How to Self-Control Yourself Without Willpower
The lazy way to have self-control
What does a life without willpower look like?
I have the bitter experience of knowing the answer myself. For the past few years, I’ve struggled with addiction. Luckily, it’s nothing serious (reading light novels,) and I thank God for such leniency. However, addiction is addiction, and it always messes something up in your life.
For the most part, I’m doing fine, so no worries. Yet, I’ll always remain vulnerable to relapses. That’s because my brain learned to associate reading light novels with a panacea to all problems.
Yesterday, for instance, I had a new book delivered (a collection of stories). From the very opening of the cover, I read it in one go. Granted, it wasn’t too long: 250 pages. Yet, it still took me a few hours to get through (and I had other plans!).
Thankfully, it didn’t belong to the genre of my cursed light novels, so I did not suffer other consequences. But there was a time when I was so engrossed in the activity that I messed up my reward circuit and caused my willpower to evaporate.
The aftermath was a life of debauchery and hedonism! Well, it wasn’t that bad because all I did was read all day (literally). Thankfully, sooner or later, I always wanted to set things right again.
Yet, when I finally made that decision, I had my willpower depleted due to overindulgence. The world didn’t care — I still had responsibilities to fulfill.
Thus, I had to learn to have self-control with zero willpower.
It is possible, indeed.
The success lies in recognizing that self-control is an umbrella term that describes your ability to regulate your behavior in the long run. Willpower, on the other hand, is a constituent of it (same as motivation, e.g.) or an ability to resist short-term temptations.
Thus, would it be easier to self-control yourself with willpower? Of course! Is it necessary? No, not at all. This is why I want to share some strategies that will help you here and now.
Manipulate the environment
The simplest and most low-effort way to increase self-control is by playing around with the environment. And by no means do I mean moving out (although that’s a brilliant shortcut to changing behavior). There are other ways to achieve similar effects:
#1 To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill (Sun Tzu, The Art of War)
It’s foolish to approach the enemy without any fighting ability (willpower). Thus, avoid them at all costs:
Do you want to eat healthier? Don’t keep junk food at home, and avoid shops/alleys selling it. For me, it meant blocking all the sites with access to light novels and anything that could make me miss them.
In short, all you have to do is make pursuing your unwanted behavior harder.
#2 The flip side
When you make unwanted behavior harder, you have to make wanted behavior easier.
Do you want to read more instead of scrolling through social media? Always carry a book with you, or even better, a kindle, or have one on your phone. The key is to make the alternative behavior frictionless.
#3 Change your environment altogether
Your house is filled with associations and habits, many being unwanted ones. Thus, it may be difficult to change behavior because everything else reminds you of the past one. So, instead of, e.g., trying to study/work at home — go to a library — it’ll be much easier.
Habits and the power of default
All we talked about before is nothing without making it a habit — or the default action you opt for. Because guess what: choosing your behavior actively depends on willpower. And as we agreed on in the title, we can’t afford it yet.
Habits, on the other hand, can carry us without our intervention.
Have you ever heard that self-discipline is the art of beginning? There’s a lot of truth in that. We don’t usually struggle with doing the work while in the process. Rather; we find it most challenging to get down to it.
Thus, if you train yourself to do it automatically, everything else should go much easier. So, return to the three strategies I told you before, and think about a way to make them mechanical.
Let’s say your default is to head back home straight after finishing work. At the same time, you always wanted to spend some time on your business/studying, and at home — it doesn’t work out.
It would make a big difference if you changed your habit to heading out to the library instead. Add to that the second principle (making the desired behavior a no-brainer,) and you’re done. It could be, e.g., finding the library’s location and turning on Google maps as soon as you finish work.
As you can see, you’re not required to make a decision, which increases the chances of completing the task.
This is the lazy way to self-control.
Willpower is valuable in the long-term
This article isn’t to dissuade you from developing your willpower. Conversely, willpower is a fantastic tool to increase your self-control. The problem is that cultivating willpower is like training muscles: it takes time, and the effects depend on the amount of exercise.
And there are times in life when you can’t afford that. For example, due to illness, accident, or addiction. Yet, life expects us to fulfill our responsibilities nevertheless. We, in turn, have to somehow meet its standards–even without willpower.
This article is an answer to precisely such a situation.
Key takeaways
- Self-control is an umbrella term, and willpower is its constituent. Thus, it’s not inevitable to regulate your behavior.
- The lazy ways of controlling it include: manipulating the environment and taking advantage of habits.
- You can manipulate the environment by making your desired behavior frictionless and vice versa.
- The key to success is to make these changes a habit or a default action you take.
- Willpower is still great — I recommend you invest in developing it (although that’s a long-term game).
