I have heard that willpower is finite and every person starts their day with a limited capacity.
On the other hand there are people like gym goers or sportspersons saying that they can muster up more will power if they have the right mentality at the right time.
I don’t know which one is right, but is it possible to increase one’s capacity for will power ? If so what kind of exercises or training methods do they have to use ?
Willpower is just an abstraction. It is not a “real” thing, consumed once you do something you wouldn’t.
That said yes, you can train it. Or rather, condition your behaviour so you do things that you’d otherwise avoid. The how-to is actually simple:
- Choose a task to perform. Push it a tiiiny bit harder.
- Did you manage to push it harder? If yes, reward yourself. If not, skip.
- Repeat 1 and 2 for some time.
- Gradually decrease reward frequency, make it a bit random. Oddly enough this makes the desired behaviour to stick further.
Eventually you won’t need the reward, but the behaviour is still there.
What you consider a reward is up to you. For example, for me snacking on cheese is a reward, but it might not be for you. With the right mindset, even mundane things can be a reward, like taking a comfy shower or playing some games.
We’re just dogs, aren’t we?
Apes, actually. Stupid apes.
That rings a bell
I could really use a meal about now
Always have been
Pretty much. Or, rather: this shit should be viable for any smarter animal, including dogs and humans.
Willpower is not even a transferable skill. I quit most sugar cold turkey, went from eating everything to being vegan over night and started going to the gym three times a week after being a couch potatoe for several decades. Still, I can’t get out of bed early or take cold showers among other things.
The first secret is really just to want the result more than the hurdles you want to overcome with willpower. So, if you want to increase your willpower, increase your motivation.
The other secret is just never using much willpower. Want to stop snacking? Just don’t buy anything. This way you only ever need more willpower while shopping, but don’t use any at home. Want to spend more time doing something? Don’t plan any large blocks. Just convince yourself to do a minute. Then either stop or continue until you really feel like stopping. It’s way easier than starting multiple hours of something, but you’ll form a habit. Once the habit is there, use the same tiny amount of willpower to grow your habit into 5 minutes. 10 minutes. And so on until you’re happy with it. Want to stop an addiction? Slowly reduce it. Smoking 5 cigarettes a day is better than 6. Once you manage try 4, and so on. Down to one? Skip every other day. Just get creative and avoid any large hurdles altogether if possible.
This blog post summarizes the science nicely: https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2023/10/30/a-conversation-about-the-science-of-willpower/ TL;DR: You can train your willpower. It does act like a limited resource [Edit: Science is inconclusive on this claim]. But most importantly, it is strongly affected by your sleep, nutrition and stress level.
I found that mindfulness meditation was helpful for me. Practically, you can achieve an effect that is similar to having strengthened willpower by organizing your life in such a way that you don’t encounter many temptations in the first place.
No wonder I have terrible willpower. I’m tired, constantly stressed, and both of those drive me to eat junk all day
start documenting yourself doing otherwise and then share the results occaisionally
I have heard that willpower is finite and every person starts their day with a limited capacity.
Time for a new source of information. Whoever told you that is wildly incorrect.
Is this not just a (mildly oversimplified) framing of what psychologists call ego depletion [1]? This appears to be a well-replicated finding. I don’t see any reason to call it “wildly incorrect”.
[1] The strength model of self-control. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-18261-013
Edit: After some more research, it looks like the science is inconclusive on ego depletion. So I would not call it “well-replicated”, but also not “wildly incorrect”.
I had never heard of ego depletion, and after looking it up frankly I think, outside of psychology, the idea is at best misinformation, to the point of disinformation. Not something to incorporate into your life beliefs. From Wikipedia;
Ego depletion is the controversial idea that self-control or willpower draws upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up. When the energy for mental activity is low, self-control is typically impaired, which would be considered a state of ego depletion.
As a self sufficient Boomer, that sounds too much like shooting yourself in the foot. Maybe it’s a symptom of a mental disease/weakness, which is why it might be useful to psychologists. Maybe the ego needs to be repleted, if it’s depleted. But rather than believe you start the day with a limited amount of will power, start your day by giving yourself a boost. Tell yourself what you can do, rather than what you can’t.
So I stand by my original comment, flippant as it was. Don’t buy into bullshit. If you are hanging out (real life or online) in places where the attitude is that we’re each limited in what we can accomplish, then you should hang out elsewhere. How can you reach for the stars if you’re convinced you don’t have what it takes?
Yeah there are things that are legitimately hard to do. Excruciatingly hard sometimes. Overcoming hardships makes you stronger. Believing you only have so much “will” does not.
From your source:
Just as a muscle gets tired from exertion, acts of self-control cause short-term impairments (ego depletion)
Short term impairment. Like a tired muscle, which will be stronger tomorrow for having been worked to the max today.
There’s a very good video/podcast episode by Andrew Huberman called something like “How to improve tenacity and willpower”, and it discusses the idea of willpower being a finite resource. The gist of it is that it is finite if you believe it’s finite, and can be partially recovered by costuming glucose if you believe glucose is that finite resource.
As for whether or not you can train it, yes you can. The same brain region is responsible for this willpower regardless of what the task is, so if you get practice drawing on this willpower in one part of your life, it will improve your ability in other aspects.
Willpower is 90% preparation.
You probably can, I think that simply being able to finish a task you previously find impossible should increase your willpower next
I’ve struggled with this for my whole life (and I’m not young) but haven’t succeeded in developing my willpower much at all. I think it’s just part of your ‘personality’. In quotes because you can change your personality somewhat with therapy or other growth techniques, but it takes a lot of work and there is no guarantee it will happen.
That said, I do use commitment devices to substitute for willpower sometimes. One that works for me is to join a class or group for exercise or other things. In my case it has worked for meditation, exercise, martial arts, and others. I find that when I wake up and feel like ‘I just want to lie around and play video games all day’ I then remind myself ‘the folks at the group will notice I’m gone, I’ll have to explain it, and It would feel better to just attend’. And so I get my exercise. Usually. If my brain can convince me I’m not feeling well I still skip out sometimes.
What you are citing, that willpower is being used up over the day by decisions, is called ego depletion and it is wrong! There are experiments where two groups were either told that this is a thing or the opposite, that willpower is strengthened by every decision instead, and it turns out, that both groups had different willpower self assessments at the end of the trial in accordance with the theory of willpower they were told in the beginning, meaning it’s just a placebo in the end. Neither ego depletion nor the opposite exist, but people feel as strong in willpower in accordance with their belief of how willpower works.
I have heard that willpower is finite and every person starts their day with a limited capacity.
That claim is absolutely bizarre and you should probably stop listening to anything coming from whoever told you that.
That’s an old psychological theory that like most psyche theories could have grains if truth but is mostly just yet another unfalsifiable hypothesis. Like babies wanting to bang their parents.
Yeah willpower can be ‘trained’ mostly by not giving into emotional impulse decisions and learning how to say ‘no’ to things you want but dont really need or would actively harm you.
Everyone falls into a spctrum, a few people are ridiculously impulsive to the point of being little more than thoughtless animals living in the moment, a few are ridiculously will powered where they have complete control over themselves but miss out on many fun and spontaneous moments of life due to their need for self control. Most are in the middle, with a bit of a skew towards animalistic impulsivity (that’s usually how babies and families are made)
Most people could use a bit more self/emotional control over impulses, but too much control will rob you of many experiences vital to actually enjoying life.
Doing anything will deepen the brains pathways for doing it. Anyone will have more willpower to go to the gym today if they have found ways to make sure they go five days a week for the past four weeks.
Willpower is really just a fancy way of saying resolve to keep a habit.
Recently watched this relevant video: https://youtu.be/dgRSfhoHE4g?si=XkXQiV0hnuuxkWYl
Willpower is desire pushing drive. Ya gotta want it.
I think it depends on the willpower.
For exercise or implement something into routine, learning how to encourage yourself is key (at least it is for me). If you want to exercise every day, do something you like at the same time, and only let yourself do the thing you like while exercising. For me it’s certain tv/YouTube shows and podcasts. Sometimes I’ll blast music I love while doing cardio.
If you want the willpower not to eat unhealthy, try balancing what you want with what you have. There are two posts to this: keeping what you have limited for things unhealthy, like not having sweets around, and having small treats for yourself that you can consume a little of regularly. Having a small cookie each day that you bake fresh from cookie dough in your fridge may be enough reward for not eating nachos for lunch.
Persistence and routine are also important. If you don’t exercise regularly, you will often find yourself slipping back to where you started. If you don’t give some thought to your diet and what you are eating, you will skip back into old habits. Creating a habit you want to form and sticking to it is key. I will suggest start slow with whatever habit you choose. Make small obtainable changes over time, otherwise you may find the dramatic shift in lifestyle jarring, and your ‘cheat days’ will be a bigger step back.
