Developing New Behaviors

Developing new behaviors to overcome psychological vulnerabilities and curb impulsiveness is not about willpower; it’s about strategy.

It requires a deliberate shift from reacting to life to architecting it. The goal is to build systems of thought and action that create a buffer between a trigger and your response, allowing your more rational, long-term, cognitively stable self to take the wheel. This is both a skill and behaviors that can be cultivated through practice and intention.

The foundational technique is to identify and map your vulnerabilities and triggers. Impulsiveness rarely occurs in a vacuum. It is often a response to a specific emotional state or situation.

Begin by keeping a simple journal to track moments when you feel a strong urge to act impulsively; instead of acting, write it down. Write it your journal or even just on a post-it note.

Note the time of day, your emotional state (lonely, stressed, bored, tired), the specific trigger (a critical email, a social media post), and the impulsive urge that followed (to shop, to send an angry text, to make a rash decision). Over time, you will see patterns emerge. This awareness is the first and most critical step; you cannot protect yourself from an enemy you cannot see.

Once you have identified your triggers, the next step is to implement a mandatory pause.

This is the single most effective tool for short-circuiting impulsiveness. The rule is simple: for any non-life-or-death decision, you must wait. No exceptions!

The length of the pause is up to you; the 24-hour rule is a classic for a reason, but even a 15-minute pause can be enough to break the spell. During this pause, your job is not to solve the problem, but to ride out the initial wave of emotion. Engage in a completely different activity: go for a walk, listen to a specific song, do a household chore, or read an inspirational message in the SCARS Institute Community. This behavior creates a crucial time gap, allowing the emotional, impulsive part of your brain to subside and giving the rational, planning part of your prefrontal cortex a chance to come online. The more you do this, the more it becomes automatic.

Another powerful behavior is to create “if-then” plans for your known vulnerabilities. This is a form of pre-deciding your response to a trigger. For example, if your journal reveals you get lonely and impulsively seek connection online late at night, your plan becomes: “IF it is 11 p.m. and I am feeling lonely, THEN I will close my laptop and read one chapter of a book instead.” You consciously think about this in advance, plan it, and write it down. By creating a specific, pre-planned action, you push away the need for in-the-moment decision-making, which is when you are most vulnerable. You are simply executing a pre-written script for your own protection. Put it on a Post-it note and post it where you can see it when using your computer.

Finally, cultivate the behavior of seeking an outside perspective before acting. Impulsiveness thrives in isolation.

Make it a rule that for any significant decision involving money, relationships, or career, you must talk it over with one trusted person first. This behavior serves two purposes. It forces another pause, and it introduces a rational, less-emotional viewpoint into your process. Choose someone who is not afraid to ask you tough questions. This simple act of verbalizing your impulse to another person can instantly shrink it down to size, exposing the flawed logic or emotional driver that felt so overwhelming in your head. However, it also does something else: in telling it to another person, you hear your own voice telling about the situation, and in many cases, just speaking it out loud is enough to formulate a logical decision.

By making these behaviors consistent practices, you are not just fighting impulsiveness; you are building a new, more resilient architecture for your decision-making.

Prof. Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
December 2025