Yesterday I happened to read an article that has become viral on Medium recently – it's all about high self-control people. The striking fact is that these people actually do not have higher level of self-control than others. Yes, you didn't get it wrong. Through research, the very opposite is confirmed: on average, the so-called self-control people are the one who have lower level of self-control.

So, what makes all the difference is that these high self-control people, they are more aware of their low level of self-control, and therefore try really hard to carefully, deliberately, and strategically avoid as much temptations as they can in life.

Just like

- they know they will eat these chocolate cookies when they see them around, so they force themselves not to buy and leave them at home

- they know they will keep scrolling on social media without stop, platform after platform, so they deliberately search and use tools such as news feed eradicator to prevent that scrolling completely, or, at least, to set time limit on every one of these apps on their devices.

- they’ll try to refrain from starting any new TV series because they know that if they do, they’ll end up binge-watching the entire season

I guess, it somewhat reminds us all of the old “Turtle and rabbit” story, right? Turtle knows how slow he is, and therefore he focuses solely, fully and intentionally on moving toward the finish line, while rabbit, confident with how fast he is, is easily distracted and hence eventually lose the race.

However, do we remember the morals of that story?

Especially in our modern society?

I guess not.

Because of the detrimental effect of social media, of peer-pressure that is often pushed to the extreme, we tend to focus much more on our strengths, our multi-talents, our achievements and successes.

But, as Jocko Willink once said:

“We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.”

And that’s why, I believe, we need to actively seek for it - from self-reflection on the things we do, or from others’ feedback.

Because, being aware of our weaknesses might be one of our greatest strengths.

The article on Medium:

https://medium.com/@riikkaiivanainen/the-secret-life-of-people-with-high-self-control-its-easier-than-you-think-7dd26fb5282c