Getting Into The Habit...

Does the name Henry Morton Stanley ring a bell? I'm impressed if it does, since Mr. Stanley is not quite as well-known as the man he found in the African jungle in 1871 after months of searching: the great missionary Dr. David Livingstone. But according to the authors of Willpower. Why Self-Control is the Secret to Success, it is hard "to name any explorer in history who endured such sustained misery and terror so deep in the wilderness" as Henry Stanley. How did he do it?

Stanley was actually a journalist (not a scientist or explorer primarily) and definitely didn't get his willpower from his upbringing: Born to an unmarried eighteen-year-old woman who abandoned him to her father, he never knew his own father and ended up in a workhouse by the time he was six years old. But for some reason he saw the benefits of having self-control early on and worked on improving his own continually. So by the time he went on his first expeditions to the interior of Africa, he was well prepared - mentally probably even more so than physically.

One of his tricks? Shave every morning, no matter how horrible his current situation was or how close to death he felt. Some might be tempted to think the energy spent on shaving in the jungle would be better devoted to looking for food or that he was depleting his reserve of willpower by doing something that was not vital to his survival.

"But orderly habits like that can actually improve self-control in the long run by triggering automatic mental processes that don't require much energy. Stanley's belief in the link between external order and inner self-discipline has been confirmed recently in some remarkable studies." (p. 156)

The participants in these studies showed more self-control when they were sitting in a nice, clean and neat laboratory room or when they answered questions on a well-designed Web site with proper spelling as opposed to messy rooms and sloppy Web sites with spelling error (among other problems). These things apparently provided subtle cues that guided people unconsciously toward self-disciplined decisions. That's what happened to Stanley when he shaved every day, which is why researchers have come to the following conclusion: "Self-control turned out to be most effective when people used it to establish good habits and break bad ones." (p. 157) By creating a good habit - shaving every morning - the Welsh explorer was more likely to exercise self-control and willpower for the rest of the day, something he needed to do in order to survive the African jungle. Almost 150 years later, scientists are conducting all kinds of studies to come to a similar conclusion:

"It took willpower to establish patterns of healthy behaviour -- which was why the people with more willpower were better able to do it -- but once the habits were established, life could proceed smoothly, particularly some aspects of life." (p. 158)

You might not have any plans to trek through the African wilderness (or that of any other continent), but there's definitely something we can learn from Henry Morton Stanley that will make our lives a bit more successful and worthwhile: "Use your self-control to form a daily habit, and you'll produce more with less effort in the long run." (p. 159) Just make sure it's a good habit ;-)