How to build the willpower of a warrior
Sometimes, it seems like we don’t stand a chance. All around us are flashy adverts, colorful packaging, pinging devices, and attractive people trying to entice us away from our goals: from being more active, saving money, making healthier choices, and spending our time more mindfully or productively (or both).?
The result? Every day, we are forced to dive deep into our willpower reserves just to make it to bedtime WITHOUT falling off whatever wagon we’ve resolved to hitch a ride on.
But while temptations are (mostly) unavoidable, you can control how you respond to them. Responding the right way requires willpower, which, just like any muscle in your body, gets bigger and stronger with exercise.?
And so what we’re going to show you in this article is how to build the willpower of a warrior so that any and all pesky temptations will bounce off of you like bullets off Bruce Banner’s body…
Kick your day off with a cold shower and/or vigorous exercise
Taking a cold shower is about mastering your mindset before you step in; cultivating mental resilience in the face of physical discomfort; and taking that resilience with you into your day (with the added physiological benefits of improved blood circulation, metabolism, immune system, and alertness).?So, an actionable way you can immediately begin building your willpower is to introduce cold showers into your daily routine.
Another way is through vigorous exercise. Exercise releases endorphins; makes you physically stronger, healthier, and happier; and sends you into your day feeling like you’ve accomplished something hard.?Sure, getting to the gym might take willpower, but the “exercise high” you’ll feel after will feed WAY MORE willpower back into your system than it takes out.
Excavate your “why” from your goals
Your “why” is your most important source of willpower. It’s the reason you stick with an effort and say “no” to the temptations that represent off-ramps to the goal-bound highway you’re on. If you don’t have a clear idea of your “why” and if you don’t come back to it frequently, allowing it to juice your willpower, it’ll make those moments of temptation and distraction harder to overcome.
So, your next step towards building your willpower is to deep dive into all the little and big reasons a particular goal is important to you: to find your “why”. Why are you doing this thing; why are you making this change??Write those reasons down and then every day, at least to begin with, read through them. More than that, connect with your words; feel them and visualize life on the “other side” of your goal.?
If you spare this exercise just a few minutes each morning, you will go into your day absolutely resolute in your focus. This will make it so much easier to turn your nose up at whatever temptation or distraction sashays across your path that day.
Think things through and plan for success
With a little planning, there are few distractions and temptations you can’t resist. What this essentially boils down to is visualizing what could possibly distract you from your goals, and emotionally preparing for it… or even coming up with a plan of action to minimize that distraction.
Let’s say you’ve signed up for a gym class on Saturday morning because your goal is to be healthier. But you’re meeting your mates out for dinner and drinks the night before and you need to get to bed at a decent hour (preferably without a headache in the morning). Rather than avoid spending time with your friends entirely, which avoids having to exercise any willpower at all, do a little mental preparation:
You’ll set yourself up to have a fun evening with friends, without compromising your goal to be healthier and make healthier choices. This preparation ensures that nothing NEW will come at you that you haven’t already mentally worked through and this will keep you firm in your resolve.?
Oh, Dave is offering to buy shots again? You knew this would happen. Just ‘cheers’ everyone with your regular drink, take a restroom break, or ask the server for a shot glass with juice so that you can join in the ceremony, without the consequences.?
领英推荐
If, on the other hand, you go into the evening without any mental preparation, you’ll likely leave yourself vulnerable to any kind of temptation, whether it’s intentional (your friends’ deliberate encouragement or cajoling: “Aw, c’mon! Just one more!”) or unintentional (seeing them order indulgent food and multiple rounds of drinks).
Reduce cheap dopamine kicks and find stillness
Distractions like social media keep our brains bathed in constant high levels of “cheap n’ easy” dopamine. It feels good in the moment “of scroll” but the second you stop, the languid flow of life can feel monotonous by comparison. Social media indulgence is basically a metaphor for junk vs. healthy food. Those empty calories sure do taste good but WOW are they bad for you!
Now, the reason why we’re bringing this up as an important thing to confront in order to build willpower is because the more hooked up you are to the cheap thrill of distractions like social media, the shallower the well of willpower you’ll have to draw upon when you really need it. Being a disciplined person requires you to go deep: to stay connected with yourself, your purpose, your feelings, and your thoughts.?
Whipping your phone out every chance you get to indulge in cheap dopamine keeps you from any kind of self-reflection. It reduces our existence to a brainless feed of surface-level, meaningless flashing imagery.
So reduce the cheap dopamine kicks and use your moments of downtime to find stillness by thinking about your day, processing any mental admin, meditating, or even learning something new and interesting (with an app like Brainscape). Feed your intellect, creativity, and connection with yourself rather than distracting yourself from feeling anything at all.
Do this and you’ll become a more focused, disciplined person and you’ll cultivate a deeper reservoir of willpower.
Understand that willpower is a finite resource
Our final tidbit of advice on building the willpower of a warrior is to understand that you DO go into each day with a finite amount of willpower. Therefore, squandering it all on decisions you don’t necessarily need to make and temptations you could easily avoid at the beginning of the day is very likely going to set you up for failure later on.
Instead of starting each day by asking / thinking questions like: “What should I wear to work today?”, “What should I have for breakfast?”, or “What fire should I put out at work first?” have an outfit picked out; prep your breakfast (or have a go-to meal); and write down a prioritized list of work tasks the night before.
Heck, Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day so that he never had to think about what to wear, while Tim Ferriss eats the same (healthy) meal for breakfast every day so he doesn't have to think about what food to prepare!?
By automating certain decisions and making commitments ahead of time, you’ll save yourself considerable mental energy and willpower on small in-the-moment decisions, which’ll pay massive dividends when you’re actually faced with a hard decision that requires you to have self-control and focus.?
Improving your willpower: in summary
Keeping these five points in mind and implementing them will create a strong foundation for a life of greater impulse control. Then, it all comes down to practice, practice, practice.
The more you successfully resist temptations and distractions, the less their hold over you. The first time you go out with friends and stick to only ONE drink will seem hard. But the second time you do it, it’ll be much easier. And the second time will make the third time even easier. This applies to any challenge, whether it’s getting up earlier, going to the gym after work, eliminating negative self-talk, making time to practice your Spanish, or speaking up more during work meetings.
Just keep coming back to your “why”; thereafter, you’ll find each “test of strength” more and more effortless, until you don’t even have to dig into your willpower at all to make the right decision. Remember, the only thing standing between you and the life you want is the decision to do things differently TODAY, right here and right now!
Director Of Marketing Operations at Brainscape
2 年I needed this ?? great read Thea Beckman!!