My willpower challenge is that I want to get out of my comfort zone. Staying in my comfort zone deprived me of many opportunities that could have given me a great experience. So, I want to change that. I want to be able to have the willpower to say yes when the opportunity presents itself. To motivate and get me excited about my willpower challenge, I've made a list of opportunities that are out of my comfort zone. The part of the brain I use is the prefrontal cortex, which is located just behind the forehead. The prefrontal cortex is divided into three regions: The, Want, Don't Want, and Want. The will is located in the left side of the brain. The I won't is located in the right side of the brain. The I Want is located in the central region of the prefrontal cortex, which is the area of ​​the brain I will use to complete my willpower challenge. Kelly McGonigal says the “Want” part of the brain is responsible for “keeping track of your goals and desires, motivates you to take action, and resist temptation even when your brain screams, “Eat it! Drink it! Smoke it! Buy it!”. Or in my case, my brain will scream "Don't take the chance!" I want to be able to resist this temptation and take risks. I've never tried this challenge before, it's crossed my mind a few times but I've never acted on it until now. Since I have never attempted this challenge, I can't say for sure what challenges I will face, but I can predict them. I think the hardest part about changing this behavior is the unhealthy habit I use to get out of situations that involve pushing me out of my comfort zone. This habit is excuses, my popular excuse is telling myself I have a school project to work on. I'm not lying, I end up finishing the project, however, the project deadline isn't for three weeks. I have this compulsion to put school ahead of everything else, including my personal life and most likely my willpower challenge. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay I will know I have successfully completed my willpower challenge when I am able to cook two meals a week for my family. Cooking for people is the thing that makes me most uncomfortable. If someone puts ingredients in front of me I immediately tense up and think about how I can make a huge mess with these ingredients. I want to be able to overcome the uncomfortable feeling and simply cook a meal. To help me achieve my willpower challenge, I will apply strategies and concepts I learned in psychology classes. I will use meditation as one of my strategies to help me overcome stressful situations. Moral license is a concept I have been sensitive to. This means that when I do something good I give myself permission to betray my willpower challenge. I make one decision after another every day. Making all these decisions can exhaust the brain. When I'm tired the last thing I want to do is make even more complicated decisions. When I fail at something I get stressed and feel extremely guilty. The guilt eats away at me and then I make the exact same mistake again. This is called the What-the-Hell effect, the good news is that there is a way to break out of this cycle. Meditation has become a very popular strategy for stress relief. It is the practice of deep breathing. Meditation helps you become aware of your body, mind and feelings. A research study compared two groups of people, the first group was made up of experienced meditators or practitioners ofmeditation. Group two consisted of people who did not practice meditation. Each participant received an MPRAGE. Through MPRAGE processing, they found that group one, who had “a regular meditation practice, had an increase in thickness in the subsection of cortical regions related to somatosensory, auditory, visual and interceptive processing. This means that they are actually slowing down the age-related thinning of the frontal cortex” (Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness, 2005). Participants in the first group, aged between forty and fifty, had the prefrontal cortex thickness of a child in their twenties and thirties. The meditation experiment also proved that regular meditation practice will gradually help you become more aware of your body and be more successful in dealing with stressful situations. As I suffer from anxiety and stepping out of my comfort zone is a very stressful situation. I will practice meditation every morning before going to school. Mediation will help me keep my mind clear and calm throughout the day. So when the opportunity presents itself to step out of my comfort zone, I won't panic or make an excuse. Some people say it's okay to cheat from time to time, cheating from time to time won't kill you. True, it may not be, but it creates unhealthy habits and behaviors. When people have done a good deed, they will feel good, their self-esteem will be strengthened, and they will feel really good about themselves. However, people might use this good deed to do something bad, according to psychologist this is called moral license. In my case, staying in my comfort zone is the moral license I give myself when I think I've taken enough opportunities in a week or weekend that have taken me out of my comfort zone. Two psychologists Monin and Miller were testing the theory about stereotypes and decision making. The students were given two sets of statements, their task was to state whether they agreed or disagreed with these statements. One survey stated that “most women are not really intelligent, and most women are better suited to staying at home and taking care of children.” Students have rejected these sexist claims. They were given another survey which stated that some women are not really intelligent and some women are better suited to staying at home and taking care of children. All students were neutral on the issue. Then, they were asked to make a hypothetical decision about a hiring situation, interviewing both male and female candidates. You would think that students wouldn't be sexist in making a decision after rejecting the first survey. It turned out that students who strongly disagreed with the sexist survey were more likely to hire a man rather than a woman. This shows that “students who rejected the sexist statement felt it had consolidated their moral credentials, demonstrating that they were not sexist, but left them vulnerable to moral license.” In the sense that they let themselves go, saying: “you have proven that you are not sexist, they wouldn't notice if you hired male candidates, as long as you interviewed women and gave them a fair chance. When I took the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone, another opportunity presents itself. There are times when I say to myself, "You've done enough for today, treat yourself and stay in your comfort zone for the rest of the day." However, this type of thinking is more harmful than helpful.Allowing myself to think that the reward for stepping out of my comfort zone is staying in my comfort zone will make me forget what my real goal is. I keep track of how many times I stepped out of my comfort zone during the week. I find that when I do this I'm basically giving myself permission to avoid any other opportunities to step out of my comfort zone. I need to stop thinking like this, I need to remember why I'm trying to get out of my comfort zone and how every opportunity brings me even closer to completing my willpower challenge. Remembering this will change the way I look at my so-called reward of staying in my comfort zone. I hope that I will eventually view the comfort zone as a threat rather than an asset. Muscles aren't the only thing that gets tired, your brain does too! Decision fatigue is when your mind gets tired after making so many decisions. You can relate it to exercise, your body becomes so tired after a period of time that I simply can't do that last push up. The New York Times published an interesting article about a judge's dilemma. Showing the effects of decision fatigue related to parole decisions. Four men were convicted that day, however, only two of the four men were granted parole. The two men who were granted parole saw the judge at 8.50am and the other man saw the judge at 1.27pm. The other two men were not granted parole, they saw the judge at 3.10pm and the other man saw the judge at 4.25pm. Research shows that “70% of inmates who see the judge in the morning are more likely to be granted parole, compared to those who see the judge later in the day.” The judge had to make some pretty big decisions during the day. Decision fatigue seemed to set in later in the day, between 3.10pm and 4.25pm. The judge was mentally exhausted and decided not to make any big decisions. He decided to take the safe route and did not grant parole to the last two prisoners. This applies to my challenge because I am a student hairstylist, every day I have to help make decisions for my clients. I have to take into consideration my clients' hair type, porosity, density, texture, wave pattern, elasticity, length and more, to determine if the look my client is looking for is achievable . It may not seem like much, but when you have to do it every day it becomes really exhausting. When I get to the last client of the day, I'm tempted to take shortcuts to speed up their appointment so I can get home. When I get home, completing my willpower challenge is the last thing on my mind. I just want to stay home and surf the internet, watch Netflix, or take a long nap. So from research into the judge's dilemma and comparison with my life. I learned that I should try to complete my willpower challenge on the weekend when I don't have to make many decisions. This way my brain won't be exhausted and I will have the willpower challenge as a top priority. According to Janet Polivy and C. Peter Herman, “The devil effect is a cycle of indulgences, regrets, and greater indulgences” (Kelly McGonigal 104). When we feel stressed, guilty, and ashamed, we return to the things that make us feel guilty and ashamed. Because our mind tells us that those things will make us feel better. The Willpower Instinct wrote about a research project involving a psychologist and addiction researchers at New York University and.