Dr. Kentaro Fujita

You use the word warm-up.

So we've essentially warmed them up.

And then we give them a self-control task, and they have much better self-control when they've thought about whys than hows.

And again, we argue that this is because we're simulating the mindset of when the thing was distant than when it was close.

But that's the problem with hard things.

When they're in the distant future, it seems like a really good idea, and we can think about why we want to do it.

When we actually have to do it, we don't think about why anymore.

We think about how, and the how just sucks.

And then, again, as time passes on, we look back,

We're completely perplexed as to why we didn't do the thing when it's so clear to us that that was the thing that we really wanted to do.

It's really interesting that you mentioned this because I think when we think about self-control, we tend to think about it as a binary.

So again, if we're going to use cake as an example.

So if I'm trying to lose weight and there's a piece of cake in front of me, usually it's a binary.

I have this goal to lose weight.

I also have this goal to eat the yummy cake.

Those two goals are in conflict and I have to choose one of them.

And that makes the decision actually kind of hard because it's one against one.

One of the things I think really interesting about what you're saying about doing hard things is that those are additional motivations that have nothing to do with losing weight.

Those are additional motivations that fuel the long-term goal.

So I was mentioning before it's really important to think about your whys.