Built on science, not guilt

George Loewenstein et al.

“People in calm 'cold' states systematically underestimate how much visceral 'hot' factors (stress, fatigue, hunger, temptation) will influence their future behavior. This leads to overcommitment and subsequent failure.”

Peter Gollwitzer & Paschal Sheeran

“Forming implementation intentions increases the likelihood of goal attainment by an average effect size of d = .65 (medium-to-large), equivalent to doubling success rates in many domains. Works by heightening cue accessibility and automating initiation.”

Peter Gollwitzer & Veronika Brandstätter

“Implementation intentions delegate the control of behavior to situational cues, thereby automating goal-directed responses. Success rates increase dramatically by offloading from deliberate control to automatic triggering.”

Peter Gollwitzer

“Implementation intentions create instant habits by linking critical situations to goal-directed responses, reducing the need for conscious deliberation in the moment of action.”

G. Alan Marlatt & Judith Gordon

“A single lapse in rigid, all-or-nothing rule-following triggers the 'abstinence violation effect', a cognitive-emotional response where people attribute the slip to personal failure, leading to complete abandonment of the goal.”

Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman & Jason Riis

“Temporal landmarks (new weeks, months, or self-defined periods) create psychological distance from past imperfections, allowing people to relegate failures to a 'previous self' and begin fresh with renewed motivation.”

Wolfram Schultz et al.

“Dopamine neurons encode prediction errors: the difference between expected and actual outcomes. These mismatches serve as the brain's primary teaching signal, updating mental models to improve future predictions.”

Gabriele Oettingen et al.

“Combining positive visualization with realistic obstacle identification, then forming if-then plans, improves both commitment calibration and follow-through. Optimism alone backfires; realistic planning succeeds.”

George Ainslie

“Self-control is a negotiation between present and future selves. Credible, bright-line rules prevent slippery-slope rationalization because violating them once signals that future violations are acceptable, destroying the rule's power.”

George Ainslie, Roy Baumeister et al.

“Bright lines are unambiguous boundaries that eliminate the need for in-the-moment judgment. Unlike flexible rules that require constant re-evaluation, bright lines are self-enforcing: crossing them is unmistakably a violation, making rationalization impossible.”

George Ainslie

“Personal rules work by bundling sequences of temptations into single decisions; bright lines prevent bargaining, but rigid rules without flexibility lead to collapse on violation.”

Andrew Huberman, Lisa Feldman Barrett et al.

“The anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC) is associated with tenacity and the ability to persist through resistance. Crucially, this region shows plasticity: it can grow through repeated voluntary effort, building capacity for future challenges.”

BJ Fogg

“Behavior occurs when Motivation, Ability, and Prompt converge simultaneously. Starting extremely small maximizes Ability, anchoring to existing routines provides reliable Prompts, and success builds Motivation for expansion.”

Russell A. Barkley

“ADHD is primarily a disorder of executive functions (self-regulation, working memory, and inhibition) rooted in prefrontal cortex deficits. Daily life requires constant self-directed actions that non-ADHD brains handle automatically.”

Nora D. Volkow et al.

“ADHD is characterized by lower dopamine transporter availability and reduced baseline dopamine in prefrontal/reward circuits, making delayed rewards feel worthless and effort feel costly.”

Roshan Cools et al.

“Low dopamine states increase perceived effort cost: individuals avoid tasks despite wanting outcomes. Boosting dopamine (or reducing perceived cost) restores willingness to engage.”

Tripp & Wickens (applying Schultz)

“Blunted reward prediction error signaling in ADHD reduces learning from positive outcomes and sensitivity to delayed rewards. The dopamine teaching signal is weaker, making behavior change slower.”

Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole

“Actions signal traits not just to others but to oneself. Keeping commitments builds evidence that 'I am someone who follows through,' creating recursive self-trust. Breaking commitments, even privately, erodes this self-model.”

Vinod Menon

“The brain operates through three core networks: Default Mode (mind-wandering), Central Executive (focused tasks), and Salience (detecting importance, switching between the other two). Aberrant salience network switching underlies attention/motivation deficits in ADHD and related conditions.”

William Seeley, Vinod Menon et al.

“The anterior insula, a key hub of the Salience Network, integrates bodily signals with environmental cues to determine what's personally relevant. It generates the felt sense of 'this matters now', the subjective salience that drives action initiation.”

Henk Aarts & Ap Dijksterhuis

“Strong cue-goal associations automate behavior; salient, reliable cues recruit attention effortlessly via the salience network.”

Katya Rubia et al.

“ADHD shows hypoactivation in anterior insula/salience network during task initiation and switching, leading to procrastination, inconsistent performance, and difficulty starting even wanted tasks.”

Matthew Botvinick, Jonathan Cohen et al.

“The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), working with the Salience Network, monitors for conflicts between intentions and actions. When it detects a mismatch (you intended to do X but are doing Y) it signals the need for cognitive control and behavioral adjustment.”

Antonio Damasio, Bud Craig et al.

“Interoception (awareness of internal body states) profoundly shapes decision-making. The 'somatic marker hypothesis' suggests that gut feelings and bodily sensations guide choices, especially under uncertainty. Poor interoceptive awareness leads to poor self-regulation.”