This episode of Radiolab begins with a former civil rights activist, Zelda, who wants to quit smoking after 40+ years. She makes a deal with herself: the day she smokes another cigarette, she has to donate $5,000 to the KKK. She picks a friend to hold her to it. The episode frames this (somewhat extreme) example in the larger context: it’s a “Ulysses Contract.” In it, you make a decision that will design it so that it binds you in the future. Ulysses wants to hear the sirens, but men who hear them inevitably go mad and navigate their boat onto the rocks. He has his men stuff their ears with wax so they can’t hear, and then have them tie him to the mast. They’re not to change course no matter what he says and no matter how much he protests.

The key point here for Zelda is that she has a larger goal of quitting smoking. But when faced with cigarettes, the immediate desire overwhelmed her longer term goal. To make it stick and break the habit, she had to come up with something that was terrible and immediate enough to overwhelm her desire for the cigarette. An added point is that by telling her friend, there’s accountability for keeping her promise to stop smoking.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/117165-help/