How to Develop Self-Control, According to Psychologists

You want that new video game so bad, but you’re trying to reduce your credit card balance. Or you’re watching your favorite TV show and can’t wait to find out if a character is alive, but it’s late and you need to be alert for tomorrow’s work. Just exercise a little self-control, you tell yourself. But it’s so hard!

People often think of self-control as something that requires willpower – the effort to forgo immediate pleasure to achieve a long-term goal. A study last year found that Americans, Dutch and Chinese tend to write about self-control with words such as “difficult” and “unpleasant” and about people who demonstrate self-control as “virtuous.” For decades, psychologists have taken a similar view. In fact, a important theory In the 1990s, it was called ego depletion that if one used the “muscle” of will too much, it would tire and become less effective.

But over the past decade, the science has evolved. Scientists have noticed that some people find self-discipline to be quite simple, but nevertheless they stick better to their goals than those who had to show a lot of willpower. People who naturally possess high levels of self-control can create habits that rarely expose them to the temptation to veer off course, says psychologist Denise de Ridder, who studies self-control at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

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According to psychology researcher Johanna Peetz of Carleton University in Ontario, there has been a sea change in the field, moving from an understanding of self-control through “willpower” to one that focuses on specific strategies or habits that facilitate self-discipline. Here’s what scientists learned.

The importance of routine

One of the first clues that conventional wisdom about willpower was wrong came in 2015. In six varied experiments, one of which lasted more than a year:researchers studied the self-control of high school students. The bottom line: Whether students who reported high self-control sought good grades, exercise regularly, or sleep better, they relied on routines for studying, exercising, or going to bed. These structured habits—doing the same thing in the same place and at the same time—were more likely to lead to long-term success than trying to stifle counterproductive impulses in the moment. People with these good habits reported adopting them automatically, without having to think about them.

Since then, other researchers have studied what an average person struggling to stay on track might learn from people who naturally demonstrate self-control. In an experiment, de Ridder and his colleagues discovered that establishing small, repeated habits can help achieve goals. They recruited participants who reported having difficulty sticking to their goals, then asked them to choose one area they wanted to improve in, such as eating healthier, exercising, or protecting the environment. They were encouraged to set a modest daily goal, such as exercising for 10 minutes, eating vegetables for lunch or recycling. Participants recorded their progress with an app for three months and via questionnaires. Although the study did not find a link between participants’ self-control ability and habit formation, those who completed the study and consistently achieved their small goal reported that they felt like they had developed a stronger habit.

Practice makes habits easier

Establishing such habits can make it easier to stick with challenging behavior over time, says de Ridder. In a 2020 studyshe and her colleagues followed another group of people who chose a goal they had struggled to achieve and kept a journal of their progress for four months. The objectives fell into the same general categories as those in the other study. For example, participants chose to eat fruit for breakfast, be more patient with a friend or save money at the supermarket. The more people practiced this behavior, the more they improved their ability to exercise self-discipline. Establishing a habit takes effort at first, de Ridder says, but after about three months it often gets easier.

It makes sense to view self-control not just as a renunciation of pleasure, de Ridder says, but also as the ability “to create adaptive routines and strategically avoid conflict, which leaves more room to attend to what one finds important in life.” These structures can help you organize your environment so that doing what you think is right for you feels more natural..

Change of mentality

Habits aren’t the only advantage people with strong self-discipline can have. A 2025 study found that they could actually I prefer to do something meaningful– that advances their goals – rather than something that is simply fun or relaxing. In an at-home experiment, participants completed psychological profiles measuring the strength of their trait self-control. Next, they were asked to name four things they would do if they had an unexpected free hour. They rated these activities – reading, sleeping, cooking, exercising, shopping, etc. – depending on whether they found them mainly pleasant or meaningful.

Participants then had to do whatever they wanted for the next hour (while being paid). People with high self-control chose activities that they considered meaningful, such as exercising or doing household chores; the others turned to pure pleasure, like taking a nap or listening to music. “Those with high levels of self-control would not choose to just lie on the couch and daydream for 60 minutes,” says Katharina Bernecker, a psychologist at the University of Zurich and lead author of the study. They didn’t need to use willpower to suppress the urge to take a nap. “We concluded that the story that they are so good at controlling their impulses and suppressing pleasure may not be the full story.” In fact, they enjoy doing constructive activities.

Is it possible for the average person to learn to reframe their preferences in order to enjoy doing the difficult, but meaningful, thing that haunts their to-do list? There is no proven tool yet to help a person do this. However, creating small habits can still help make a difficult task easier. Think about what is tripping you up and what habits you could adopt to help. If you have trouble clicking away from the screen at night, you can try setting your alarm half an hour before bed and practice clicking as soon as your alarm goes off. If you want to start running but something always derails you, create a routine where you run a mile every day before breakfast.

After a few months, research suggests, it will be easier to pursue your goal. Who knows? If you have a spare hour, you might even prefer to run rather than take a nap.