Top 12 Ways To Increase Willpower NOW
Self-Control Is an Incredible Tool for Success…
What does a saber-toothed tiger have in common with a strawberry cheesecake?
In her book The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal asks this question, exploring the ways in which different threats can derail our willpower, perpetually keeping us in the stressful biological state known as fight-or-flight
How do we run from or fight off the constant stream of temptations and distractions around us?
By strengthening our self control and willpower!
These are my top tips I’ve discovered on the subject of willpower.
1. Create Goals that Include “I Will” …Instead of “I Won’t”
There’s a famous psychology study that I would like you to participate in right now.
Ready? Ok!
Don’t think about white bears.
Don’t. Stop. Don’t do it.
Don’t you dare think about white bears. Stop.
Don’t think about a polar bear or an albino bear or even that episode of Black Mirror…
Dont think about white bears. In fact dont think of anything that has to do with white bears at all! No white bears. None.
All right. I think you can probably tell where I’m going with this but I’ll ask anyways…
Were you successful?
Chances are the image of a white bear came to your mind when trying not to think of it.
This is because we create a paradox when we try to not think of something. Simply by mentioning it (even with a not) we bring it into our mind. When we use words like don’t or I won’t, we actually invite the subjects into our brains as well.
This is why it’s so important for us to set ourselves up for success and frame our goals positively.
“Exercise the muscle of self-control without the internal angst that derails so many of our attempts to change.” — Kelly McGonigal
Next time you want to achieve something or set a new goal try phrasing it in such a way that includes something like:
I will eat more healthy food
instead of
I won’t eat junk food
(This way the junk food isn’t even in the mind at all)
Avoid wont’s and dont’s and focus on wills and coulds.
When we constantly remind ourselves of what we don’t have, it lingers there in the back of our mind…
That’s why depriving ourselves of something only increases our desire for it more…
2. Take Every Opportunity to Practice Mindfulness
“To succeed at our willpower challenges, we need to find the state of mind and body that puts our energy toward self-control, not self-defense” — Kelly McGonigal
It’s no secret! Practicing mindfulness and meditation not only improves our health, well-being, and brain functions but also can be an incredible tool to harness our willpower and self-control.
In his book The End of Stress Don Joseph Goewey tells us that a cardiologist by the name of Meyer Friedman always gave his highly stressed patients the same advice
(And it’s a bit unorthodox)…
He told these stressed patients to always take the longest line at the supermarket and intentionally drive in the slow lane.
Why?
Because he wanted them to consciously and actively take every chance in life to practice mindfulness and maintain inner peace.
He believed that the more ways patients could find time to utilize this strategy, the better the results would be…
“Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness.” — Kelly McGonigal
Our brain has amazing potential. We can utilize long lines, traffic, or other opportunities that would normally beget a sense of impatience from us, depleting our willpower resources, and recharge ourselves instead with thoughtfulness and deep breathing.
“Slowing the breath down activates the prefrontal cortex and increases heart rate variability, which helps shift the brain and body from a state of stress to self-control mode.” — Kelly McGonigal
3. Don’t Reward Good with Bad
“When you do something good, you feel good about yourself. This means you’re more likely to trust your impulses — which often means giving yourself permission to do something bad.” — Kelly McGonigal
We’ve all done it. Justified eating that cookie because we worked out. Taken leeway at work because we worked hard on that last project…
When we reward ourselves in this way, letting the glow of our good behavior justify the darkness of something else, we actually hurt ourselves in the long run. We set ourselves up for failure.
“The worst part of moral licensing is not just its questionable logic; the problem is how it tricks us into acting against our best interests.” — Kelly McGonigal
The “harmless” rewards we sometimes give ourselves actually deplete our willpower and exhaust our self-discipline more.
Kelly McGonigal talks about this in a shocking psychology study done that investigated decision making.
Princeton University students were asked to reject or agree with sexist statements. (using strongly disagree, somewhat disagree,
somewhat agree, and strongly agree) They were then asked to make decisions in hypothetical hiring situations.
Want to know the results?
The students who had strongly rejected the obviously sexist statements felt so justified by their good behavior, were so certain that they had already established themselves not to be sexist, that they became more likely to rely on moral licensing and bad impulses to hire in the exact opposite way.
They weren’t hypocrites. They just felt justified to use something psychologists call moral licensing.
In a nut shell, moral licensing is the concept that we often let our good behavior justify harmful actions.
“When it comes to right and wrong, most of us are not striving for moral perfection. We just want to feel good enough — which then gives us permission to do whatever we want.” — Kelly McGonigal
If we constantly reward our good actions with bad rewards, we train ourselves for the worst.
In the book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney explain that at a higher level, this could provide an explanation into why politicians and business leaders, who feel they are making a lot of “good” decisions all the time, end up falling prey to scandals, embezzling, and other bad behavior…
4. Eliminate as Many Decisions as Possible
When we are exhausted by something called decision fatigue, our willpower becomes so depleted we are more likely to give into things we shouldn’t.
Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney also explain that willpower is a limited resource. We only have a finite amount of it each day.
“Making decisions uses the very same willpower that you use to say no to doughnuts, drugs or illicit sex…Your ability to make the right investment or hiring decision may be reduced simply because you expended some of your willpower earlier when you held your tongue in response to someone’s offensive remark.” — Roy F. Baumeister
To safeguard against this, try to eliminate as many choices from the day as possible.
Here are a few ways that I suggest:
Have your meals and outfits already planned out for the week before it begins.
Try to avoid going to the grocery store or watching TV programs heavy on advertisements, especially later at night when you’ve already made a lot of your decisions for the day and depleted most of your willpower.
“Decision fatigue leaves us vulnerable to marketers who know how to time their sales” — Roy F. Baumeister
5. Create Automatic Habits
“If you want to overcome bad behavior you have to stop your automatic self from slipping” — Richard O’Connor
How do we fight off decision fatigue so it doesn’t happen in the first place?
With subconscious habits!
“Habits often occur without our permission, but can be reshaped by fiddling with their parts. They shape our lives far more than we realize — they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense.” — Charles Duhigg
In his book Rewire: Change Your Brain to Break Bad Habits, Overcome Addictions, Conquer Self-Destructive Behavior, Richard O’Connor talks about how we make decisions influenced by the two halves inside of us: our conscious self and our automatic self.
Usually our automatic self causes us to do things we regret (like mindlessly eating a whole bag of potato chips).
Because our conscious self can’t always be activated, we have to train our automatic self with good habits, so that when the autopilot switches on we are all set.
“Each time we engage in a bad habit, we make it more likely we’ll do it again in the future. But in the same way, each time we engage in a good habit, we make it more likely that we’ll do it again. You can learn to program your own brain so that making the right choices and exercising willpower comes to seem easy and natural.” — Richard O’Connor
In his book Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don’t, and How to Make Any Change Stick Jeremy Dean mentions that a minimum of one-third of our life is powered by our unconscious.
Since this big chunk our life is powered by an unconscious force, it’s a good idea to make sure we have good positive habits as a foundation to fall on.
These can come in the form of social habits, work routines, and eating habits to name a few.
Jeremy Dean tells us that intention and attitude is what really creates habit and advises us to always create something called happy habits.
This means to not merely go through the motion of something for habit’s sake, but instead savor, switch things up, and engage our senses when conditioning a new habit…
This will make our habits stick with us and resonate on a deeper scale.
6. Don’t Resist your Cravings and Rewards, Redirect them
“Genuine change requires work and self-understanding of the cravings driving behaviors.” — Charles Duhigg
We should reward our good behavior…with more good.
In his book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business Charles Duhigg talks about how we can increase our willpower by simply changing the routine and reward that occurs with our cravings.
For example, usually the habit of consuming too much alcohol is not what people are addicted to, it’s the feeling or reward they receive from it. So, as part of the recovery process in Alcoholics Anonymous participants list out what they crave from drinking.
AA then helps the participants to create new routines that satisfy and address those cravings in a different and less self-destructive way.
7. Set Monthly Aligning Goals
“The unconscious is asking the conscious mind to make a plan.” — Roy F. Baumeister
Sometimes when we focus on advancing our careers, we suffer in the area of family and relationships.
Why?
Because goals that are in conflict with each other are harder to achieve. They deplete our willpower.
In the book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney further talk about how it’s the composing of goals that really matters.
They advise us to create clear and harmonious goals. For example, sticking to a budget while quitting smoking are two goals that are far easier to accomplish and direct us toward action when paired together.
Also, monthly plans (in contrast to precise daily plans) allow more leeway and flexibility.
It’s the composing of goals, creating more strength in your willpower, that really makes things happen.
Self control starts with setting and creating the right goals.
8. Use Social Pressure in the Right Way
In the book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about how Rosa Parks was actually not the first to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat for a white man.
So why was she the civil rights icon she is known as today?
For one simple reason…
Rosa Parks was closely connected to all kinds of people. She had a variety of friends. She belonged to a broad array of clubs and societies. She made herself part of the community.
So when injustice happened, her strong social ties bailed her out of jail and spread the word.
Things become easier when we have others to support us. We can use social pressure or external control to help us achieve our goals and strengthen our willpower in the same way.
Kelly McGonigal tells us that willpower is contagious. Our social environment can increase (or decrease) our willpower.
If you are engaged in a willpower challenge, it might be a good idea to turn it into a group project. The more people that share in a willpower challenge the easier it will be.
We can also use external control or pressure in the form of something that measures our progress, like an app or diary where we are accountable to track our actions.
9. Use Willpower Like a Muscle
Willpower is like a muscle, to be taken care of, not overworked, and carefully used so it will become strong.
“Any muscle in your body can be made stronger through exercise — whether you’re building your biceps by lifting barbells, or training your thumbs by text messaging. If self-control is a muscle (even a metaphorical muscle), it should be possible to train it, too. As with physical exercise, using your self-control muscle may be tiring, but over time, the workout should make it stronger.” — Kelly McGonigal
The great thing about habits is that we have the power to shape and change them. We can use a little willpower now to reinforce a positive habit, which will save a lot of stress later on…
“Once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom and the responsibility to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp and the only option left is to get to work.” ― Charles Duhigg
Remember that it’s ok to fail in the process. Just always try again.
Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes progress.
10. Get Your Body on Board
Sleep. Exercise. Breathe.
The body, mind, and soul are extremely tied to one another. We need balance between all three to be our happiest selves.
“If you are stressed or depressed, your brain and body may not cooperate. Willpower can be disrupted by sleep deprivation, poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and a host of other factors that sap your energy, or keep your brain and body stuck in a chronic stress response. To every doctor, diet guru, or nagging spouse convinced that willpower is just a matter of making up your mind, this research should be a reality check. Yes, your mind is important, but your body also needs to get on board.” — Kelly McGonigal
11. Eat Less Sugar
In the book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney talk about how it is not relaxation but control of our glucose intake that gives us the strength to control ourselves.
It doesn’t matter what our genes are like, the blood sugar we have in our system is what influences our willpower.
“Most psychologists and nutritionists recommend a lowglycemic diet — that is, one that helps you keep your blood sugar steady. Low-glycemic foods include lean proteins, nuts and beans, high-fiber grains and cereals, and most fruits and vegetables — basically, food that looks like its natural state and doesn’t have a ton of added sugar, fat, and chemicals. It may take some self-control to shift in this direction, but whatever steps you take (say, eating a hearty and healthy breakfast during the workweek instead of skipping breakfast, or snacking on nuts instead of sugar) will more than pay you back for any willpower you spend making the change.” — Kelly McGonigal
12. Approach Life With a Childlike Wonder
I recently went to see my sister’s family for a pool party they were throwing. I was really excited to see everyone and also happy to hear a variety of pizza would be served.
It was a great day. My nieces and I raced around the pool, seeing who could get to certain sides first. I taught them Marco Polo. We laughed and swam and splashed around to our heart’s content.
Until the pizza came.
I quickly got out of the pool and plopped myself in front of the food table for about an hour or so, chatting with family and friends, gnawing on pizza crust and breadsticks.
Finally one of my nieces got out of the pool for lunch. She sat down next to me, took two bites of her favorite kind of pizza, and jumped right back into the pool.
Her abandoned pizza sat in front of me, jolting my stomach into a harsh reminder.
At what point as we grow up do we start loving food more than we do swimming?
My question prompted a discussion among the adults where we analyzed how puberty, forcing kids to finish their plates, centering our social activities around food, and other various things all seemed to contribute to altering our mental focus as we become adults. We begin to use food as an emotional release. And we condition it.
Ultimately the group concluded that children are so thrilled by the simple pleasures of life, they rarely look to food as their source of happiness.
The opportunity for me to test out this concept came later that day as I attended our friend’s wedding.
The bride and groom cut the cake on a table of desserts fit for a King. I was very impressed by the array of desserts they had available for the guests. From red velvet bread pudding, to freshly baked cinnamon cookies, to glazed doughnuts (and of course cake) the dessert table was decedent to say the least.
I was the first in line. I loaded my plate up and started to eagerly chomp down.
And then something happened.
One of my favorite songs started to play…
I raised my head and started to tap my feet. My dessert stared back at me, begging me to take another bite.
I sat there for a moment quietly, thinking back to my niece at the pool…
Then…
I decided.
I grabbed my hubby’s hand and raced toward the dance floor.
And BOY did we have a good time. People were literally coming up to us all night calling us the King and Queen of the dance floor, all the while my dessert plate sat to the side forgotten. Just like my niece’s pizza.
Now when I think back on the wedding, I think of a night filled with laughter, dorky dance moves, and a party on the dance floor that was unforgettable.
The lesson?
Approach life like a child. Enjoy the simple pleasures that once required no self-control on our end at all (and this applies to so much in life, not just pizza and desserts).
Laugh. Love. Live.
No willpower required.
Call To Action
“The willpower instinct is a wonderful thing: Thanks to the brain’s hard work and the cooperation of your body, your choices can be driven by long-term goals, not panic or the need for instant gratification.” -Kelly McGonigal
If you are ever feeling vulnerable to instant gratification, try imagining your future self thinking back on the decisions you decided to make today.
Visualize your success! Commit yourself to a life filled with positive action…
I hope you enjoyed the food for thought in this article. I hope it filled you in some way that will bring more peace, happiness, and success into your life now!
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