Willpower

Pat Mustard

I saw a couple of articles on willpower that I thought were interesting. They come from an American mindset but are still relevant to this corner of the world.

Basically, the advice is to make a list of the distractions and people who tend to get in the way of your goals. Try to avoid those distractions. Create plans to achieve what you want to achieve. Then make the decision to do what needs to be done. If you make a prior commitment to do what you plan to do (whether that is going for a run or whatever), you can stick to that. Also be aware that when people make plans, they have unrealistically optimistic plans about how much willpower and energy they will have in the future. In fact, such people could be burnt out and exhausted when the time comes to go for a run or do whatever needs doing. Be aware of this 'planning fallacy', plan around it and it will be less of a problem.

http://www.willpowered.co/learn/playing-offense

The way to get the most out of your willpower is to avoid having to use it. There are countless temptations and challenges out there that seek to detract us from our long-term goals. The more of these challenges that we can proactively avoid, the more willpower we will have to take on those that we cannot avoid.

The second article is also interesting. It's like a condensed version of a self help book, reducing the necessary information into one article.
http://www.willpowered.co/learn/daily-willpower-habits?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=Willpower%20Habits

ancapailldorcha

Your first link is dead there Pat.

Pat Mustard

Thanks for that. Fixed.

So make plans and make sure you achieve them - don't get distracted -and if you plan too much you might not achieve those plans - and if you avoid challenges you will not have to face those challenges.

It is all good stuff for sure - but a little obvious no? Will check the links though and read it over as perhaps the summary is not doing the full text any justice.

Have to admit that the "planning fallacy" as they call it was certainly a huge challenge for me in the past though. I always seemed to be planning something in the future. "I will start that next monday" or "The first of next month would be a great place to start all this".

And I would always over plan for those start points. Come monday I would start running an hour a day. Or come the first of the month I would start having fruit salads and dinner salads every day and cook loads instead of quick food. And of course come that day it would very quickly turn into "Oh I could do this tomorrow or next week" and so forth.

My own solution to this was a little different from the summary above. Worked for me I guess - works for lots of others too - but like any solution offered by me or the links above - there is never one that works for everyone. I have never heard one at least that is one size fits all.

Pawwed Rig

Pat Mustard wrote: »

Basically, the advice is to make a list of the distractions and people who tend to get in the way of your goals. Try to avoid those distractions.

This is a true one. When I gave up smoking there were a few people I had to avoid for a good long time as I knew that by spending time in their company I would crumble and have a cigarette.

Pat Mustard

Deleted User wrote: »

It is all good stuff for sure - but a little obvious no? Will check the links though and read it over as perhaps the summary is not doing the full text any justice.

Well, if you take a look at the link or links, you will see that I tried to sum up the various ideas in a nutshell.

You can argue that these ideas can be put down to common-sense. However, I had not thought of all of the ideas in the articles.

It never occurred to me that when people make plans, they look forward with unrealistic optimism as to their future levels of energy and willpower. Realising that this occurs means that the problem can be anticipated and resolved. Not anticipating the problem means that when the future lack of energy occurs, people may simply choose to accept failure as a product of lack of willpower rather than lack of preparation.

Pepe LeFrits

It's interesting stuff. I read a book on habits recently and there was a lot about will power in there. The gist of it was that in addition to viewing will power as a finite resource (so act accordingly), will power is like a muscle and can be gradually strengthened. Start small and build patterns of positive behaviour slowly over time, rather than take on too much, burn out and give up completely.

Pat Mustard

Pat Mustard wrote: »

It never occurred to me that when people make plans, they look forward with unrealistic optimism as to their future levels of energy and willpower. Realising that this occurs means that the problem can be anticipated and resolved.

As with many things that seem obvious to oneself - it seeming obvious is generally the result of having the benefit of retrospect. And it can be hard to spot that in oneself - so I do not mean to over step by declaring it "obvious" for this reason.

As I said in my post my experience with this "planning fallacy" as they call it was hard won through a comedy of errors and failures. And comedy is the best collective noun I can find for it.

A huge part of it is that when you resolve to do something like run for an hour every day, you are likely planning it in your mind without any of the peripheries that are involved. It takes more than an hour. There is the issue of finding that hour and its effects on the activities around it - there is the prep time for that hour getting into the right outfit and shoes - there is the wind down from that hour like getting clean again and re-dressing. This planned "hour" in your day actually turns out to be closer to two hours.

My own solution to these issues has been what I termed the "incremental approach" and while I am sure there are 1000 self help books promoting it - I had read none of them and simply came up with it myself.

This entailed two very simple things.

1) Do not start "next monday" or "next month". Start TODAY.

2) Start incredibly small and work up by tiny increments.

The advantages to this are many fold.

1) Your initial goals are really easy to achieve and this is a massive morale boost. Especially contrasted with that emotional low of failure you feel when you think things like "Ah Ill start tomorrow instead" or "next monday instead". Never underestimate the morale implications of meeting the tiniest goals when contrasted with failing the large ones.

2) The "peripheries" I mentioned above are things you are therefore in a much better position to deal with the surprise of, getting into the habit of, and establishing a routine and fitting that routine into your normal day.

3) By the time you elevate the increments to anything significant therefore, you have already dealt with many of the will power and other issues related to your new change in life.

So for example when I took up running in the morning and cycling in the evening I quite literally started out by going to a 1 minute run. 30 Seconds down the road and 30 seconds back. It felt ridiculous. Going through all the motions of getting the right kit on before - filling the water bottle and pulling on the shoes - only to run 30 seconds before turning back again.

But after a month I had worked up to 30 minutes a day - and the impact on my life and the issues of will power and time management incorporating this new activity into my life were essentially non-existent.

And it is not just physical activity I turned this approach to. It worked on study too. On my first day I literally sat down and opened a book for 1 minute and that was my study done for the day. But half a year later I was easily doing 3 hours study a night and I had no issues with willpower or application or concentration.

And after reinventing myself in this way I have - over the last decade - become someone who runs an hour in the morning - cycles an hour in the evening - studies almost daily new things - cooks and gardens for long periods each day - and I do swimming, BJJ and capoira throughout the week. All very active and applied.

As I said no solution works for everyone, and mine might be too slow and boring for some people. The only real solution is to try all solutions and find the one that fits you.

ancapailldorcha

Made for interesting reading. I'm not very good at sticking to things which, ironically, includes regularly meditating. It's great for calming the mind and destressing though.

Ah yes I left meditation out of my list above of the things I have applied myself to and do daily. It is a big one for me too so weird it slipped my mind. And I got into it in the same way - doing a minute the first day - two the next - culminating in an hour daily. Though I try to incorporate aspects of it into other things I do too. I engage in certain aspects of it while running for example. Meditation is not something limited to the traditionally held image of sitting straight backed and cross legged on a floor in a darkened room.

I do a guided meditation "class" for free for people in my home once a week too. Mainly for students off the back of an advert I put in the local college - which was my original intention - but others have gotten word of it and become regulars. I have a couple of people who came to me hoping it would help them with addiction - one who had anger issues - and two of my regulars are a priest and a trainee priest - which brings no end of torment to my overly religious neighbour who thinks my way of life and my relationship make me a direct Knight of Satan if not Satan incarnate himself. All of them are reporting that meditation has helped them with the issues they hoped it would when they came to me - including willpower - and application and concentration - issues.