THE ARTFUL DESIGN OF YOUR BRAND AND LEGACY WITH INTENTION, PURPOSE, WISDOM AND STRATEGY
The Legacy of Self Control
Self-control is the ability to moderate yourself while developing reliability, consistency, emotional maturity, accountability and efficiency.
Self-control does not come automatically nor does it happen overnight. Instead, it’s the result of training, consistency and modeling - self coaching that’s internalized and practiced daily.
Embedded within self control is the principle of consistency - the art of doing the same thing over and over again so that there is a logical connection from one action to another and a firmness to impress the action.
Those who practice self control clearly stand out in the way they speak, treat other people, in their attitude towards authority and in the manner in which they handle their private space.
They manage their diet, fitness, health and treat their bodies like the temple they are. They face tests in life - from studying, to work and life, with tenacity and resilience.
They’re able to withstand negative peer pressure, reputational attacks and the swiftly moving winds of change.
They stand for what is right because they have learnt that doing right is rewarding.
In essence, they flex their will power and exercise it often, to their continual success.
Insight Inspiration
One of the most important psychological examinations of the 20th century is the "delayed gratification" marshmallow study which offers deep insight into the inextricable link between willpower and success.
In 1972, Stanford university researchers (Mischel et al) put the willpower of 600 preschoolers to the ultimate test.
One by one, the instructor had the four and five year olds go into a room with nothing but a chair, a desk, and a yummy marshmallow waiting for them on a plate.
The little ones were given two options. They could either eat the marshmallow now, or if they waited until the researcher came back into the room (usually after fifteen minutes), they could have two.
Once the door was closed, many of the children did their best to wait it out.
Some would cover their eyes, squirm, spin their chair in circles, bounce in anticipation, turn the other way, kick the desk, sing songs — one little guy even pet the marshmallow like a stuffed animal.
It turns out that watching preschoolers resist temptation is quite the entertainment.
Of the 600 children who took the test, only about one third (≈200) were able to wait for the second marshmallow, the full fifteen minutes.
Of the other two thirds, some made it one minute, others five or ten minutes, and so on.
Like a self control "IQ score," the number of minutes before "caving-in" was each child's willpower grade. Here's where it gets really interesting.
To see where the preschoolers ended-up in the world, Mischel and colleagues did three decades worth of follow-up studies.
Here's what they found: The children who delayed gratification the longest, later on as adults, outperformed the "weak-willed" children on every single test the researchers threw at them.
They had higher SAT scores, higher income, more education, more friends, less addiction, cleaner criminal records, better stress scores, and so on.
On the results, study lead author Dr. Mischel said: "If you can deal with hot emotions, then you can study for the SAT instead of watching TV, and you can save more money for retirement. It's not just about marshmallows."
The Legacy Insights series is authored by Dr Gladys Mwiti, an internationally recognised trauma psychologist who has served two electoral terms as Member of the Board of Directors for the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS); is Co-Chair for the Lausanne Congress Mental Health and Trauma desk, Global Board Member for Langham Partnership Board, is the current Chairperson of the Kenya Psychological Association (KPA); Interim Chairperson of the Kenya Society for Traumatic Stress Studies; member of ChildFund Kenya Board of Directors, immediate past member of the Board of Trustees for the Kenya Methodist University (KEMU); member of the American Psychological Association (APA); and immediate past Chair of Council, Cooperative University College in Kenya.
She was the lead psychologist overseeing a team of highly trained trauma counselors providing crisis intervention during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the US Embassy bombing in 1998, the Gujarat (India) earthquake in 2001 and violent aftermath of the 2007 Kenyan elections. She was also lead coordinator post the Westgate Mall terror attack in Nairobi, overseeing the training of over 400 psychologists and counselors as well as managing the massive intervention and therapist supervision that reached over 2,500 survivors of the terror attack. Her current client list includes the US Embassy, USAID, Coca Cola, IBM, British High Commission, Syngenta, Google and Mastercard, amongst many others.
