If you’re anything like me, then you sometimes do things that you later regret. Like hitting snooze rather than waking up early to exercise before work. Or blowing off a healthy eating plan to indulge in a hamburger and fries. Or starting an exercise program only to drop out two weeks into it. These regrettable actions keep you stuck. It’s almost as if there are two sides inside of you, raging war on each other. Your sensible side versus your emotional side. What you want versus what you do . A psychologist named Jonathan Haidt came up with a mental model that explains exactly why you do things that you wish you hadn’t – and how to take control to finally do the actions necessary to get what you really want. “The image I came up with for myself, as I marveled at my weakness [of willpower], was that I was a rider on the back of an elephant. I’m holding the reins in my hands, and by pulling one way or the other I can tell the elephant to turn, to stop, or to go. I can direct things,