Willpower is not black or white. You don’t ‘have it’ or ‘not’. It combines a complex of multiple of things.
So what is willpower?
- Willpower combines your ability to be interested and engaged in novelty
- Willpower combines your attentiveness to environmental cues around you
- Willpower combines your sense of internal principles, your sense of self
What’s your inner dialogue when it comes to willpower? It could be “I really suck at exerting my willpower and I am a total failure” or it could be “I am iron clad and unflappable.” The story that you tell yourself about your willpower is critical.
We all have willpower, no one is a ‘failure’ and can’t control themselves.
Instead of thinking in a blanketed, negative way about yourself recognize the areas in your life where you do have excellent willpower. It could be your attention and focus to your work, it could be the amount you dedicate to read, it could be drinking enough water, walking every day, cooking dinner 4 nights a week, or getting to sleep around the same time every night.. All of these require consistent effort which is exerting that ‘willpower muscle.’
Each of these obviously have varying degrees of effort, but there is still effort involved. Look at how you mentally apply yourself to tasks you are successful at to help guide you to gaining more control over situations where you feel your willpower fails you.
Instead of telling yourself you have no willpower, change the story you tell yourself to: “In some situations I have trouble being decisive or being uncomfortable."Everything is a skill that can be tackled in segments. Just like learning a language, building physical strength or running long distances we start small and build upon it consistently to get results.
By recognizing this you can look at that particular habit or activity that you struggle with and begin to break it down into smaller pieces. Work on those pieces one step at a time, to develop new habits and break old habits to support your goals.
Working on habits, not willpower will get us moving closer to our goals.