Can we increase our willpower? Yes! Willpower and it’s close friends; discipline and self-control, are like any muscle in the body. The more intentional focus on growth you provide it, the stronger they become. With willpower, we can move mountains. Namely, the mountains of our stubborn mind and body. We can will ourselves to act, to do things and go places we previously believed to be impossible.
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Be more aware of your automatic decisions
Since childhood, our incredible brains have been creating pathways based off rewards, punishments, and environmental factors.
Hundreds of thousands of choices, repeated over time with support or resistance are hardwired into our decision making routine as adults.
Many of the decisions we now make are so ingrained within us, we don’t even consider a choice.
For example…
- Will I eat lunch today?
- Do I put on warm clothes when it’s cold?
- Will I say yes to watching that movie?
- Do I want to get to know that new acquaintance?
- What colors do I like to wear?
These types of automatic decisions dictate how we live.
They’re not necessarily bad but they certainly exist and reinforce good, neutral, or bad outcomes.
What was once an open discussion in our mind is now so routine, we don’t even know it’s there.
Willpower can also become a routine, subconscious decision but it requires intentionality to get started.
Maximize Willpower with Intentionality
Before we get into ways to boost our willpower, we must maximize it by being intentional in our decisions.
Just like exercise, we need to recognize there is a decision to make, commit in our mind to act one way or the other, and then proceed to move our body in alignment with our commitment.
It sounds easy enough but how often do we decide the night before to workout in the morning and when morning comes that decision was just a wish?
Every single time we refuse to follow through on our intentional commitment, we are weakening our resolve to will and to act in accordance with our true desire.
Refusal to follow through makes willpower weak so that each subsequent hard thing we wanted to do, becomes all the more difficult for us to actually do.
On the flip side, thankfully, the more often we hold ourselves accountable and flex our willpower to do what we committed to do, regardless of fluctuations in desire, the bigger and stronger our willpower becomes.
It is guaranteed that we will want the easy way out.
That’s why it takes work, hard work, to develop and grow our willpower into the formidable fighter that it is.
Willpower can be the difference between sitting in a crowd or standing on stage.
Willpower can be the difference between calling that prospective client or needing to find another job.
Willpower can get the job done, whether we feel like it or not.
In the pursuit of a more powerful will, it’s important not to create temptation in order to exercise your will.
Don’t Manufacture Something Tempting
We don’t need opportunities to practice our will.
Real scenarios ready for testing, tempting, and trying us abound!
Manufactured scenarios can hold back our growth unnecessarily and create time wasting hurdles.
A normal day will provide a natural handful of battles for our will, and those battles are likely what we will continue to battle for years to come.
Common willpower battles each day that are excellent opportunities for growth and practice include:
- Waking up on time (or earlier than usual to be productive)
- Getting ready for work (or simply out of bed when it feels cold)
- Exercising
- Making a health meal (or 3)
- Calling important people
- Accomplishing goals
- Cleaning up after ourselves or others
- Running errands
- Being pleasant, gracious, and forgiving
- Apologizing when we mess up
- Working together as a team
- Not being idle or a busy body
- Managing our schedules before they manage us
10 simple ways to boost your willpower
There are simple ways to boost willpower that help increase a successful outcome of acting out on our commitments.
1. Create and meet self-imposed deadlines
Don’t wait for someone else to dictate how fast you can get the job done.
Evaluate your own skills and abilities, and set a realistic time frame to the accomplishment of your goals.
These deadlines help prioritize tasks and will motivate you to meet the deadline.
Don’t just empty the garbage, instead empty the garbage before Noon.
2. Work on your posture
Slouching is easy and normal.
Standing up straight is hard and rare.
Not only does fixing your posture put you in a mental state of success, it isn’t limited to your spine.
Consider your clothing posture.
Are you dressed to lounge or dressed to get hard work done?
Many people even find that keeping your shoes on will motivate you to be more productive and accomplish tasks rather than calling it quits on the couch.
3. Correct your speech
If negative self-take were a reality show, we’d all be watching it 24/7.
The world is tough.
People will speak down to you, limit you, and often tell you negative things.
We should never contribute to this litany of lies.
Instead, we are responsible for counteracting negative self-talk with positive self-talk.
It’s our job to maintain a clear voice of truth, reason, and encouragement within our own minds.
We can do what we choose to do.
We can hit our goal.
We can be successful.
We can become our greatest ally in supporting our own initiatives.
4. 10 minutes of meditation
Setting time aside to think is critical in our generation of go, go, go.
I recommend these 10 minutes be used to remove distraction (mental clutter), pray and talk to God, and think through decisions, priorities, and opportunities for growth.
Preparation for success happens in the mind well before it shows up in the hands.
5. Keep a food diary (or anything diary)
How will we know if we are on track getting to where we want to go if we don’t actually track it?
Many people would be shocked if they really knew all the things they ate in a single day or week – yet all of us are perplexed by the results of our choices!
Anything we want to improve, we must track.
We must keep notes, even rough ones, of our steps along the way.
6. Make it a habit
We can form or destroy habits.
Habits are simply exercises of the will that become ingrained within us.
The more we practice and repeat an action, the quicker it becomes a habit.
You may not think it’s possible, but even difficult actions can become a habit that you won’t even think about down the road.
Consider my story.
I wake up at 4:00 AM.
Sometimes 4:30 AM.
Sometimes 3:30 AM.
This isn’t something new.
I’ve been doing it for decades!
At first it was hard, burdensome, and not enjoyable.
But through exercises of my will, day after day, I don’t even think about it anymore.
It’s easy.
It’s relaxing.
It’s a joy.
Habits are like a harvest of our will over time.
7. Create a supportive willpower environment
Remember what I said about not manufacturing temptation in order to practice exercising your will?
Similarly, creating an environment that supports our willpower is very beneficial.
If you want to workout in the morning, layout your exercise clothes the night before.
If you struggle to get energized, have some healthy, caffeinated beverages in the house you enjoy.
If household chores are your achenemy, make them fun with having your favorite music playing, or commit to not doing something you love until those chores are done (like a hot bath!).
People can also support or hinder our willpower.
Surround yourself with people who hold themselves accountable to work hard and succeed in life.
It’s been said elsewhere that we resemble (or will resemble) our 5 closest friends.
Does that excite you or scare you?
8. Use it or lose it but don’t overdo it
It’s human nature to enjoy doing things we are good at.
Unfortunately, that causes us to stop doing things we don’t enjoy, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If we want to get better at something, we need to engage in it.
But balance is key.
Overdoing something too often and not experiencing the gift of rest or time can cause us to get burnt out or even injured.
Know that success often requires a long, slow road.
If waking up early is your goal, don’t decide to make 2:00 AM your new thing.
Start small, like 5:30 AM and work your way down from there as you find the sweet spot.
9. Exercise
Physical exercise teaches us our limits, provides opportunities for improved discipline, and encourages us with results.
A healthy body sleeps and performs far better than an unhealthy one and will contribute to our sense of clarity in willpower apart from exercise.
10. Good nutrition
Similar to exercise, eating right cultivates the right conditions in our mind for positive decision making.
If you don’t believe me, just go eat a tub of ice cream and see if you feel more inclined to sit on the couch and isolate or put your running shoes on and call a client.
Know your rhythms and become a willpower machine
All of us have rythms.
We have weak spots and tendencies that hold us back.
It’s important to be prepared in advance where the road will get rough so we can bolster our defenses and resolve.
You can increase your willpower.
You can become known as the person who gets the job done.
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