One Way to Overcome Temptation (including Drunk Dialing!)

I was talking to this college kid in the sauna at the gym the other day, let’s just call him ‘Mark’ to protect his identity. ‘Mark’ has recently been unable to overcome temptation and has put on the freshman 15. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the freshman 15…let’s consult our old reliable source, urbandictionary.com for the answer:

Knowing that I am a self-improvement blogger, ‘Mark’ said he needed some advice on how to overcome temptation.  You see, he has a problem with getting up in the middle of the night and eating ice cream. He gets up in the middle of the night, heads to the kitchen and ends up devouring a tub of ice cream. This has resulted in him gaining an excessive amount of weight.

He asked if I had any suggestions. I told him I would think about it and get back to him.

Later That Night I Was Looking for Flights Home for Christmas

That’s when it hit me! Constraints! Check out the screenshot below, I entered my departure date and it would not allow me to enter a returning date that was before the departure date. Expedia.com used a constraint that try as I might, I simply could not select a return date that was before my departure date.  As you can see, they are all grayed out. Duh! It seems obvious I know. But sometimes common sense isn’t so common!

The next day I ran into ‘Mark’ again and he asked if I had a solution to his problem.

I explained to him that he needed to utilize a constraint to help him overcome temptation.

He asked if there was an app for that…

After Rolling My Eyes and Shaking My Head

At the fact that millennials think all of life’s problems can be solved with apps, I explained to him that many times in life we have a hard time not doing something that we know is bad for us. Sometimes, we are unaware of the bad things we are doing or may do, like my flight booking experience, and sometimes we are aware and just cannot help ourselves overcome temptation.

One strategy we can employ is to restrict certain actions by using what are known as constraints. This helps us overcome temptation by making it impossible for us to do certain things.

A constraint is simply something that restricts the performance of certain actions to prevent an error or mistake from occurring. I then went on to share my example of trying to book a flight home with ‘Mark’.

To make sure he understood the concept, I then explained…

…How Constraints Are Used in Business

Constraints are a type of mistake-proofing used in business that limit actions we can take that result in us making mistakes.

For example, and I pull up this image on my phone:

A door with a lock that blocks passage into an area where you should not be, such as a safe, is another example of a constraint.  Unless you are James Bond or Inspector Gadget, good luck getting in there!

He Tells Me He Understands Now…

But asks how he can use a constraint to solve his problem to overcome temptation with respect to ice cream.

“Aha! I was just about to get to that”, I tell him.

“One constraint you could employ is just not to buy the ice cream in the first place. However, since you say it is only during the night where you have this problem, then I have another idea. Simply get a refrigerator lock. That way you won’t be able to get in there during the middle of the night and pig out.”

He likes the idea and vows to give it a go and will let me know how it goes.

Before we check back in with Mark to see if that constraint helped him overcome temptation, let’s look at…

Some other examples of constraints that can help you overcome temptation in your everyday life:

Here are some other problems in everyday life that can be solved with constraints:

Problem:  You have a hard time staying away from junk food.
Constraint: Don’t buy it in the first place. If you don’t have it in the house it will decrease the chances you will eat it.

Problem: You spend too much time on your cell phone.
Constraint: Put your phone on airplane mode for certain hours of the day.

Problem:  Your kid is spending too much time on the internet.
Constraint: Get software that blocks their access during certain hours.

Problem: You are always hitting snooze on your alarm clock.
Constraint: Put your alarm clock in the other room to force you to get up.

Problem: You always stop at the coffee shop on the way to work
Constraint: Take a different way to work.

Problem: You buy unnecessary things with your credit card.
Constraint: Cut it up! Or leave it at home when you go shopping.

Problem: Watching TV in bed messes up your sleep.
Constraint: Get that TV out of the bedroom.

Before I bid you good day, let’s…

Check Back in with ‘Mark’

So, I run into ‘Mark’ again the next week and ask him how it is going with the ice cream situation.

He tells me that it is going great and it was such an obvious solution to a problem, but that sometimes it just takes someone else to point it out to us.

‘Mark’ also said he has used the concept of constraints to overcome temptation in another area of his life.

Apparently, he has a bad habit of drunk dialing ex-girlfriends of his and ends up regretting the hell out of it the next day.  For those of you who don’t know what drunk dialing is, let’s go back to our friends at urbandictionary.com who can explain it much better than I can:

The problem was that even though he knew he would regret it the next day, after a few beers, he just couldn’t stop himself.

So, I asked him to tell me the constraint he used to solve the problem.

He whipped out his cell phone and proudly showed me this:

I should have known…there’s an app for that!

But he’s not wrong, it is a constraint.

Kids these days…

Until next time, keep using constraints, stop drunk dialing and until next time…PYMFP!

–Rick

Use It or Lose It:

To utilize constraints in your life:

  Figure out how you can limit certain actions that you take that result in errors or result in your doing something you do not want to do. You can leverage technology, automation or just plain old common sense!

When to Use It:

  When you want to prevent yourself from doing something bad or unwanted.

  To make sure that you do something correctly.

What Do You Think?

  Where or how have you used constraints in your life to prevent you from doing things that you didn’t want to do?

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