By Jeremy Bekker
Willpower is the ability to pursue the goals that matter most to you. Willpower is exercising control over your life, harnessing attention and effort in order to reach desired ends. Willpower (along with IQ) is one of the character traits most predictive of a successful life. In order to live the life you hope for, your daily behavior needs to align with your long term goals. This article will help teach you what willpower is, how to better develop it, and how to change your daily habits to help facilitate success. You have the power to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life, and understanding your relationship with willpower will help you on that journey.
The first step towards living a more meaningful life is understanding how willpower works. The chief expert on willpower research is Dr. Roy Baumiester. Baumiester is not only the researcher who has written the most on the subject, but he is also the one who popularized the construct in the first place. Back in the 1980s, Dr. Baumiester noticed an interesting phenomenon in dieting and substance abuse addiction research: when individuals attempted to change multiple behaviors at once, they tended to do poorly in altering any of them. These findings led Baumiester to create a theory about willpower that he coined the Ego Depletion Theory. Ego Depletion Theory is based on the idea that willpower is a limited resource, like a well, and that performance declines as willpower is depleted. Furthermore, Ego Depletion Theory posits that the body allocates different amounts of energy to various tasks, and that willpower, much like a physical muscle, becomes fatigued with use. Several decades of lab results have verified Dr. Baumiester’s theory that the body does indeed have one willpower reservoir that is depleted through exertion.
The fact that willpower is a diminishing resource does not prevent you from increasing your personal reservoir. There are two ways to increase willpower: refill your willpower reservoir by eating food and expand your willpower reservoir by exercising willpower.
Because the body’s energy supply is directly correlated with the willpower supply, eating replenishes both. If you are in need of a quick burst of willpower, a candy bar or a caffeinated beverage may do the trick. However, proteins and fats also provide the same benefits over a longer time period. As with physical energy, whereas sugar and caffeine will provide a quick fix, healthy eating can provide a more long-term solution. Along with eating a balanced diet, you should make sure to eat breakfast in the morning and drink plenty of water, as both are integral for good physical health and, subsequently, larger willpower reserves.
Exercising willpower is difficult, since using any willpower leads to a decrease in available willpower. To most effectively make use of this trade-off, pick one task in which you will practice more self-control over the coming weeks, such as a daily walk or posture practice. This one task will help increase your available willpower without maxing out your daily available limit.
Finally, the best way to live a meaningful and fulfilling life is to make your most important daily behavior automatic. Choice is inherently depleting, and while you may be able to use willpower to get yourself to complete your important tasks this week and maybe even through this month, eventually you will find yourself without the necessary energy to will yourself into action. There are two ways in which you can make your positive behaviors more automatic, precommitments and consistency.
Precommitments enable you to achieve long term goals by committing you to a specific action before the actual work is necessary. Thus you can commit to a positive behavior while your willpower is high, even though you may be completing the behavior in a less energetic state. An excellent website to help you make and keep precommitments is Stickk. Through Stickk, you commit to a specific goal and put a “punishment” of your choice in place for if you fail to complete your task. The punishment usually involves an anti-charity (a charity you would not like to donate to such as a rival political candidate, a sports organization, or a charity that you disagree with). Stickk helps you stay motivated by compelling you to complete your goal rather than donate to an anti-charity. Other ideas for exercising precommitment could include signing up for a gym membership, setting study sessions with friends, or signing up for a 5k at a future date. The key to precommitment is to have external structure in place in order to achieve future goals.
Consistency is practicing positive daily habits at the same time and in the same way every single day. The best method for establishing consistency is having daily routines based around your intended behavior. For example, if you would like to start meditating more, you should schedule a time that is the same every day and that won’t conflict with other meaningful tasks. You should also set up an environment that will help you succeed by doing things such as creating a specific space for meditation, turning off distracting devices, and buying a treat you can reward yourself with after you meditate. The key to making behavior habitual is creating daily patterns that won’t be disrupted while you are in the process of making your new behavior automatic.
Ultimately, some choices will still require that you use willpower regardless of the good habits that you put in place. Save these difficult tasks for when you have the energy to complete them properly. Don’t try to do your hardest homework when you are hungry or have the most difficult conversations in your relationships when you are exhausted. Plan your days around energy expenditure rather than time.
You can make positive changes in your own life; success is attainable. Start working now to create and implement more workable methods to harness your attention and achieve your goals. By setting yourself up to succeed through the proper use of willpower, consistent good habits, and compelling precommitments, you can live a life full of achievement and meaning.