Mental conflicts are inevitable. Any time two intentions arise which cannot both be satisfied, you have to choose, and there’s a moment of conflict. If you look for them, you’ll find your day is full of these moments, some subtle flashes, sometimes a paralyzing debate. A lot of internal talk is actually a response to mental conflict at a nonverbal level.

The important thing is to win. What does that mean? It means for your best intention to win. It’s not too hard to tell, on reflection, which intention was better for your long-term wellbeing. If you really can’t tell on reflection, then it doesn’t matter; you only need to try both and see how the results compare. Eventually it becomes obvious.

It starts with recognition. You notice the conflict, the intentions, and recognize which one is better. Without recognition, intentions are duking it out in your otherwise oblivious mind. When you recognize and label them, you have an opportunity to intervene.

Winning a mental conflict is a skill. You can get good at it. It consists of a lot of little things you don’t normally think about. They influence what is going on within you. I call them tactics. There’s a million little tactics to be learned by experimentation, but I can give you a framework to analyze, devise, and remember tactics.

There are forces which push you to act or hesitate. There are emotional forces: shame/pride, fear/love, disgust/desire. There are mental forces: habit, attention, association, identification. These forces strengthen/weaken intentions, shape the will, and can be shaped in turn by the will using tactics. It is your responsibility to harness these forces skilfully.

There are three domains where you can apply tactics: context, state of mind, thoughts. There are three ways of using tactics to win this present moment: preparing, adjusting, imagining. Let’s look at some examples.

Example 1: You’re on a run, for the first time in a while. Your body is screaming, you feel an urge to slow down, to give up. Thoughts arise: “I’ve run enough. Maybe it’s unhealthy to push too hard. Maybe I’ll stop and start again.” But you know you could keep going. What sorts of tactics make a difference in what you’ll do?

Example 2: You’re going to have a conversation where you could get angry. You know anger hits you quickly, you lose your presence of mind, and you regret it later. What tactics make a difference?

Example 3: You’re overcoming an addiction and the urges are hitting you repeatedly today. What makes a difference?

Example 4: You’re at a party with a person you admire in attendance. You want to go up to them, but you feel frozen. What makes a difference?

The thing to observe about tactics is their amazing variety. You never know what’s going to make the difference, so if one tactic doesn’t work, you can try another, and another. There’s always something that will be a good fit for the forces at play in your mind. Bad habits seem amazingly persistent, but it’s hard to beat somebody who has a Plan C, D, E, and F to try out.

Despite their variety, there are three central tactics that are particularly helpful. The central context tactic is social: be around people who act the way you want to act, and be honest with them about your goals and failures. This taps particularly deeply into the shame/pride force, which is the most reliably accessible emotional force. It also taps into the force of identity. This is the most effective tactic in life overall.

The central state-of-mind tactic is physical: ground yourself in the body by being aware of and regulating your posture, breathing, and tension. Regulating means making the body relaxed and comfortable. This very powerfully affects attention, taking control of how you feel, making the mind more clear and your will more effective. It also strongly reduces fear and stress.

The central thought tactic is attitude: remember to bring a skillful attitude to the moment. Your perspective/attitude is what interprets everything and generates your thoughts. If your attitude is fatalist, excuses will come to mind. If your attitude is skill, tactics will come to mind. If your attitude is bad, negative narratives will come to mind. If your attitude is good, ways of making things better will come to mind.

Exercise 1: Take something you struggle to resist, maybe it’s a cookie, or social media. Put it in front of you, set a timer, and resist eating/doing it. You can gradually increase the time: 1min, 10min, 1hour. If it’s easy, you can do it at a time when you’re hungry or tired.

Exercise 2: Identify something important you regularly fail to do. Find a time to do it, and make a list of three tactics that will affect your behavior. Try the tactics and observe the effect they have on your conflict and actions.

Exercises can help, but these skills are best developed in daily life through the process of improving your actions. What’s great is you develop these skills while making life better for you and those around you. The reward of success in mental conflict is seeing the outcome of following your best intentions.

The more you are in the habit of winning, the less you need to rely on tactics. But just as a skilled warrior never knows when an opponent may seek them out, you never know when you might be challenged by temptation or fear. It is often at our weakest moments that the most dangerous conflicts arise, and it is then you’ll rely on the skill you’ve built through practice. Never doubt that you can overcome the most overpowering temptation or the most paralyzing fear. It is merely a matter of skill.