Willpower

Willpower is a blend of practical tips and the latest scientific research on self-control, explaining how willpower works, what you can do to improve it, how to optimize it and which steps to take when it fails you.

My friend Colin told me that this is one of the most important lessons about willpower, so it gets the spotlight here, after falling a little behind when I did The Willpower Instinct.

If you’ve ever run a long distance and your legs felt wobbly, so all you wanted to do was sit down, you know how willpower works.

The more you exercise it without taking breaks, the less you’ll have for your next decision.

Your daily willpower supply is limited and once you’ve used all of your good decisions, you’re done for the day.

Baumeister tested this with a study, where all participants were exposed to the tempting smell of freshly baked chocolate cookies, some of which got to actually eat them, while others had to eat radishes (talk about a disappointment).

In the subsequent exercises, where they had to solve geometry puzzles, radish eaters quit 12 minutes earlier on average.

They had spent so much willpower fighting against that cookie smell, that they just couldn’t exercise as much self-control later on.

The fact that willpower and decision-making are intertwined can often be seen when politician’s or historically important people make poor choices in their personal lives, succumbing to sexual escapades and making suspicious deals with lobbyists.

So what can you do to not pull a Lewinsky when you make the office?

Build some self-control first of course!

The way you do it is simple: use it.

Using willpower to make positive changes in your life and exert self-control on a consistent basis in small ways will help you strengthen it through all areas of your life.

That’s because the speed with which your available willpower for the day declines decreases as you exercise it more.

For example, in a study where participants stuck to a two week exercise program, they noticed that after the two weeks they were also less likely to make bad food choices or postpone chores at home.

The lab test results confirmed it: their willpower had increased.

That’s great, because it means sticking to a budget that you give yourself might help you quit smoking, as it builds the self-control you need to resist cigarettes!

How do you start making self-control a regularly exercised habit? Roy Baumeister suggests you set goals, which are compatible. For example having more business meetings over lunch and losing weight might not be a good fit, one makes the other harder to pull off. But setting a budget to quit drinking…