Self-Control, Five Key Things:

Russell Barkley, The Mind's Playground

We now believe there are five key things that have to develop normally in order for a person to be able to control their own behaviour: Inhibition, Visualization, the Mind’s Voice, the Mind’s Heart, and the Mind’s Playground. And they develop in this order:

1. Inhibition 

The first to develop is inhibition---the ability to pause your behaviour, and during that pause, you're going to do four other things...

2. Visualization 

Next to develop is your mind’s eye---your visual imagery. After you pause, you’re going to use your mind's eye, to think about what you're doing; to look back, look ahead, and consider your relevant past experience, before you act in the moment.

3. The Mind’s Voice

The mind’s voice is the third thing that develops. You’re going to talk to yourself in your head, to reason with yourself, and question yourself, as someone else might do. This allows you to recall more information from your past experiences to guide you through your current situation.

4. The Mind’s Heart 

The fourth thing that develops is the mind's heart. This is the ability to use the first three things (pausing, imagining, and talking to yourself), to manage your emotions. This allows you to moderate your emotions, so they're more socially acceptable, and support your long-term goals, not just the immediate ones.

5. The Mind’s Playground 

Finally, there's the mind's playground, which is the ability to take all this information, these images and words, and play with them, work through them, and re-combine them in new ways, to make plans and solve problems. This ability to play with information, and to re-consider it in various combinations, is almost like having a mental simulator, where we can try out the different possibilities, before we select the one that seems most appropriate to what we're trying to accomplish.

To sum up, executive functioning involves pausing, imagining, talking to yourself, playing with your emotions to make them more acceptable in supporting your long-term goals, and then, finally, planning and problem-solving.