In an ideal world, we would all wake up ready to take on the world, feeling motivated and extremely energized.
We would work hard, hustle and give 100% until it’s time to go to bed and repeat it all over again.
In real life…this doesn’t happen. Or at the very least, it doesn’t happen every single day. And in the worst case scenario, we end up looking like zombies, whose bodies keep on working because of coffee and sugar.
But it’s time to cut the bull.
Get to the Core
Ask yourself:
‘Why am I procrastinating?’
Is it because you’re scared?
Something I noticed about myself way too often, is that I tend to procrastinate not only on things I don’t particularly like doing, but also on things I am scared of doing, or things that make me feel uncomfortable.
And the worst part of it, is that most of the time I even procrastinate on those things by doing ‘productive’ stuff like checking emails, or organizing stuff I don’t really need to organize.
Can you see why this is way more dangerous than mindlessly scrolling on social media???
Because I feel like I’m doing the work, when I’m really not. At least, when I’m watching cat videos on Youtube I feel guilty!
Instead, I tell myself I’m “busy” and that I’ll do it later, until ‘later’ turns into ‘tomorrow’ or ‘next week’.
Quick Strategy to Overcome Procrastination
Whenever you feel like procrastinating, ask yourself this simple question:
“What is the one single step I could take to start doing this?”
Even – and especially – if it’s as simple as ‘opening the computer and turning it on’. This will trick your brain into believing it’s something easy and quick to do, because let’s face it: most of the time starting is the really difficult part.
The more you hesitate on doing something, the more you make it look complicated. And something that should take around 30 minutes to be completed, appears like a 2-hour long task.
Also, something that I really find that works every single time is the Pomodoro Technique. You’ve probably heard about it before, it consists of taking a 5-minute break for every 25 minutes of work.
You simply set a timer and start working on a single (avoid multitasking at all costs!) task for 25 minutes. Then you take a 5-minutes break and so on, until you completed 4 sessions and you can take a 20 minute breaks.
This technique is as simple and basic, as effective. Give it a try and it might blow your mind!
You’ll understand more about why this technique works so much in the next part, called ‘chunking’.
The Real Importance of Having a Morning Routine
I’d like to tell you a quick story, to show you how really effective routines can be. So, here is the story of the ‘Rock Breaker’.
Henry Stanley was a famous 19th century explorer who mapped out the Congo river. As you can imagine, this was by no means an easy task. He and his team were plagued by malaria and dysentery. Many of them starved to death or were attacked by the natives with poison arrows and spears. Others drowned, or died victims of wild beasts. This expedition took 999 days. Stanley started with 228 men and ended with only 114. He was considered one of the most self-disciplined individuals in the world, because he could’ve stopped the expedition at any time, but he persisted beyond all odds.
The natives were so impressed by his willpower that they called him the ‘Bulamatari’, ‘the breaker of rocks’.
Why am I telling this story you might ask?
Well, Stanley did one thing to stay motivated and so disciplined: he would wake up every single morning and shave first thing in the morning.
Now, if you think about it, it’s quite odd for someone stuck in the middle of the jungle with lack of supplies, men dying left and right, to spend every single morning making sure that he was clean-shaven – but this little habit was actually the key to his success.
Let me explain this further.
Basically, routines work for a single dominant element: cues.
They can be anything that triggers a routine for a habit. In other words, the cue tells your brain that it should start its routine.
It could be a sound, a smell, a time of the day, an event, a location etc.
Also, we tend to associate certain cues with certain mindsets and feelings.
And that’s exactly why shaving was so effective for Stanley: although he was suffering with despair in the middle of the jungle he was able to get himself into the right mindset every single day. He associated shaving with being proper, organized and mindset-ready for his mission.
In other words, shaving took him away from the whirlpool of negativity that surrounded him and put him into the mindset of discipline.
Now think: what are those things you do on the days where you get a lot done?
It could be anything from showering, to putting on makeup, making your bed or shaving, just like Stanley. It differs from person to person. Just figure out what it is and use it to your advantage.
If you really have no idea of what routines you should start adopting to get into the right mindset, here are some ideas.
How Willpower Works
In a study conducted in 1998, Roy Baumeister, a famous psychologist, took three groups of people and asked them to fast – so that they were hungry. He had the first two groups sit down at a table with two bowls in front of them – a bowl of warm cookies and a bowl of radishes. The first group was instructed to eat whatever they wanted, the second group was not allowed to eat any cookies and the third group was the ‘control group’: they sat in an empty room with no food in front of them.
After a while the three groups were taken to another room where they were given puzzles and told that it was a test of reasoning. But the puzzles were actually unsolvable. What the researches were looking at was how long these groups of people would have tried to solve these puzzles before giving up.
The room that was allowed to eat cookies lasted about 20 minutes. The ‘control group’ – who sat in an empty room and had no food – also lasted 20 minutes.
But the second group?
This is interesting: the group that had to resist eating the cookies only lasted 8 minutes.
Now, what does this study show us?
Willpower is real.
The group that had to resist eating the cookies had lower levels of something. Something was used to resist eating those cookies and that something is willpower.
And because they used a lot of it while resisting those cookies, they had a harder time working on the puzzles – so the metaphor of willpower being like a muscle is actually true.
Willpower is like a muscle. The more you use this mental muscle, the less mental strength you’ll have during the day.
Willpower is like a battery.
We start off with a certain amount of willpower everyday, and mental tasks decrease it. And just like a battery, you can recharge it. But if your levels drop below a certain threshold, there are some side effects: this state is called ego depletion.
Now you might say: The what?!
Ego depletion = “a state we enter when our levels of willpower drop below a certain threshold”
To sum it up, here are some side effect caused by ego depletion:
- your brain literally fires slower
- your alarm system for errors becomes weaker (this might cause you to fail in tests, or say the wrong things!)
- you’ll have a harder time controlling your reactions (this means you’re more likely to become emotional, get angry or cry over something small)
- physical pain tolerance is also lowered
- and most importantly, it gets really hard for you to make the right decisions (eg. it gets easier to fall into bad habits)
And now what you might be asking is: So, what causes our level of willpower to drop?
There are actually many reasons why it drops, but in this post we’re going to talk about the three most common ones.
Mental Processes
If I ask you to do something simple like brushing your teeth, I guess you wouldn’t have much problem with that, because it’s something you do every day. It comes naturally and it doesn’t require much willpower. But if I’d asked you to do something more difficult like multiplying 34 by 45 without a calculator, this would consume time and a lot of willpower.
This happens because you actually need to sit down and figure out how to do it. When you have to think hard about how to do something, that drains your willpower.
That’s why if you’re working an office job that doesn’t require any physical work it’s possible to become completely exhausted – it’s the same with school, or college – because you’ve been using your brain on mental processes all day long.
We all know that feeling!
To prevent this from happening, there are a few things you can do.
First of all, try to automate things as much as possible.
For example: prepare your grocery list or the clothes you’re going to wear, or your gym bag, the day before.
And most importantly don’t use your brain as a memory card, which means writing everything that comes to your mind down, instead of expecting you’re going to remember everything.
Resisting Urges
When you are told (or you tell yourself) to resist an urge, it’s easier for you to fail. When we actively fight our urges, this consumes willpower.
Have you ever found yourself craving something so badly and giving up the temptation at some point? This happens because you’re depleting your willpower while resisting these urges and – if you remember – if your levels drop too low you enter a state of ego depletion and your impulses become stronger, so you eventually give in.
Now, what can you do about this?
There are two things you can do to resist your urges.
Change Your Environment
There’s a high possibility that the place you’re in – or a certain situation – is the cue for your brain to stick to a bad habit.
As we already said, your brain associates a specific place – or time of the day – to something you do.
What you can do at this point is to change your environment, so that the cue simply goes away and your brain forgets about it more easily.
But if you don’t change your environment, the cue will cause your brain to keep telling you:
“Hey, this is usually when we [insert addiction here]”
And it won’t stop until you give up.
Become Mindful of the Urge
This might sound a little bit silly at first, but give it a try and you will see how powerful it really is.
All you have to do the next time you feel an urge is to sit down and focus all of your attention on this urge.
“How does it feel?”
“Where in your body you feel it?”
And if you’re wondering ‘Why should this work?’ really think about it for a moment.
When you get hit by a mosquito it itches a little bit. If you decide to scratch it or if you actively think of yourself “Oh my god I hate mosquitoes, my bite itches so much” guess what happens? The itch gets worse.
But if instead you choose to ignore it and you don’t scratch it, the itch just disappears.
The same thing applies to your urges: if you just become mindful that you have urged and don’t associate it with anything negative – simply observe that it’s there – it will naturally disappear.
Decision Fatigue
Making a choice, deciding which option to go with, or deciding whether do or not something, consumes you some willpower.
I think the most effective way to overcome this is by making lists. Of all kinds. I use Todoist.
It really clears up your mind and you know exactly what to do – one step at a time – so you don’t spend much willpower deciding it at the moment.
How to Recharge Your Levels of Willpower
In a research conducted at Columbia University by professor Jonathan Levav, a team looked at over 1000 cases of judges who worked on the parole board.
These judges had to decide whether or not a prisoner should be released to the public.
The researchers noticed something really interesting.
The biggest indicator of whether or not a prisoner was granted parole was not the type of crimes they committed, the amount of years they already served – or even how good-mannered they were in prison. It was actually the time of day they showed up in court.
The study found that prisoners who appeared early in the morning had the highest chance of approval (65%) However, as the day went on, these rates of approval would decline, and prisoners who appeared later in the morning right before lunch time only had a 20% chance of getting approved.
How is this possible?
Well, because of decision fatigue: each time the judge makes a decision he uses up some of his willpower. As the judge’s level of willpower drops, it becomes harder and harder for him or her to make these decisions.
So the judges would simply deny the request for parole as it was the safer option: it was simply safer to keep the prisoner in jail then to let him out.
But around noon, the judges would go on a lunch break.
When they returned, all of a sudden the rate of approval would spike back up to around 60%.
Basically, this study shows us just how much of a difference it can make if we recharge our levels of willpower. And the way we do it all comes down to 2 things that the judges did during their short lunch break: eating the right food and switching their brain modes.
Eat the Right Foods
We all know that our body needs food in order to function properly. So it’s no surprise that it has a direct effect on our levels of willpower.
But we can’t just stuff ourselves with junk food or sweets and expect to feel great after!
Many studies during these years pointed out that there’s a connection between our blood glucose level and our levels of willpower.
In fact, our brains actually need glucose in order to operate, but high-glycemic foods – like muffins – are digested very fast, which causes your energies to drop after a short period of time (around 1 hour after eating).
And this is why it’s recommended you consume (especially at breakfast!) more low-glycemic foods (like eggs or grapefruit) to keep your levels of willpower constant during the day.
Switch Your Brain Modes
The next way we can recharge our levels of willpower is by switching our brains mode.
When we have to deal with things like decision fatigue or mental processes our brain is on something called thinking mode. In this mode, our levels of willpower are being constantly drained.
So in order to recharge your levels of willpower, you have to switch your brain to what’s called ‘Standby Mode’, just like you do with your phone.
When you’re in Standby Mode you’re not making any tough decisions or thinking hard about anything. You’re allowing your mind to wander naturally while enjoying the things around you.
For example, you could go out for a short walk. In fact, when you go out on a walk you’re suddenly surrounded by a bunch of other things: there’s trees to look at, birds to listen to, and you allow yourself to take a break from all the work you’ve been doing. Even a walk of 5 to 10 minutes can help you recharge a significant amount of willpower.
There are millions of other ways you can recharge your willpower with.
For example, if you’ve been working for 2 to 3 hours, you can go watching some Youtube videos, or binge-watching on Netflix or even just chat with some of your friends. After about 30 minutes of break, your levels of willpower will recharge and you’ll be ready to go back to work.
If you can’t stop worrying and thinking about something, I suggest you try out meditation. In fact, getting into the habit of meditating will strengthen your ability to quiet your mind and control your thoughts.
Advanced Techniques to Recharge Your Willpower
Other than the mechanisms we already discussed, there’s something that plays a huge role when it comes to keep our levels of willpower high: our mindset.
Surprised?
CHUNKING
Chunking briefly consists in taking one large task and dividing it into tiny pieces.
One of the best examples of chunking comes from one of the world’s greatest magicians: David Blaine.
Blaine is well-known for his stunts of endurance: he once spent over 63 hours in a block of ice and you can only imagine how much willpower that required! Blaine managed to pull this off by using chunking to create a constant supply of willpower.
For Blaine, instead of focusing on the total amount of hours he wanted to spend in the block of ice, which was at least 60 hours, he broke it down to the hour. He would tell himself ‘okay, I just need to make it through the next hour’ over and over again.
The reason this works is because our brain is designed to be as efficient with our willpower as possible, in order to conserve energy, even though we actually have an almost unlimited amount of willpower.
So when presented with an enormous task, your brain says: ‘nope we can’t do this task, it’s way too big’.
But when you use chunking and focus your attention on one small piece at a time then your brain says ‘hey, you know, we can do this, here’s some extra willpower’
And this is also the reason why the pomodoro technique is so effective.
Also, chunking increases something very important to keep our willpower going…
CONFIDENCE
Basically, the general rule is: the more confident you are about doing a single task, the less willpower it will require. And confidence is all about small wins.
If you pay attention to small milestones you become more and more confident towards your end goal. You start believing that you can actually do it, and you eventually do it for real.
A great way to build confidence using small wins is by tracking your growth.
For example, if you’re someone who wants to lose weight, it’s very effective to download an app that allows you to track your progress.
By tracking your weight and slowly watching it drop, your confidence will be boosted and it will get easier and easier to go on with your diet and exercise program.
CHANGE YOUR LANGUAGE
Another way we can influence our levels of willpower is by changing our identity and, in order to do this, we need to change our language first.
When you have an identity that aligns with your goals and the habits that you’re trying to build, this decreases the amount of willpower required to stick to them. And the way we phrase things affects how we view ourselves.
For example, if an urge arises to smoke and you think ‘I can’t smoke. I told myself I was gonna quit’ you are still identifying as someone who smokes and who’s trying to quit.
Instead, try saying something like ‘I am not a smoker’: in this case you’re identifying yourself as someone who doesn’t smoke in the first place.
QUICK TIP: A trick to keep in mind – for your language to be as effective as possible – is to reduce words like ‘I can’t’ or ‘I have to’ or ‘I must to’ with ‘I want to’. See the point here? You don’t need willpower to do something you deliberately want to be doing, because usually willpower is used for doing things you don’t like doing.
ONE LAST THOUGHT
I really hope this post offered you a fully comprehensive guide on how willpower and your mind work and operate. Because, after all, knowing and understanding are the first steps to overcoming every obstacle.
What good habits are your trying to stick to – or what bad habits are your trying to get rid of? What do you want to find more motivation for?
