Willpower is a muscle!

 

we force ourselves every single day to wake up early, get dressed, have a hasty breakfast, commute to work, and perform monotonous tasks all the day long, only to get back home awfully exhausted, ready to do one thing: sink into the couch, eat, and watch TV until we fall asleep.

That weariness and fatigue look almost inevitable that all thoughts of doing something productive after a long day at work, like working out, reading, or studying are utter illusions. The working system of today seems perfectly conceived to drain the last drop of energy we have, making us thus exclusively dedicated and slaves to our 9 to 5 job.  

The puzzlement nonetheless is why do we feel that powerless and lazy after work even though we were sitting in a desk all the day long? Why focusing on a personal extra activity or a project after a working day proves to be extremely difficult if not impossible? Most of us work at jobs that don’t require a significant physical or intellectual effort, so why we are completely incapable of doing something other than “work”?

To get a proper answer, we need first to understand what it requires to do challenging things, like waking up early, on a daily basis. For instance, every time we leave the warmth of our bed to head to work, we use a fictive muscle called willpower. Every action we accomplish against the comfort of our body leads to the consumption of that limited stock of willpower we have. We keep using up that reserve to perform dull and unfulfilling tasks until, by the end of the day, that muscle is tired and all its energy is drained off.

Unlike to what it sounds, this is actually good news! If willpower is akin to a muscle that gets exhausted by dint of exercise, it means that it could be trained and therefore strengthened! 

But how?

Just like any physical training; in order to make a muscle stronger, you need to work it every day, and in each time, push it over the edge. In other words, when the lactic acid is produced by the muscle tissue signaling the fatigue and tiredness, you keep fighting the pain and challenging your limits even just for a few minutes; only then will your muscle become resilient and strong.

However, how a fictive muscle as willpower’s can be trained?

For that purpose, let’s peer into the meaning of the word willpower. Isn’t it the ability to resist temptation and do something which normally your brain and your body would be lazy to do it? Therefore, to strengthen that ability, you’ll need to train yourself every day to withstand a specific urge, and compel yourself to fully engage in a certain activity or project, to consequently develop more willpower.

There are two accurate examples of where you can engage effectively the willpower:

1.     Going to a gym, or for a jog, or simply working out at home: it’s well known that people who exercise regularly tend to drink less alcohol, less coffee, smoke less, and in the overall, see a positive impact on their mental and physical health. The reason behind it is that those people have developed throughout working out a considerable willpower, and thus find it easy to resist bad habits or focus on something.

2.     Saving money: Sitting a goal to readjust your spendings and fix a monthly amount to save, is another way to train your willpower: by fighting against the impulse and desire to spend money on luxuries and secondary necessities, you’ll therefore be instructing your brain to focus on primary and important things, and not give up to temptations.

People who constrain themselves to daily employ their willpower will systematically notice an increasing capacity to focus and reach their goals.

That’s why it is extremely important to enroll young children or engage them in a certain activity during their free time. Enrolling a five year old in a piano class or a football team, or simply compel them to focus on reading a book for half an hour on a regular basis, will train their willpower muscle, direct them to resist the impulse of endlessly playing and being distracted, and thus develop their capacity to focus on their studies and be self-regulated individuals who can achieve goals swiftly.

Not all people however are capable to stick to a program or an activity and self-regulate. Some usually tend to quickly and easily fall off the wagon and quit if faced with stress or hindrances. Have you ever intended to go for a run and because you couldn’t find your sweatpants, you gave up and took a nap instead? That’s because when things don’t go according to the plan, which is usually the case, a certain burst of willpower is required in order to overcome the drawback. And if you're lacking willpower, chances are you're sinking deeper no matter how much you try.   

To compensate this weakness, you need to write down, in a boring detail, a detailed program in which you would list every single step you’ll have to perform, the potential roadblocks, and a detailed strategy of how to overcome them if they occur.

For example, if your goal is to go daily for a jog, you’ll need a notebook where you specify exactly when you would like to go, the chosen course, for how much time, what would you wear and where to find it. Then, you should list the frequent hindrances and complications you usually bump into; like finishing work late, not finding the sport’s leggings, rain… and accordingly list the strategies and alternatives you would opt for to overcome those obstacles.

By practicing this technique, you won’t need too much willpower to deal with unpredictable situations that would likely push you to surrender. As you’ll repetitively foresee it and anticipate a plan B ahead, dealing with stressful complications will gradually morph into a habit. The brain will be thus trained to help you focus on goals and achieve them instead of wasting energy on trifles.

Last but not least, in order to trigger your willpower muscle into work, your brain needs a guaranteed reward. Just like when you get up early for work your reward is your monthly salary, each activity and each goal you’re aiming for needs to have that small and satisfying win. If you want to exercise daily, what would be your reward? Is it looking good, feeling good, or not feeling guilty if you snack every once in a while…?

My personal secret that helps me to write and read daily is that first, I carefully and reasonably spend my money resisting thus the temptation of buying unnecessary stuff. And second, I work out regularly and therefore train myself to be resilient and resist the temptation of lying comfortably on the couch. Every day I read to finish a book; I look forward to the interesting information I would collect. And every day I write to finish an article or a chapter; I look forward to my little reward of publishing it and seeing it polished on my blog.

Small, yet satisfying and fulfilling wins that keep me going J