Many people have this idea that others work out more than themselves, eat healthier than them, and do more work than them. Frequent social media use is undoubtedly responsible for perpetuating this idea, at least partly. The infamous Nike slogan “just do it” even paints the picture that doing the thing should be easy. After all, working out involves “just doing” the workout.
This presents a problem however, as just doing the thing can often be difficult. Perhaps you don’t feel motivated today or your favorite gym shirt is dirty.
Don’t I Need a Lot of Willpower to Consistently Perform?
Many people seem to have this insidious idea that they just aren’t motivated enough to do difficult tasks. They just can’t seem to muster up enough willpower to do the task. The stars don’t seem to align for them today, and they put off doing the difficult tasks for tomorrow. After all, there is always tomorrow.
But what if I told you that people who consistently do difficult things don’t have more willpower than you? In fact, studies on willpower indicate that people who appear to possess great willpower actually do worse in laboratory tasks that test willpower.
This then begs the question of why people who display all the characteristics of willpower in their daily lives do worse than their apparently less willpowered counterparts.
The answer boils down to habits.
The Power of Habits
Let me illustrate this with an example. Simon and Garfunkel are friends, but Simon almost never indulges in sweets while Garfunkel periodically has too many sweets. Simon and Garfunkel both shop at the same store and are equally motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle. However, Simon uses all of his willpower at the store to not buy any sweets. Garfunkel, on the other hand, buys some sweets but decides to only have them during the weekends. Garfunkel therefore uses his willpower every time he sees the sweets in his cabinet, thinking to himself, “I am only allowed to have these during the weekends.” Simon also sometimes has sweets during the weekends but buys them on Saturdays.
The difference between Simon and Garfunkel is that Simon uses a little bit of willpower once during the trip to the store. Then, since he doesn’t have any sweets at home during the week, he doesn’t need to employ any willpower to resist indulging in them. Garfunkel, on the other hand, doesn’t use his willpower at the store and buys the sweets but tries to resist eating them during weekdays.
As you can imagine, resisting the temptation of having but one sweet after a difficult day at the office is hard. And Garfunkel knows this implicitly. Pervasive permission statements like “I deserve a treat today” or “one candy bar won’t make a difference” run through his mind every time he sees the tempting sweets in his cabinet. After all, one candy bar can’t be all bad (which it isn’t BTW). But a problem arises when one turns into two, three, and four… Before he knows it, Garfunkel has eaten way more sweets than he had intended.
What Can We Learn From This?
While resisting buying sweets at the store takes some willpower, resisting eating the already-bought sweets is even harder. Simon made a habit of not buying them while Garfunkel tried to power through resisting temptation.
Habits are far more effective than willpower or motivation. We brush our teeth out of habit even after a restless night of little-to-none sleep. If we would only brush our teeth when we felt adequately motivated, I reckon that most people wouldn’t do it twice a day. But most people do brush their teeth twice a day, and that’s because brushing is a habitual behavior.
How I Leverage Habits Instead of Willpower
In both my professional life and my personal life, I often need to do difficult tasks. Reading a dense paper and abstracting its implications, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and getting adequate amounts of sleep are all examples of tasks that I have had to make habitual.
For instance, if I have a paper that I need to get through, I usually timeblock an hour before lunch in my calendar to start reading it. If I don’t get through it, I make sure to timeblock another reading session in my calendar before I start another task. Since academic papers vary in density and complexity, the key habit here is the calendar timeblocking. If it is in my calendar, then it gets done. Similarly, to maintain a healthy lifestyle, I schedule gym sessions every week in my calendar. I usually go three times a week; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Going to the gym is thus both an activity on my calendar and follows a predictable schedule. In other words, it’s habitual. Finally, to ensure I get adequate sleep, I have set my phone to go on “Do Not Disturb” mode at 10 pm every night. I aim to be asleep by 11 pm at the latest, and thus, the signal of “Do Not Disturb” mode nudges me to keep that habit if I get lost doom scrolling social media.
Three-Point Action Protocol
Here are the three most important lessons I have learned to help me actually do the difficult tasks that ensure I keep my set goals:
- Use willpower strategically; it’s easier to not buy sweets than resist eating them.
- Leverage habits to combat willpower and motivational fatigue.
- Timeblock and schedule tasks to ensure they get done.
The post Willpower Sucks: How I Leverage Habits to Actually Achieve My Goals first appeared on Jón Ingi Hlynsson.