Why do we act against our own best interests—again and again—despite knowing better?

You stay up late scrolling your phone, knowing you’ll regret it in the morning. You reach for snacks you promised yourself you wouldn’t touch. You check email in the middle of a conversation with someone you love. It’s not that you lack discipline. It’s that something else seems to take over—just long enough to derail you.

The Self-Control Book is a groundbreaking exploration of why we lose control in the moments that matter most—and how to reclaim it. Blending cutting-edge neuroscience with mindfulness and identity psychology, C.K. Halden exposes the invisible systems that shape our decisions, hijack our cravings, and exploit the gap between what we know and what we do.

This isn’t another book about productivity, hustle, or “pushing through.” Instead, it offers a radical new framework for understanding self-control—one that replaces shame with insight and brute force with strategy.

Inside, you’ll discover:

• ✔️ Why your brain initiates behavior before you're even consciously aware of wanting to act
• ✔️ How your digital environment is engineered to exploit your attention and reward loops
• ✔️ What the “200-millisecond head start” reveals about impulse, habit, and regret
• ✔️ Why logic, motivation, and positive thinking fail when you’re triggered—and what actually works
• ✔️ How to recognize craving in its earliest stages, before it becomes overwhelming
• ✔️ How identity-based change outperforms discipline-based effort every time
• ✔️ How to design friction into your worst habits—and flow into your best ones

Halden brings clarity to the chaos of modern distraction, compassion to the experience of relapse, and practical tools to the messy reality of change. Whether you're struggling with digital addiction, emotional eating, procrastination, or simply feeling out of alignment with your values, this book will help you stop blaming yourself—and start understanding the deeper forces at play.

This book will teach you: how craving forms before you're aware of it, how stories of failure keep you stuck, how shame creates relapse cycles, and how to finally close the gap between intention and action.

With vivid examples, actionable tools, and surprising revelations from neuroscience and behavioral design, The Self-Control Book invites you to rethink everything you’ve been told about willpower—and replace guilt with strategy, effort with design, and resistance with awareness.

You’re not undisciplined. You’re outgunned. But once you understand what you’re up against, you can start playing a different game—one where lasting change is not only possible, but inevitable.

For readers of James Clear, Nir Eyal, and Judson Brewer—this is the missing piece.