10 Ways You Can Blame Science For Your Horrible Personality

4. You Have No Self Control

Do those new year's resolutions always seem to slip by February? Is your house littered with artefacts from hobbies that were taken up and quickly forgotten? Is there a pile of fruit going off in your kitchen as you tuck into chocolate cake? You're not alone. There was some research that did the rounds not long ago that seemed to suggest that willpower and self-control were limited resources that could be depleted just like energy stores. This seemed to suggest that you simply had a limited amount of willpower at any one time and, if you had very little, then you were just going to have to deal with it. However, there is now evidence to suggest that willpower might not be so much a store to be drained or a muscle to be exercised, but a reward-driven process. In the original research, they found that participants were less likely to show self control in a task if they had already completed another that required focus and willpower, which could be bad news for those trying to juggle lots of resolutions. It was later found that participants are more able to maintain their self control if they are afforded incentives, assessment or accountability in between the two tasks. Your ability to stick to something is related to your assessment of what you're getting out of it and, unfortunately, your brain is much more responsive to the reward of "delicious cake packed with vital energy" than something slightly more intangible such as "hopefully a six pack sometime in the future". If anything, this gives you a good excuse to be a bit kinder to yourself about your resolutions. Instead of beating yourself up when you fail, you'll probably be much more likely to stick to your goals if you congratulate yourself for your successes.