“If the only thing motivating your self-control is the desire to be a good enough person, you’re going to give in whenever you’re already feeling good about yourself.”
― Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct
Picture this: It’s a Sunday morning and you are preparing to head out to meet some friends for brunch. Looking back at your week, you’re feeling proud of all you’ve done. You hit the gym 4 times, you packed your lunch every day, you slept a solid 7 hours every night.
You were so good.
You start thinking about the food (pancakes, bacon, waffles…) and drink (mimosas, bloody marys, sangria...) choices that lie ahead.
You’ve been so good, you deserve something bad.
At brunch you opt for the lumberjack special (eggs, pancakes, bacon) and bottomless mimosas.
You’ve earned this. Treat yo’ self!
You indulge with reckless abandon, make your way home despite a drunken food coma and plop down on your couch.
After a few hours of Netflix binging, the guilt and shame starts to set in.
“What was I thinking? How did I end up going off the deep end when I was doing so well? How could I be so weak?”
Moral licensing, that’s how.
Moral licensing is a particularly interesting mental loophole. It’s about using something “good” to justify “something “bad”, often without even realizing it.
“When you do something good, you feel good about yourself” writes Kelly McGonigal in The Willpower Instinct, a book that has helped me change my mindset around habits, goals and behavior change. “This means you’re more likely to trust your impulses—which often means giving yourself permission to do something bad.”
This mental trickery is not exclusive to health behaviors like exercise, diet and sleep.
Moral licensing can occur with any set of acts or thoughts that you consider to be “good” or “bad”.
Tell yourself you’re “good” for working on an important project and “bad” for procrastinating, and you’re more likely to slack off in the afternoon if you made progress in the morning.
Tell yourself you’re “good” for saving money and “bad” for splurging, and you’re more likely to buy the latest iPhone after you’ve just cleared your credit card debt.
Even the thought of doing something “good” can lead us to justify doing something “bad”.
In her book, McGonigal cites various studies supporting this illogical but common behavioral pattern. One where people donated 60% less to charity after they’d been primed to think about a time they acted morally. Another where people were more likely to display sexist or racist biases after expressing statements supporting equality. And yet another where people were more likely to choose a fattier option like a burger when a salad was present on a menu.
Sometimes the “good” and “bad” acts were completely unrelated.
For example, people were more likely to cheat and steal after purchasing environmentally friendly products and people who were on a diet were more likely to have an affair.
“Anything you moralize becomes fair game for the effect of moral licensing,” writes McGonigal.
Simply put: Whenever we have conflicting desires, being "good" gives us permission to be a little bit "bad".
So if we all have these conflicting sets of desires, these angels and devils on our shoulders, so to speak, what can we do to stay on track with our goals?
Mindfulness
Awareness of behavior is always the first step towards changing it. Through the practice of mindfulness we learn to notice when we are engaging in this “good” vs “bad” mindset, creating an opportunity for a shift - either in thought or action.
Self Compassion
Knowing that this psychological bargaining is a common behavior allows us to practice self-compassion when we catch ourselves in the act or after a period of “bad” behavior.
Beating yourself up for being “bad,” is only more likely to keep you from acting in the way you want to act. Guilt and shame are stressors and stress weakens your willpower.
Remove moral labels
Stop seeing every willpower challenge as a test of your moral character. Most of our willpower struggles have nothing to do with vice and virtue. Eating a cookie or skipping a workout aren’t exactly signs of a moral downfall and eating a salad doesn't make you Jesus.
Choosing certain actions is about commitment to your underlying goals, not about being “good” or “bad.”
They are not different sides of a scale but steps on a journey.
Instead, label your behaviors as either getting you closer to or further away from what you really want.
Because your goal probably isn’t to break even, but to keep moving forward.
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