Is Poor Self-Control a Trust Thing?

If you are disappointed by how much self-control you have, it may be that your brain was wired to discount its importance when you were very small.

A recent study found that children who were conditioned to expect unreliable adult behavior were far less likely to resist temptation. It makes sense. If you can’t trust the world, you’re not going to feel safe trusting the future.

As the article I linked to says: “Perhaps the ability to exert self-control is yet another area where what we learn at the beginning affects both our abilities and mindsets.”

So if you wish you had more self-discipline, you might want to consider whether you have some trust issues. Maybe you’re still acting in the way you had to when you were little and had to navigate life with unreliable grownups. 

Maybe you need to think about how you can take care yourself now.

You can be exactly as reliable for yourself as you want to be. It doesn’t matter if someone else can’t. Not a bad realization, is it?

You might feel safer – and it looks like you might get some more self-control out of it too.

I’m not sure if I’m writing this for anyone but myself – but it sure did make sense for me, so I’m sharing in case it clicks for you too.