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Learning how to get self-control is the best decision we ever made…
Maybe some of these will sound familiar? Before we learned self-control, we were:
- Getting used to a life of disappointment from not reaching our goals
- Starting new things but never finish what we set out to do
- Seeking more and more short-term pleasures like video games, alcohol, junk food, or endless scrolling social media
- Always feeling tired and lacking good sleep routines
- Having a lot of dreams and ideas, but never finding the motivation/courage to achieve them
We were basically falling into self-sabotaging behavior, the very opposite of self-control.
What is Self-Sabotage?
The core essence of why we feel unhappy, unable to reach our goals, or never finish to do what we set out to do, is because we tend to fall into self-sabotaging behavior.
This includes for example…
- Procrastination
- Not taking care of oneself
- Seeking instant gratification
- Avoiding things that need to be done
- Bad mental habits
How do I know if I’m Self-Sabotaging?
The author behind the books The Anxiety Toolkit and The Healthy Mind Toolkit, Alice Boyes, highlights some questions you can ask yourself to help identify your own most self-sabotaging habits and mindsets.
- You expect yourself to succeed in making life changes without putting any time or mental space to accomplish them.
- You see your capacity to change as being dependent on other people’s behavior. For example, you would exercise more or buy less crap if your friends were more supportive.
- You ignore the warning signs that you need to take a break.
- You hold back from doing the things you want with “I can’t….” thoughts. For example, you think “I can’t go to a boxing class until I’ve lost weight.”
- You are stuck in patterns that are more comfortable, but not working for you. For example, overworking is more comfortable and familiar than having more work-life balance
- You complain about other people’s behavior when you need to make the same change yourself.
- You have emotional “raw spots” that, when triggered, result in out-of-proportion reactions.
- You self-generate stress. For example, you start more projects than you have time to finish.
- You’re self-critical when self-acceptance would have a more positive impact.
- You work on low priority tasks, but leave high priority tasks undone.
Find more questions to ask yourself about self-sabotaging habits and mindsets here.
If you found that any of these questions is a problem for you, then you’re participating in some sort of self-sabotaging behavior.
This is stopping you from achieving your goals and becoming the person you want to be.
So what do you do?
The antidote to self-sabotage is self-control.
What is Self-Control?
Self-control is basically taking control of your impulses, emotions, behaviors, and your life to achieve your long term goals.
It’s not about punishing yourself, but a reframing of your pain and pleasure points and to keep your self-sabotaging behaviors in check.
Self-control is about mastering your own actions, ignoring sudden impulses, and keeping yourself on track towards your desired long-term goals.
This might sound like a big thing to do, but it’s actually more simple than you might think…
Trusting your self-control on pure willpower is hard. Your willpower is often limited and will decrease during the day as you spend it on different tasks and decisions.
We know that it’s so easy to fall into self-sabotaging behaviors later in the day when your willpower is lower, like having an afternoon snack, switching evening exercise for video games, or postponing the studies you’ve planned in the evening.
So how can you develop self-control if pure willpower is not the answer?
The Answer
As stated by the psychologists at Psychology Today:
“Practicing good habits is more impactful than having strong willpower. People who have better self-control rely on good habits more than willpower, which leads to better progress on our overall goals.”
If you tap into your daily habits and develop the ones that fuel you forward in life, you will take control of what you feel, think, and do.
This is the answer to get self-control and the answer to stopping self-sabotage – developing good habits.
Allow us to introduce ourselves…
We are Gustav & André, and we started Habithon to help young men to stop self-sabotage and get self-control by developing good habits.
We have a passion for personal development and have spent the last 5 years researching the topic and trying out different habits to find the ones we feel are the best.
That’s what we want to share with you!
You’re not alone!
We know exactly how confusing and frustrating it can be as a young man in today’s society. Feeling pressure from family and friends, having a lot of dreams you want to accomplish, and at the same time struggling to find ways to enjoy life as a young adult.
We don’t believe that changing your life for the better has to be a painful experience. And we certainly don’t believe that becoming the person you want to be is a far-fetched dream.
- What you want is self-control.
- What stands in your way is self-sabotage.
- What you need are good habits.
You’re on an adventure!
Allow us to picture your life as an adventure.
In this adventure, your quest is to achieve your life goals and become the best version of yourself, with full self-control and mastery of your impulses, emotions, and behaviors.
On your quest, you will encounter self-sabotaging enemies like stress, bad sleep habits, negative opinions, short-term pleasures, and even BIG BOSSES like self-doubt and procrastination, that stands in your way from achieving your goals.
If you set out on your quest un-equipped and un-prepared to combat these enemies you’ll damage both your body and your mind and fall into their self-sabotage.
What Habithon can give you…
We are not here to tell you what life goals you should strive towards; becoming a millionaire, building your own company, starting a family, getting a ripped body, or becoming more appealing to women.
What we are here to do, is to give you the weapons to fight the enemies that stand in your way from achieving that goal.
Below, we’ve listed our best “weapons” you can start to use on your adventure towards your goals.
These are the habits we’ve found to be the most efficient when dealing with self-sabotage and the most useful for getting self-control.
Habit #1: Master Your Mornings
“If you win the morning, you win the day”
Getting control of your mornings with a great morning routine is the first weapon we want to give you.
Great Morning = Great Life
During the morning you set yourself up for the rest of the day.
A great morning routine creates the best possibilities for you to have a great day. Several great days lead to a great week, a great month, a great year, and ultimately a great life.
We have designed a simple 3-step process to great morning routine:
- Get Up from bed
- Boost your energy levels
- Go and seize the day
Check out this video down below to learn how to implement this three-step morning routine!
Habit #2 Wake Up Early
A crucial part of having a great morning routine is to not stress it through.
Learning how to wake up early is therefore something we highly recommend you to start implementing in your life.
It’s also equally important to know what to avoid in the morning. If you still have bad morning habits, it doesn’t matter how well you implement the 3-step process.
One specific bad morning habit is to hit the snooze button. And this is something we also discuss in our podcast episode “How to Stop Hitting the Snooze Button”.
Start Tomorrow!
So dive into the content above or take the easy route and let us guide you through it all during a week by getting our free 7-Day Morning Routine Guide.
It’s completely free and we’ll guide you through the steps to make the morning routine your first priority in the morning.
Habit #2 Close Your Day
Evening Routine
An Evening Routine is a finish line for your day, the same way a morning routine is a start line.
Close your day with a great evening routine and take control of your sleep.
As with the morning routine we also have a simple 3 step process for creating a great evening routine:
- Bathroom
- Reflection
- Relaxation
We discuss this in more depth in our podcast episode below, but the main point of this evening routine outline is to take care and relax your body, mind, and spirit gradually until your whole being is ready for sleep.
We especially encourage journaling as a part of your evening routine as it will help your mind to declutter and get ready to rest.
Fall Asleep Fast
Relaxing in the evening is super-important. Listening to a guided sleep meditation is something that can help with this.
As a last note, sleep is, as you probably know, one of the most important habits.
After all, sleep makes up a third of our lives.
If you’re struggling to keep to a consistent sleep schedule you have to get back on track as soon as possible.
Otherwise, your mood, focus, and overall health will suffer greatly!
Habit #3 Move More!
If you think you’re moving enough, you probably aren’t.
The One Habit to Rule Them All…
We think exercise is the one habit to rule them all. It’s just such a nice weapon against stress, anxiety, and mental tension.
There are literally thousands, (if not millions) of ways to exercise and move your body. You can find endless tips and tricks on google or youtube depending on what you’re looking for;
- a 6-pack
- bigger biceps
- a ripped and manly body
- cardio for a marathon
- or just a more healthy way of living
You’re Designed to Move!
Whatever your ultimate exercising goal might be, we would argue that it’s more important to just move more in general.
Try for example to
- Stand up instead of sitting down when reading.
- Take the bike instead of the bus.
- Take an evening walk instead of a Netflix session.
These things seem super-simple (and they are) but they have a huge impact in your life.
Remember – your body is designed to move!
Moving your body is a weapon you naturally possess to combat the self-sabotaging enemies. The important thing is to sharpen it as a habit into your daily adventure!
Move in the Morning
One thing we would recommend right away is to start exercising in the morning.
That way you’ll shield yourself against self-sabotage for the rest of the day.
Habit #4 Do More in Less Time
Fight laziness, stop procrastination, and get natural motivation and focus by adding productivity habits to your weaponry.
Do more in less time and get towards your desired goal as fast as possible.
Productivity as a Student
If you’re a student we highly recommend you watch the video below!
Productivity from Home
And if you’re studying or working from home we got you covered with tips on how to stay productive in lockdown, and create bubbles in time, feeling and space to get the most out of your home.
More Productivity Weapons
Other weapons you can use to quickly and efficiently get out of an unproductive state of being and get into a state of energy and focus are:
Habit #5 Train Your Mind
All the weapons above to fight self-sabotage are useless if you lack the right mindsets.
That’s why training your mind is crucial if you ever want to reach your goals.
Mental Habits and Practises
Start by integrating these 3 powerful mental habits into your mindset.
You can also use visualizations to train your mind and set goals that are in accordance with your values.
The Power of Commitment
As a last note, none of the habits we’ve mentioned will have any significant impact on your goals if you never commit to them fully.
The power of commitment is easily overlooked when it comes to achieving anything.
It is the small steps that lead to big changes.
Commitment tool
One effective tool for staying committed is by using the Vanaboards 66-days habit tracker.
We’ve also partnered with the guys from Vanaboard and can therefore give you a 10% discount on all of their products. You can check them out right here.
Habit #6 Challenge Yourself
There is nothing like a good challenge to get yourself going with the new weapons of good habits you just acquired.
Challenge Tool
Our number one tip for this is the Vanaboards 30-day challenge tracker. Yes, the same guys as above but this is one of their other masterpieces.
The same goes here, a 10% discount if you’re interested, check it out here!
Facebook Challenges
We also post weekly habit challenges on our Facebook page.
Every Monday there will be a new challenge for you to try out.
And while you’re on the Facebook page, we’ll appreciate it if you gave us a like!
Learn from the Masters
As a last note!
We’re on our own adventure and have fought several self-sabotaging enemies, and defeated them. But we still have enemies ahead of us…
We know there are people out there who have achieved what we’re still striving for.
People who are masters of habits and personal development.
Just like we want to inspire you, they are inspiring us in our everyday adventure to stop self-sabotage and get self-control.
We highly encourage you to also get inspired by these masters and read their books that we’ve found the most inspiring and helpful:
- Atomic Habits
- The Power of Habits
- Seven Habits of Highly Successful People
- My Morning Routine
- The Wim Hof Method
- Awaken the Giant Within
- The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life
- Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One
- How to Win Friends and Influence People
Your adventure begins…
We hope you enjoyed this post on how to get self-control! If you’d like to thank us, we’d love to hear from you in the comment section below!
We’d also be happy to answer any questions you may have!
We hope you have enjoyed our guide and you are finally free of having to ask yourself “How do I get self-control”?