In This Episode: You really don’t need willpower, and relying on it for change is a recipe for failure. So how can you succeed at the things you want to change without it being so danged hard? Well, a psychologist who has studied willpower says there’s a much, much, better, and easier, way.

082: You Don’t Need Willpower
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Show Notes

* Help support Uncommon Sense: kofiwidget2.init('Support TRUE on Ko-fi', '#29abe0', 'L4L31K3PE');kofiwidget2.draw(); — yes, $5 helps!
* The American Psychological Association’s page about willpower.
* The paper I mentioned published by Psychology Today is Decision Fatigue Exhausts Self-Regulatory Resources by Vohs, et al.
* 35,000 decisions a day? That’s what the Bad Moves: How Decision Making Goes Wrong, and the Ethics of Smart Drugs claims. I’m dubious, though I agree the number is very high!
* Dr. Ben Hardy’s book Willpower Doesn’t Work.

Transcript
Welcome to Uncommon Sense, I’m Randy Cassingham.
I got a chuckle when I read the American Psychological Association’s page about willpower. Right up top it says, “With more self-control would we all eat right, exercise regularly, avoid drugs and alcohol, save for retirement, stop procrastinating, and achieve all sorts of noble goals” — and the part that made me chuckle was that sentence didn’t end with a period, it ended with a question mark.
They go on to say that in their annual Stress in America survey, the respondents cite “lack of willpower” as the number-one reason they are not able to make healthy changes to their lifestyles.
The APA defines willpower as: 1) The ability to delay gratification, resisting short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals; 2) The capacity to override an unwanted thought, feeling, or impulse; 3) The ability to employ a so-called “cool” cognitive system of behavior rather than a “hot” emotional system; 4) Conscious, effortful regulation of the self by the self; and 5) A limited resource capable of being depleted.
The article goes on to say that with practice, you can increase your willpower. To which I say, you’ve probably been meaning to do that, but you just haven’t been able to motivate yourself to spend the time to do it. The article header estimates it takes 32 minutes to read the whole thing, not counting 34 references to read in various books and journals.
Yeah, I didn’t even finish the article, let alone go through the “further reading” suggestions.
There are two factors I want to discuss here, starting with the last part of the APA’s definition of willpower: They say it’s “A limited resource capable of being depleted.”
I don’t think you have a tank of willpower and you drain that tank over the c...