An Excellent Listen

Professor Dewall summarizes the ideas behind self control well into a brief and effective lecture. Esp. loved the part where he says that learning to apply self-control to part of one's life can help you carry it over to other parts of your life gradually.

Excellent listen for anyone struggling with anxiety, money and finances, healthy eating and exercise, relationships and hoping to better themselves in general.

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Why do people fail to control their impulses?

This is my first Great Course and I can only hope the other ones I’ve purchased live up to this one. I chose this one because I admit I have issues with self-control. Impulsivity. Poor judgement. I was more than willing to take a chance on a book that might give me some insight. Professor DeWall did just that.

His six lectures were a mixture of studies, interpretation, and then solid series of steps the listener can make. Although I would recommend listening to each lecture and then doing the tasks for a week, I don’t have that level of patience and so I listened to the entire audio at once.

So maybe I could use some self-control – or suggestions on how to improve.

Improve? Self-control can be improved?

I was skeptical, but after the lectures, I’m ready to try a couple of them.

Of all the studies he discussed, the Marshmallow study was the one that stuck with me the most because I remember watching the video as a university student many eons ago. Children who were 5-years-old sat at a table and a marshmallow was put in front of them. If they could wait 15 minutes, they would get two. If they ate the one in front of them, that was it. The children didn’t realize they were being videotaped and I can still picture one of the children who played with the marshmallow repeatedly. Did everything with it except eat it. That study also included the parents and teachers reporting on the child’s self-control. Fortunately, the researchers were able to bring the kids back as adults and ask questions about their lives now. I’m not going to give everything away, but the score the subjects were given as a child was very predictive of their future. Future successes, future failures. Future love and professional lives. I hadn’t heard the longitudinal part of the study and that blew me away.

There were so many great examples of the concept of self-control at work. But I digress a bit. Professor DeWall spends a lot of time explaining what ‘energy resource’ is. I’m glad he gave several examples because this was not a concept I was familiar with and I wanted to understand. Once I did have a grasp of it, the future references to it within the book made sense. Added the activities to improve myself and I felt I got a lot out of this book.

The Professor also discusses self-control idols and although Michael Phelps or Oprah Winfrey are at the top of most people’s list, mine is Dame Barbara Cartland. The woman was prolific, writing almost 723 books, selling almost a billion dollars’ worth of books (second only to Shakespeare and Agatha Christie). In one year, she wrote 23. By any standard, that’s impressive. Stephen King has the same work ethic. They decided what their goal was and organized their environment to enable them to succeed.

Of all the advice, I think preplanning was the best advice for someone like me. The Professor suggests sitting down before the week begins and mapping out all the energy-intensive activities. By recognizing the moments when I will find myself depleted, I can ensure I have something to help me boost my energy – be it protein, a few minutes of relaxation, putting off activities that can be moved, as well as putting aside some time each week to improve my self-control. I also need to better recognize when I am depleted and understand that I’ll be more likely to get angry or lose my temper.

There are so many things I want to talk about, but I’m going to encourage people to buy the book and give the lectures a try. I think one of the most fascinating sections is “Frist Impressions and
Stereotypes”. I like to consider myself progressive, but even I, when depleted, can fall into certain unproductive behaviours. His suggestions will be beneficial to even the most open-minded thinker.

Professor DeWall is an engaging speaker and clearly someone who loves his research topics. Social psychology is an interesting field and although I enjoyed my psych classes, I never felt connected to the topics. I’m glad Dr. DeWall put these lectures together so I could learn new material without getting bored. And I plan to use some of those suggestions because, even at my age, I want to continue to grow and improve as a person.

Or, as he suggests, 'Taming the Impulse Beast'. #Audible1

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10 people found this helpful

Everyone has self control

In these lectures you will learn that everyone has self control, some of us haven’t worked on building that self control though. There are many ways to do this, such as setting times for yourself when you will not do things like no eating chocolate after 9pm or using your non dominant hand for daily tasks for 1 day then 2 days then increasing from there or by doing something called habit stacking, after I do this task then I will do this one.
You will also learn how relationships succeed, and studies have shown that people who are most satisfied in their relationship will say it’s because both partners have a lot of self control.
Also, we can make more bad decisions when our self control energy is depleted like at the end of the day. So if you have a big decision/ purchase to make, maybe keep that for the next day.
I recommend this book to everyone, young and old.

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