Anyone Can Develop Willpower: A Few Simple Techniques

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Willpower is something that many of us often lack. It turns out that willpower can be trained in the same way as muscles. Read about how to do this in this article.

We are constantly striving to get as much as possible and do the best we can. But now we invite you to look at things more realistically and understand what can and cannot be achieved with the help of your willpower.

Repeat after me: my willpower is limited.

Psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson argues that our willpower is not always able to cope with the difficult task of resisting temptation. Heidi believes that it is not always worthwhile to rely entirely on our willpower.

Psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and writer John Tierney have written Willpower: Rediscovering Human's Most Powerful Capability. They believe that willpower can be compared to muscles. And, like muscles, willpower can be trained.

While our willpower is really not limitless, the good news is that willpower can be trained. Here are some simple tips to help you do this.

1. Do the hardest things in the morning

Experts believe that one of the best ways to deal with unpleasant and difficult things is to do them first, right in the morning.

We all know that our energy, and with it our willpower, decreases during the day. Therefore, if you set yourself the task of dealing with all difficult things in the morning, without putting them on the back burner, then you will avoid the most common and beloved human decision - just to forget about what you don’t want to do.

2. Have a snack

This advice may seem counterintuitive to someone who is exercising their willpower to lose weight.

But if you eat something that contains a little sugar, it will activate your brain, and this, in turn, is important for your willpower to be stable.

Baumeister and other researchers at Florida State University conducted a study and found that when the participants tried to activate their self-control, they had low blood glucose levels. In the future, all the following tasks, in which they also needed to activate their willpower, people performed ineffectively, with less productivity.

But when participants included a drink containing glucose in their diet, it was much easier for them to control their willpower.

In order to prove their theory, the researchers used sugar-sweetened drinks, mainly various lemonades, but eventually came to the conclusion that foods rich in proteins and complex carbohydrates are better for activating the brain than drinks.

3. Praise and cheer yourself up

Scientists at the University of California have found that self-compassion is an important step towards self-improvement. And researchers from the University of Illinois argue that what a person says to himself matters a lot.

According to research, cheering yourself up can go a long way toward improving your own productivity.

So the next time you need moral support to tackle a difficult task, just say to yourself, "I'll do it."

4. Take it easy

Saying “calm down” is the most ineffective way of getting someone to actually calm down. But if you want to train your willpower, you really need to be calm.

When we experience severe stress, we fall into a state of "autopilot": we act instinctively and do not think logically. And this means that we push reason and willpower to the background.

So don't let stress get the best of you. Inhale and exhale and a glass of water is the surest and easiest way to calm down.

5. Sleep more

Numerous studies prove that if a sleepy person is driving a car, it's like he would be drunk.

Sleepy drivers are responsible for one in six fatal car accidents, according to the Highway Traffic Safety Foundation.

If a person deprives himself of sleep, the state of his body is equivalent to the state of the body of a drunk person. Believe me, in such a state you are unlikely to be able to do anything useful or make any important decisions.

Not only will you physically feel overwhelmed, you will also be unable to cope with stress, and every little thing can piss you off.

So, in view of all the negative consequences that lack of sleep entails, the conclusion is one: in no case do not deprive yourself of healthy sleep.