There’s hardly one person I agree with over diverse topics. When analysing human actions, I like to think like David Brooks. In “The Social Animal”, Brooks highlights three very interesting stages

Perception, Decision-making, and Willpower.

First is perception. It’s widely accepted that two people can look at the same scenario and see very different things. My favourite illustration is with the half-filled glass of water. The optimist sees a half full cup; the pessimist, a half empty one; the realist a dirty glass; the opportunist, drinking fluid. The various perspectives are endless.

Decision-making is based on the output of this perception stage. This is where a course of action is taken. Poor perception hardly ever leads to proper decision making. However, if one is able to assess and evaluate properly, a good decision is made.

Enter stage three. Willpower. The ability to translate decisions made to daily actions that drive you towards your goal. It’s where the wheat gets separated from the chaff.

A lot has been written about willpower. The power within - as it is sometimes called. If you really want anything, you can get it, because the first step to success is willpower. When willpower works; we have determined, goal driven people scaling new heights previously thought impossible. When it doesn’t; we have addicts who understand they should quit but somehow cannot.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way?

Chris Berdik writes in Mind over Mind of two opposing notions about willpower. First; how willpower is expendable. The argument is that, just like physical power (I’m using power very loosely here) willpower is expendable, and as a result, needs some healing/ recovery time. A very interesting parallel of how physical power works. It’s the reason why you’re a lot more likely to over-eat though you’re on a diet in the evenings than in the mornings. The reason being that your willpower has been expended- fighting off different temptations all day long. It does appeal to intuition.

Berdik also calls our attention to the more correct opposite; willpower is not expendable. Despite how nice it may be to believe otherwise, you have and inexhaustible supply of willpower and just learning about that makes you more likely to experience same.

Willpower is important when you’re tempted. It’s how we don’t fall into every temptation. But temptation isn’t necessarily evil. The intrinsic lure of temptation is that they satiate our wants — our immediate wants — which are not always in our best long-term interests. Most times it’s the tension between what we should do and what we want to that works our willpower. The bigger the temptations you overcome, the bigger your willpower. Yes? Temptation typically prevents us from being productive, whether in form of distraction or de-motivation, but ingenious work by Katherine Milkman helps us gain a new perspective.

Temptation-bundling is what she calls it. Instead of draining will power in your attempt to fight temptation, you engage the power of the temptation to drive you towards your goals.

Who says falling into temptation has to be a bad thing?

Here’s how:

It’s as simple as redesigning temptations.
First, you need to identify the temptation. Here’s a caveat. All indulgences are not created equal. I won’t ask you to use smoking as a reward temptation. However, things like, an extra bowl of chicken, or that trip to the spa, or the new season of Suits can be effective temptations. It’s about picking your battles. :D

The next step is scheduling these reward-temptations to come with your work towards your goal. Her example is planning to watch the new episode of whatever TV show that you love only while you’re at the gym. This way, you wake up excited. Not about your trip to the gym, at least, not initially, but what you get to enjoy there. You find yourself enjoying your gym time and actually fall your way into a fitter body.

Of course, the bigger the work to be completed, the bigger the reward-temptation, and the needs to be.

With careful enough planning, you can turn every bit of unproductive distraction into one form of reward-temptation or the other. From rewarding yourself with time on Twitter for completing the article, to checking Product Hunt after sending work reports. The potential here is limitless. All you need is clarity of thought.

In summary

You need to identify your biggest daily, weekly or other sorts of temptations. The reason being that the way I’m tempted isn’t the same way you are. But regardless of how you are tempted, the principles of temptation-bundling remain the same

The notion is that by associating ‘should’ activities to ‘want’ activities, our off desires are managed and direct us to more noble achievements.

There! Willpower hacked!

Image credit: Pixabay