Self-binding is when a person makes it difficult – on purpose – to do something they don’t want to continue doing.
To bind means to attach or tie something up. Basically you’re intentionally tying yourself up so you can’t continue your bad habit as easily.
Example: say you don’t want play videos as much. A self-binding behavior would be to hide your video game console deep in your basement closet. This way, it will take much more effort to pull it out, set it up and begin playing.
Why bother doing this? Because when it’s harder to do the thing you don’t want to do, it becomes easier to kick the habit.
Does Social Media Drain You?
It drains me.
So, I deleted all the apps from my phone quite a while ago. The result?
I spend way less time on the apps because they’re hard to get to. This was an example of self-binding that I still use.
The result? I spend very little time scrolling through social media apps.
Especially in today’s world, we just can’t rely on willpower to beat every addictive thing presented to us. It’s just not realistic.
Self-binding isn’t fool proof. But, it’s one tool to help you kick bad habits.
Can you get around it? Sure. And lots of people do. They head down to the basement and haul the video game console out. Or they go to twitter.com or just re-download the app.
But making bad habits more difficult is a great first step.
How Can You Use Self-Binding in Other Ways?
Think of other bad habits in your life that you could reduce or eliminate by using self-binding.
Make it difficult.
Make it annoying.
Make it hard to do.
You’ll have a real chance of eliminating a bad habit and freeing yourself up to do more meaningful things with your life.