endless back-to-back meetings. They avoid temptations like all-you-can-eat buffets, and they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices. Instead of deciding every morning whether or not to force themselves to exercise, they set up regular appointments to work out with a friend. Instead of counting on willpower to remain robust all day, they conserve it so that it’s available for emergencies and important decisions.

“Even the wisest people won’t make good choices when they’re not rested and their glucose is low,” Baumeister points out. That’s why the truly wise don’t restructure the company at 4 p.m. They don’t make major commitments during the cocktail hour. And if a decision must be made late in the day, they know not to do it on an empty stomach. “The best decision makers,” Baumeister says, “are the ones who know when not to trust themselves.”