Halloween was two days ago. So I’m guessing a lot of you are reading this at your desk, knowing that the candy bowl in the break room is still overflowing, or you’re at your kitchen table, working within eyeshot of your kids’ bag-o-goodies.

While Kellogg Insight’s editors support a healthy amount of Halloween sugar binging, at some point you want your self-control to kick in, right? Today we’ll look at some research on self-control to help you resist those sugary temptations and perhaps help you with discipline in other areas of your life, too.

Be Realistic about Temptation

Maybe you aren’t feeling terribly tempted at the moment. That bowl of candy—or the lure of mindlessly scrolling social media when you should be finishing your presentation—doesn’t feel like much of a threat. So no need to move the candy out of eyesight, or turn off those Twitter push notifications. Right?

Well, sorry to say, your current feeling of composure may make you overestimate how much temptation you’ll be able to resist in the future, according to research from Loran Nordgren, a professor of management and organizations.

When we’re in a “cold state,” meaning that hunger, anger, fatigue, or some other emotion isn’t making us feel more impulsive, we are more likely to expose ourselves to temptation and thus indulge in impulsive or addictive behavior. This is because we are confident we can resist more than we actually can. Says Nordgren: “We expose ourselves to more temptation than is wise.”

When we’re already feeling impulsive, we have a more realistic view of how well we can control ourselves.

Be Aware of When Your Self-Control Is at Its Lowest

Rima Touré-Tillery, an associate professor of marketing, identified another factor that can hinder our self-control: whether we perceive ourselves to be in “the middle” of something.

Touré-Tillery and her collaborator placed Kit Kat bars and raisins on a table in a business-school hallway. They found that students were more likely to choose the candy if the sign said, “Keep your day going!” instead of “Start your afternoon!” or “End your morning!”

“Actions at the beginning and end of a sequence appear to reflect more on our own personal standards than actions in the middle,” she says. In other words, when we stray from our goals in the middle of a given sequence, we damage our self-image less than when we stray at the beginning or end. And that happens whether the sequence is real or imagined. After all, the middle of the day is no different than the start of the afternoon.

The researchers also found that people are more willing to spend money in the middle of a sequence.

Touré-Tillery thinks this research could have important policy implications for issues such as combating personal debt or improving public health.

“Appealing to a person’s desire to think of herself in positive terms proves to be a powerful motivator in the arduous pursuit of long-term goals,” she says.

More Leadership Lessons from Liz Truss’s Downfall

Last week, you heard from Harry Kraemer, who had some leadership takeaways from Liz Truss’s downfall and recommendations for how other leaders can avoid similar mistakes.

I had a longer story in the works with Kramer, a former CEO at Baxter International who is now a clinical professor of management and organizations. That piece is now live.

In it, Kraemer talks about the four dimensions of value-based leadership—self-reflection, a balanced perspective, true self-confidence, and genuine humility—and explains how Truss erred on each of them.

Of course, Truss’s economic policy was her downfall, but Kraemer says she also failed as a leader.

“She was talking about creating tremendous change without having an understanding of what all the implications of that change could be,” he says. “And you can see where that got her.”

LEADERSHIP TIP

“Massive layoffs are a clear sign to the market that the company is on a negative trajectory. … Quiet cutbacks may be a way to achieve the same goal without all these negative consequences.”

—Assistant professor Nichola Bianchi in Insider, on why tech companies are reducing staff through reorganizations and performance reviews instead of through large rounds of layoffs.