The Willpower Instinct on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1SLqTjM
Bob Proctor's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6ErYA0wENs
Attached article: http://www.thinkeatlift.com/how-moral-licensing-works/
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When we do something good, we feel good about ourselves so then we allow ourselves to do something bad afterwards. This is especially true when we have conflicting desires. Being good gives us permission to be a little bad.
Conflicting desires could be anything: building your business and going out with friends, getting to 8% body fat and drinking beer, hitting your macros and eating cookies, working on a project and watching a movie, studying and surfing the web and so on.
I think you'll agree that we want to do all of these activities but one category are long term goals and the other category are instant gratifications. They usually contradict each other and moral licensing shows that when people make some progress on their long term goal they are more likely to give themselves permission to indulge in instant gratification.
Let's say you want to get to 8% body fat. If you tell yourself that you've been good for hitting your macros perfectly the last five days, you may feel entitled to have a cheat day when the opportunity comes. Like a reward.
Or if you tell yourself you've been good for working on a project and bad for procrastinating you are more likely to slack off in the afternoon if you've made progress in the morning.
