Okay, let's get super technical. May as well, it is LW after all.
You start off as a baby who can't even crawl. Eventually, after much effort and encouragement from loving voices you get your feet below you and you stand up.
Now that you're standing (1) you face your first challenge: Walking. You take one leg and put most of it in front of the other, you fall. (1) Why? Because you forgot to move your foot. So you stand up again, (2) and you get your leg AND your foot in front of the other. You crash down on the dog. (2) Gotta get that balance in check, babe! Alright, so we're up again. (3) You kick that leg forward, you stick an arm out the other way to spare the dog further discomfort and splash, (3) there goes the jube jubes on the coffee table. You're in heaven! Your mom perks up from the news to see what's going on (OF COURSE she notices as soon as the candies are involved) She grabs you, yells at you for stealing candies and wonders how you got yourself in so much trouble. While she steals away your candies, you decide it's time to find more adventures. In a flash you're up on your feet (3) this time you're using the coffee table to stabilize. Your mom takes a glance over and she's shocked! "ooo my god my baby is wal.." she's cut off when your ignorant older brother comes in and whisks you off your feet just before your first successful step. Some commotion ensues between the older people. Eventually you're placed back down on your bum to start again at your leisure... (4) or is it? Now there's a crowd. They're all wanting something from you. You have to think about this of course. You can't take the pressure, you gotta get out of there and fast. Bam! (5) you're back up and trying desperately to get away from these oogling weirdos. 1 step, 2 steps, 3 steps, you panic, you fall! (5) They're still on your tail, back up again, (6) "just head for the door" you think to yourself. "The crowd's only getting uglier!" Finally you make it, the people behind you are going nuts, can't look back now.. The doorway is right there, and it's open cause dad was doing the lawn, you trip just before the threshold. (6) you roll out the door, back flip up to your feet, and you make a run for it! The crowd goes wild! You get smoked by an oncoming vehicle (7) (your sister's tricycle) But you dust it off and get back up (8) now you're free and running! A clean escape!
you start standing, you end standing.
First comment on this thing. I've lurked for a few months now. :)
I appreciate what super power you're trying to unveil here and I'd like to contribute a few thoughts from my own experience. I'll try to offer a more robust mechanism for coercing your own behavior: Your memory. I think you touched on it when you gave the example of smelling, touching, and staring at the cake followed by throwing it away. You stopped there, however, not citing what about that ritual coerces future behavior. Memory is what makes that happen.
Memory of how good the cake tastes is what makes you want more of it in the first place. Similarly the memory of rejecting the cake and surviving, especially memories of rejecting the cake and recognizing the rewards (perhaps even because you reward yourself) will coerce your opinion towards rejecting it again in the future. If you can give yourself positive memories about self-denial you will be able to access self-denial again in the future with greater ease. The more positive memories you have with an activity, the easier it is to repeat that activity.
This is what I've noticed in myself anyway. The studies continue..
It's a ratio of standing vs falling.
Stand first. Fall. Stand. No matter how many times you fall, stand up once more. That always keeps the ratio of standing higher than falling. This is straight-forward, no?