We all have that one bad habit we’re trying to improve but in the moment are unable to control ourselves. Or those moments where all we want is to give up on making a meaningful change to our life.
Pros and cons is the distress tolerance skill for those urges, and it works differently from the rest in this series. STOP, TIPP and the others are designed to be reached for cold, in the moment, with nothing prepared.
This one needs a piece of paper. Here is what goes on the page, how to sort it, and when to write it.
Writing All Four Lists
There are two kinds of urges this skill was built for.
The first is for the urges towards behaviour that is dangerous, addictive or harmful. The bingeing, the yelling, etc.
The second is for urges to give in, to give up, or to avoid what needs doing to build a life you actually want to live. The resignation drafted at midnight, the appointment not booked, the number not called.
The second one is harder to notice because nobody around you is likely to flag it. That’s because no one else is likely to know what kind of life you want to build.
- The skill itself starts from drawing a 2×2 grid. Pros of acting on the urge. Cons of acting on it. Pros of resisting. Cons of resisting.
- Fill in those 4 boxes
- Assess and mark each entry as long term or short term.
- Paste the sheet somewhere you can read.
The pros of acting on the urge are real.
Giving in gets me sleep tonight.
Quitting gets my Sundays back.
Stopping means I don’t have to keep being bad at this in front of people who are better at it than me.
Those belong on the page in that form, in your own words, without softening. A list where the pros are underrepresented or left out is incomplete. You will know it when you read it back, and you will trust none of it in the hour you actually need it.
Sometimes there can be confusion while filling up the boxes. Fill the boxes anyway. Which column comes easily and which stays empty will also reveal something and eventually help you think more clearly about your concern.
Today or the Rest of It
Mark each entry: short-term, meaning just for today, or long-term, meaning beyond today.
People often find the marking lands unevenly. Most of the benefits of acting turn out to belong to tonight, and most of what it costs belongs to the months after. Seeing that in your own handwriting helps you put things in perspective.
Then ask your wise mind whether you would rather have a good day or a good life.
Both answers are legitimate. Some weeks the good day is the correct choice and the skill is what turns it into a choice. And the question encourages picturing long term worth.
For someone in a job with no exit, or a caring role with no end date, the short-term column may hold the only entries on the page that are genuinely true.
Write It on a Calm Afternoon
What makes the list most impactful is the timing of its creation.
Write your lists out while the week is still calm. Carry them with you. Go over them often enough that they become familiar rather than something you have to read closely.
The reason this works is because when one has more mindspace they’re able to invest the time and effort necessary for the skill. Nobody was pressing for an answer, nothing had to be settled in the next ten minutes, and the appeal of giving in was something to be described rather than an impulse commanding to be obeyed.
Keep it on paper if you can. The list needs to survive an hour in which your phone is the least reliable object you own.
When the urge does turn up, take the list out and read it again. Picture what resisting gets you. Picture what giving in costs. Remember what happened the last few times you acted on an urge like this one.
If your urge runs towards harm, towards drink, towards not eating, this exercise asks you to write the case for it in your own handwriting in advance and keep it somewhere you can find it at two in the morning.
Where the List Runs Out
A written argument is a rational instrument aimed at a state in which reasoning is the thing that has gone. That objection is fair, and it is exactly why the writing happens on a calm day. Reading is a much smaller task than reasoning.
Resisting is also not automatically the honourable column. Sometimes the course really is the wrong course, taken for reasons that made sense in March and do not now. The grid is only as honest as the person holding the pen.
If the lists come out on the side of acting, there are two possibilities and it is usually possible to tell them apart. Either the urge was right and the exercise has done its job, or the cost is real, the list is honest, and you resist consciously and purposefully. The second is more challenging. This is also where pros and cons meet reality acceptance: some of what you are resisting is not the urge itself but the fact underneath it.
And there may be nights when you read the whole thing through and act on the urge regardless. Remembering the consequences of acting on urges like this one is written into the skill. That night is not evidence against you. It is an entry. It goes among the costs of acting and helps remind you of your purpose.
Wednesday, late afternoon, and the folder is still on the table.
You take out the piece of paper you wrote on a quieter day, unfold it, and read all four columns, including the ones you did not want to write.
The tension disappears a little and is replaced by well-thought conviction. A positive stress that helps you in your goals. That’s the power this skill can give you.
And if you need help working out what your urges mean underneath, we’re always just a call away!