The Secrets to Increasing Your Willpower

Do you wish that you had more willpower to do (or not do) certain things?

This post will provide you with some helpful guidance on how you can build up your willpower (or information on how you may assist your clients to increase theirs).

It will be based upon learnings that Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. has shared in her book “The Willpower Instinct” and/or in the “Neurobiology of Willpower” webinar that she provided on January 30, 2013, as part of NICABM‘s brain science series.

As per McGonigal, willpower refers to the ability to do what matters most to you even it’s difficult.

Willpower consists of 3 competing components:

I will – the ability to do what you need to do
I won’t – the other side of self-control; the inability to resist temptation
I want – your true want, the ability to remember the big picture of your life

Contrary to what you may have thought, willpower is not a virtue. 

It’s not about being the right person or trying to impress another person. Caution: You are more likely to give in to temptation when you view willpower as a virtue. This is because you later feel the need to reward yourself for “good” behavior.

Instead, willpower is a strength that you can train (or build) in a number of ways such as:

• Mindfulness/self-awareness
• Meditation
• Exercise
• Nutrition
• Sleep

Mindfulness/Self-awareness:

Most of our choices, be it what we eat, buy or do, are made on autopilot, that is, outside of our conscious awareness.

When your mind is preoccupied, your short-term impulses looking for immediate gratification will be your go-to choices vs. your true long-term goals.

To increase your self-awareness (to improve your self-control):

• Start paying attention to how/when you give in to your impulses.
• See if you can catch yourself earlier and earlier in the process while noting what is triggering the desire for the impulse (situation/thoughts/feelings).

If you keep at the practice of meditation, you will ultimately find that it strengthens your focus and enables you to be more conscious (and therefore more deliberate) of the choices you make the remainder of the day.

Exercise:

As per the video clip at the beginning of this post, exercise has a powerful effect on your brain, reducing stress and leading you to have increased willpower in many different areas of your life.

Due to the strong ripple effects that you may obtain from starting an exercise regimen, McGonigal coins physical activity as a “willpower miracle.”

Nutrition and Sleep:

Willpower is not an unlimited resource.

To maintain your willpower, maintain your energy levels via good nutrition and adequate rest.

To build your willpower around a particular temptation such as the desire to eat a decadent dessert, tell yourself that you can have it, but in 10 minutes.

During those 10 minutes, put physical distance between you and the temptation. This will help you develop the mindset to resist this temptation (or similar ones) in the future.

In other words, tell yourself that you will just work on the dreaded task for 10 minutes.

Nearly everyone can do anything for 10 minutes… and if you do this a few times, chances are that you will feel better about that task because you have started doing it already and once you have started, you may find yourself able to do it for half of an hour.

It was by telling myself that I will just open the study guide for 5 minutes a few days in a row that I was able to get back on the exam preparation horse, so to speak.

Do you think that some of these ideas may be helpful to you and/or your practice? Which suggestion(s) are you tempted to try out?

Reference:

McGonigal, K. (2012). The willpower instinct: How self-control works, why it matters and what you can do to get more of it.  New York: Avery.