I’ve been working with my kids on gratitude. I’ve been teaching them to take a minute to look around and appreciate where you are in life and how you got there.
Gratitude is one of the few things that, if practiced daily, leads directly to an increase in happiness. November is a great month to put the spotlight on practicing gratitude. We could all be worse off, and we could all use a little bit of happiness. A little sunshine we carry on the inside.
But that isn’t what I wanted to talk about today. Today I want to talk about WILLPOWER.
I’ve been recommending a book for years with the not-so-creative title of Willpower, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney. They take the time to go through study after study on willpower. They cover how you can best use your willpower to achieve the things you want, how to make it stronger like a muscle. Man, wouldn’t that be nice?
But the one big takeaway for me was that the people who seem like they have the greatest willpower DON’T use willpower at all.
This is a huge life-changing takeaway, so read it slowly.
The answer is to use your willpower only when everything else has failed. You shouldn’t be using it as your main strategy.
Let me explain.
We’ve talked about ego depletion, whipping out your willpower as the day goes on. It’s easy to say, “No, Thank you,” the first time the cheese and crackers come by, but if your host sets it down next to you, it becomes almost impossible to resist because you have to say no 100 times, 1,000 times. That takes a lot of mental energy. Think about having to do 1 pushup vs. doing 100 pushups.
This applies to studying as well as cheese (mmmmm….cheese).
You sit down to study and the phone rings. Not taking that call requires making a difficult decision. Not checking that text is a difficult decision. Simple things like checking a text, or worse, answering a call can derail you. Even for a few seconds, that “brain switch” takes a little something out of you.
So here’s what you do instead of using willpower:
Use pre-commitment.
The trick is to commit to certain behaviors before you get there. You decide what you’re going to do when you’re in the best frame of mind to decide – not when you’re being tempted. Decide before the moment, not in the moment
You decide, “I will not check my phone from 5-6 tonight because I’m studying.” And you commit to that.
It’s easier than having to decide every time you look up from your books, and your brain says. “Just a quick peek.”
“No, No NO,” you say the first time, but the 50th time it gets harder. And the 50th time is probably about 5 minutes in.
A stronger pre-commitment is to leave your phone in your bag and refuse to take it out for that hour. Even better, turn it off. The world won’t end.
You can do the same thing with behaviors you’d like to stick with.
I recently tested a new one out. If I’m having a good time and I have a few drinks, I can easily lose track of how many I’ve had. “Was that two or three? Oh well, one more would be fine.” It’s not a big deal except it’s something I don’t want to do. That one last drink means a terrible night sleep and slow useless next day.
The last time I was out with friends, I decided to make a pre-commitment with myself – only have one drink for every two hours, with a max of 3. Keep 3 marbles in my right pocket, and each time I have a drink, shift one from right to left. Then I’ll know where I’m at. When I hit 3, I’m done. No decision. No arguing with myself. The decisions were made in the morning when I didn’t need any willpower to make it (it worked great, by the way).
Do you remember the story of Odysseus and the Sirens? He had his men tie him to the mast. He feared he would be unable to control himself. He was afraid he’d follow their song to his death, but he wanted to hear it. So this ancient Greek hero had his men tie him to the mast of his ship, and told them not to untie him no matter what he did or said.
The crew plugged their ears with wax so they couldn’t hear the Sirens song (another form of pre-commitment) and they steered the ship near where the Sirens lived.
Odysseus begged to be released from his bonds, but his crew tied him tighter.
All of the men survived the trip to the island of the Sirens because of Odysseus’s powerful pre-commitment strategy. He made the best decision for himself BEFORE he was in the moment and then LOCKED himself into it.
How many times do you check your phone in a 10-minute period while you’re studying? Just leave a paper and a pen and make little tick marks at the top of the paper every time you pick it up.
Leave your phone in your car. Tell your friends not to let you go out with them tonight. Make the decision ahead of time and lock yourself into it.
Hang on. There’s more.
This stuff is so hard AND so important (and by important, I mean it changes everything). You wonder why you’re not as smart as Amy who sits two rows in front of you in every class. Amy isn’t smarter than you; you’re super smart. Amy’s just doing it better. Is the guy using the backhoe a better hole-digger than the guy using the shovel? No, of course not. He’s just using a better set of tools. I want you to use a better set of tools.
I’ve put tougher two amazing courses that I’ve included as part of the Pre-Black-Friday Sale, Maximize Your Time and Efficiency and my latest creation to combat this ongoing catastrophe: Get It all Done Without Losing Your Mind.
These two courses fit together like peas in a pod, and if you follow along and implement the structure, you might just find shocking improvements. It’s hard to say. Everyone is a bit different, but I think the odds are pretty darn good you’ll wind up with enough free time to start a knitting club.
These two courses alone are worth the price of admission for sure, but there’s a ton more I’m including. I want you to succeed in 2021 like never before. Check it out:
https://www.physicianassistantexamreview.com/2020preBF
Brian Wallace