How To Increase Your Willpower

Lately, I've been reading the book "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg where I've been studying a lot about Keystone Habits but most importantly for this post, willpower. Based on multiple studies conducted, it seems as though willpower can allow us to take on the most difficult of tasks while keeping our emotions and feelings in check. In the job market, I believe this skill is absolutely essential in order to find success in your career.

Reading about this brought to mind an important question to me; how does one increase their willpower to get through the day. To make this even more applicable to quarantine, the art of increasing willpower is even more accessible because it literally is this idea of finding comfort or in a sense, "treating yourself first" before taking on the big task. Treating yourself includes taking care of your immediate health needs such as food, water, hygiene, dressing up, making your bed. All of these small things and then rewarding yourself with maybe your favorite meal or one episode of your favorite show. All of these done to a certain extent to increase your mood for the biggest challenges for the day. However, it is important to recognize that as humans we have limits and should not overdo the amount of comfort or happiness we add into our lives because these can lead us down rabbit holes such as binging entire shows on Netflix or Youtube video browsing. All of these are time consumers and can produce the opposite effect of depleting your willpower so finding balance is key!

If you ever fall off track along the way, sitting down for a bit to either meditate or exercise can easily restore lost willpower.

People with 9-5 jobs will most likely find the art of maintaining willpower the most difficult because their energy is consistently being expended. That's why similar to the previous step, we need to find ways to take a few minutes off to recharge besides our usual lunch break. During your down time, practice meditating or sitting down for a bit to reframe your mindset for the rest of your shift. The last thing you would want is for your thoughts and any inappropriate behaviors to spill into your workflow. Be mindful, especially at the end of your day to recharge completely when you get home by immediately incorporating the aspects of self care I mentioned before this paragraph. A recharge of all systems will allow your body to reset both physically and mentally; and yes our bodies need a reset on all four of those aspects.

Finally sleep is the most powerful recharge weapon in terms of willpower. If you don't get enough sleep you'll be more irritable and practically less likely to want to do anything. At the end of the day, think of your willpower like your phone. Eventually the charge will begin to run low by the mid or end of day so it's absolutely important to keep it all in check to produce our best work.

I hope you find something helpful here. Please leave a comment below or consider subscribing for more of these posts!

Remember to choose wisely where your mind goes often the most important decisions are the most difficult so do your best to conserve your willpower as much as possible.