Where there’s a will

The topic of Willpower is a tricky one with many dimensions.

This post will consider the topic of willpower from two different perspectives. The first is having the Will to do something, such as exercise or learn a foreign language. The second is the Will NOT to do something. This usually involves giving up a bad habit. To differentiate between the two, I’ll call the second “Won’tPower”.

There are some basic underlying traits that are predictors of having good willpower. These include:

• Meditation
• Eating low-glycemic, plant based foods
• Exercise
• Plenty of sleep
• Spending time with good friends

The science behind this is that these activities help with increasing your heart-rate variability, and heart-rate variability is strongly correlated with higher willpower reserves. So working on improving your practices in one or more of these areas can improve your willpower reserves. However, adopting some or all of these practices typically takes at least a semblance of willpower, so there’s a degree of chicken and egg about this.

To create a new habit is hard work for your brain. Old habits become well worn neural paths through your brain and much greater energy is required to forge a path in the direction of a new habit — it’s been described as the difference between driving down a motorway in a car on cruise control and hacking a path through virgin forest with a machete.

My best advice for using willpower to start something new is to make it as easy as possible for yourself by creating a habit, automating it to the greatest extent possible and avoiding situations where you are unlikely to be able to stick to your habit . Creating a positive habit requires you to pick up the new behaviour on close to a daily basis, and for between 28 and 45 days. Ideally you should give yourself a reward each time you act on the new habit, so that the brain associates positive things with the habit and will stimulate you to keep doing so.

Some of the techniques that can make it as easy as possible for your brain to pave the way to a new habit include:

• Only try to work on one new habit at a time
• Understand your most productive time of day (for example are you a morning person or a night owl) and schedule your new habit for when you are at the peak of your powers
• Aim to practice your new habit daily. It takes longer for new connections to form well worn paths in our brain for us compared to when we were children. In fact, Loretta Graziano Breuning‎ suggests it takes forty five consecutive days for this occur, and that if you miss a day, you should reset your day count and start the forty five day process again.
• Since you need to repeat a new process many times for it to become a habit, set a low bar for yourself and aim to improve. For an activity such as a new exercise or decluttering program, you could begin by aiming to do just five or ten minutes each day. Similarly, you could start a meditation program by committing to one minute per day for a week. Aim to make small increases in your target on a weekly basis (without pushing too hard). If you can sustain this low level process, you’ll find it easier to adhere to over time, and in fact, as you near your forty-fifth day you’ll find that it’s a source of enjoyment and you may be clearing your low hurdle by a substantial margin.
• Schedule recurring appointments in your calendar to remind you to practice the new habit daily.
• Tell a friend about your new habit and ask them to hold you accountable. Even better, practice your new habit with a friend (eg attend the gym with them), because the fear of letting them down may be stronger than the fear of letting yourself down.
• Make it as easy as possible to avoid temptation by changing the default setting. If you want to stop eating unhealthy lunches when you are at work, pack a nutritious meal the night before and take it to work with you or visit an establishment that offers only healthy choices. If you want to reduce your snack intake at home, simply stop keeping them in the house. Having your desired option as the only option in front of you makes it much easier to choose to do the right thing.
• Be specific. Rather than saying, “I am going to exercise every day”, say something like, “I am going to go for a 30 minute walk at 12:30PM every day”. Making these specific plans can lead to people being up to four times more likely to carry them out. This is especially the case if you combine it with some of the other tips (such as putting an appointment in your calendar).

Won’tPower, or the ability to break a bad habit can be even more challenging than creating a new habit. In part, this is because your brain has likely set up fast and efficient neural networks that lead you to carry out a certain action (the bad habit) in the presence of a particular stimuli. The brain does this because it has previously received rewards in the form of one of the “happiness chemicals” (dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin or seratonin) and it is seeking a renewal of that reward by repeating the action. These happiness chemicals originate from the “mammalian” part of your brain and are the result of millions of years of evolution. They are present in us today because they served our forebears well in helping them to survive.

It’s important to understand that there is a higher-order part of our brain that can choose to accept or reject the action that the instinctive, mammalian part of our brain is suggesting. This higher order is your cortex which has the capability of carrying out logical decision-making. The trick is to give your cortex the time to swing into gear rather than unthinkingly letting your brain proceed with the default behaviour. Some tips that can help you give your cortex the best chance of activating and over-riding your natural or conditioned response are:

• Pre-plan your response with “If-then” thinking. With this technique you imagine the scenario where you may be tempted and decide upon the course of action you’ll take. For example, “If I get cravings, then I’ll go for a walk.”
• Try to structure your life to avoid situations where you may be tempted to indulge in your bad habit. (Check out my post “Lead us not into temptation” for more information about this).
• Breathe. Whenever you feel a temptation, stop and breathe. One approach is to breathe in for three seconds, pause for a second and breathe out for five seconds. Repeating this another five times will alter your mental state and give your cortex an opportunity to take control. This technique is also a good one to use whenever you feel stressed or anxious as a way of calming yourself down. (Read my post, “Breathe” to learn more about this technique).
• Create an alternate habit that you can feel good about. Loretta Breuning gives the example of someone trying to reduce their consumption of alcohol. Every time this individual felt an urge to have a drink, he would start drawing instead. Initially this did not feel satisfying, but after doing this for forty five days, not only had he stopped drinking, but he had also significantly improved his sketching skills to the point that they gave him real pleasure and he was looking for opportunities to do more.
• Be patient with yourself. It takes time to overcome a habit and lay down alternate neural pathways. So don’t beat yourself up if you succumb. Rather, analyse the situation to understand what led to you taking the action and plan how you can do better next time.

For more information about these hacks:

• Read “Habits of a Happy Brain” by Loretta Graziano Breuning.
• Check out Patrick Edblad’s free e-book “The Science of Willpower”.
• Read Heidi Grant’s “9 Things Successful People Do Differently” which is available as a book or summarised article.

I will write more about the relationship between the different parts of the brain and how you can use their attributes to your benefit in “Human or Mammal”, so check out that post for the rationale behind these tips and further suggestions when it comes.