Willpower

you feel good. It selects for traits that improve survival and reproduction. What good is self-awareness for that? The best answer came from the psychologists Charles Carver and Michael Scheier, who arrived at a vital insight: Self-awareness evolved because it helps self-regulation . They had conducted their own experiments observing people sitting at a desk where there happened to be a mirror. The mirror seemed a minor accessory—not even important enough to mention to the people—yet it caused profound differences in all kinds of behavior. If the people could see themselves in the mirror, they were more likely to follow their own inner values instead of following someone else’s orders. When instructed to deliver shocks to another person, the mirror made people more restrained and less aggressive than a control group that wasn’t facing a mirror. A mirror prompted them to keep working harder at a task. When someone tried to bully them into changing their opinion about something, they were more likely to resist the bullying and stick to their opinion.
    In an experiment one Halloween, some of the trick-or-treaters who visited the home of a psychologist were asked their names, directed to a side room, and told to take one—and only one—piece of candy. The room had a table with several bowls of attractive candies, and the children could easily violate the instructions without any consequences—which many of them did when the mirror in the room was turned backward against the wall. But if the mirror was facing frontward and they could see themselves, they were much more likely to resist the temptation. Even when they were looking at themselves disguised by a Halloween costume, they felt self-conscious enough to do the right thing.
    The link between self-awareness and self-control was also demonstrated in experiments involving adults and alcohol. Researchers found that one of the chief effects of drinking was to reduce people’s ability to monitor their own behavior. As drinkers’ self-awareness declines, they lose self-control, so they get into more fights, smoke more, eat more, make more sexual blunders, and wake up the next day with many more regrets. One of the hardest parts of a hangover is the return of self-awareness, because that’s when we resume that crucial task for a social animal: comparing our behavior with the standards set by ourselves and our neighbors.
    Keeping track is more than just knowing where things are. It means knowing where things are in relation to where they should be. Our ancestors lived in groups that rewarded members for living up to the common values, norms, and ideals. Therefore, people who could adjust their actions to meet those standards fared better than the ones who were oblivious to their own social faux pas. Changing personal behavior to meet standards requires willpower, but willpower without self-awareness is as useless as a cannon commanded by a blind man. That’s why self-awareness evolved as an innate trait among our early ancestors on the savanna—and why it has kept developing recently in more treacherous social environs.

The Quantified Self
    Anthony Trollope believed it unnecessary—and inadvisable—to write for more than three hours a day. He became one of the greatest and most prolific novelists in history while holding a full-time job with the British Post Office. He would rise at five-thirty, fortify himself with coffee, and spend a half hour reading the previous day’s work to get himself in the right voice. Then he would write for two and a half hours, monitoring the time with a watch placed on the table. He forced himself to produce one page of 250 words every quarter hour. Just to be sure, he counted the words. “I have found that the 250 words have been forthcoming as regularly as my watch went,” he reported. At this rate he could produce 2,500 words by breakfast. He didn’t expect to do so every single day—sometimes there were business obligations or fox hunts—but he made sure each week to meet a goal. For each of his novels, he would draw up a working schedule, typically planning for 10,000 words a week, and then keep a diary.
    “In this I have entered, day by day, the number of pages I have written, so that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the record of that idleness has been there, staring me in the face, and demanding of me increased labour, so that the deficiency might be supplied,” he explained.