We use effort to resist doing things that we don't want to do but like to do.
Experiment: An experiment was conducted with marshmallows where kids were asked to not eat a given marshmallow until the person who gave the marshmallow to them arrives again and if they do not eat the marshmallow, they get two marshmallows. But none of the kids could do it. That's not the point here. The idea is that we use effort to resist things.
The question becomes, is there a consequence of resisting temptations, even if you succeed?
Another Experiment: is where people were kept hungry for 3 hours and then entered a room where there was radishes and cookies. But they should NOT touch the cookies and only eat the radishes. Then they were asked to solve an impossible puzzle (they did not know it was impossible). The people who ate the radishes left after around 10 minutes. Those that ate the cookies left after 20 minutes. The control group left after 25 minutes. Why? The Idea here is that the radish people were tired from using their willpower in resisting cookies → they had less willpower to use on the puzzle.
This idea comes from Ego Depletion which is the concept that willpower is a resource and it tires out/runs out. It is limited.
Another study says that the more desires that a person resisted, the more likely they were to give in to future desires. People who said that they are more successful in resisting temptations actually had less temptations. The people with high self control were actually using less self control. Tf?
Another study said that those exerting more self control were not more successful in achieving their goals. It was the people who planned their life so that they did not HAVE to use self control that were more successful.
Just being tempted to play that game is distracting you. This lowers your focus and diminishes your productivity even though you are not playing. Even a simple temptation such as that to check that unread email in your mail box reduces your effective IQ by 10 points.
Every habit starts by the Cue → Craving → Response → Reward. That is how it is. A habit will start to fall apart if one or some of these parts are missing. Anything you can do to weaken the habit will help stop the habit. A way to break bad habits is to make the cue weaker. If seeing cookies creates a cue to eat cookies, then put them where you cannot see them or don't buy them. Rather than having to exert your limited supply of willpower to resist checking your phone, flip it around (you are doing this).
In the marshmallow experiment, the kids who did not eat the marshmallows did whatever they could to take their mind off the marshmallow. They played games with themselves, talked to themselves, covered their eyes etc. They did not rely on brute willpower.
We all have choices everyday; should I do this and then do that? When we are faced with multiple tasks at hand where each task has a cost (willpower, time, etc) and a reward (no fines {taxes}, immediate enjoyment {Netflix}), we find it harder to decide what to do even though we KNOW what to do. Removing one of these choices will greatly help reduce the effort spent to decide what to do!
Make the choices that you don't want to make harder or better yet, delete them.
Source - Willpower is for Losers | By What I've Learned