4 Easy Ways To Strengthen Your Willpower And 1 Hard Way

You can think of your willpower as a power meter in a video game. Every time you use some, your meter goes down.

Willpower is the best-known predictor of long-term success that you control (see here).

You can think of your willpower as a power meter in a video game. Every time you use some, your meter goes down. And the more you use it the more your total willpower will grow.

How Your Willpower Gets Used Up

Roy Baumeister, the author of the book - Willpower - has documented 6 different ways we use our willpower.

• Controlling Our Thoughts

• Controlling Our Emotions

• Controlling Our Impulses

• Controlling Our Performance

• Experiencing Stress

• Making a Decision

The first 5 seem pretty obvious, but the last one was a bit of a surprise to everybody, but it makes sense. Impulse buys at the cash register are so tempting because you have probably just spent the better part of an hour making lots of decisions in the store.

The first thing you want to do is make sure that you are starting each day off with a fully charged willpower meter.

How To Fully Charge Your Willpower

1. Get a Good Night’s Rest

Sleeping is basically like plugging yourself into the wall to recharge all of your systems every night. If you are routinely getting less than a full night’s rest you’re draining your willpower along with your physical and mental abilities.

The worst part is that you will have no sense as to why it is happening.

Studies have shown that when you miss sleep you don’t connect your poor performance with the lack of rest. Instead, you just begin to think that you are dumber, weaker, and less disciplined than you are. (That is an important one to remember when you bomb your first test in college.)

2. Eat Slow Burning Foods

Willpower and diet are not independent of each other.

Sugary, starchy, and highly processed foods burn fast, leaving you with nothing to run on. The modern American diet is designed to leave you hungry and out of willpower within an hour of eating.

If you replace a junk diet with more proteins, vegetables, and healthy fats you will not only be healthier, but you will increase your willpower. The right diet will make it easier to stay on that diet.

(Today marks my 100th day and 30 pounds lost on this kind of diet. Before this, I thought going 7 days without sugar was not something I could do.)

So now you are well rested and properly nourished - so what else can you do to strengthen your willpower?

How To Strengthen Your Willpower

As promised - here are 4 easy (and 1 not so easy) ways to strengthen your willpower.

1. Non-Sleep Deep Rest

Ok, this is just “meditation” but rebranded without the long “Ohhhhhmmmmms” and religious introspection.

It is also my favorite way to boost willpower and is the perfect place to start. There are lots of ways to boost your willpower - but if you already had the discipline to do them you would be trying to strengthen your willpower in the first place. Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) is perfect because the goal is to do nothing. Don’t move, don’t talk, and try not to think at all. All you need to do is to control your breathing.

1. 4 Seconds In Through Your Nose

2. 8 Seconds of Holding Your Breath

3. 8 Seconds of Breathing Out Through Your Mouth

4. Repeat

You’ll quickly find that trying not to think at all is surprisingly difficult.

2. Sit Up Straight

Whenever you think about it straighten your spine and sit up straight. It will make you look more fit, express confidence, and strengthen your back muscles. It is also a great way to control your performance when you are just sitting.

Studies have shown this is one of the best ways to improve your discipline simply because you will remember to do it.

A month from now when you find yourself slouching, the thought will come into your head, “Sit up straight to improve your willpower.” Follow that advice and you will get a little better at pretty much everything you do.

3. Ditch Fillers And Non Words

We all use them; like, uh, um, yeah, nah, and a host of others. They don’t help you communicate but we still use them.

Take a moment when you speak. Giver yourself permission to pause rather than fill that space with partial or nonsense words, and then don’t say anything until you are ready to say it.

It will make you sound smarter and strengthen your self-control.

4. Don’t Interrupt and Don’t Let Yourself Be Interrupted

Nobody likes to be interrupted so don’t do it. Exercise your impulse control by waiting until the other person has finished what they have to say.

Once you start talking don’t stop until you have finished your sentence. That means you don’t let yourself just trail off, and if someone interrupts you, you don’t stop talking until have finished your sentence. (Just that one sentence, by the way - don’t ignore the person entirely while you continue to blab on.)

5. Take Cold Showers

Now for the hard one.

Take a cold shower every morning. I won’t lie - this sucks, especially in the winter months. But you do feel pretty great once it is over.

Apart from causing temporary misery, the cold water triggers a mechanism at the cellular level to preserve your biological youth. Exposing yourself to uncomfortable temperatures has been documented to not only boost willpower but to also increase your lifespan.

Conclusion

No question that maximizing willpower will do great things for you, but some studies suggest that cheating at discipline might be more helpful. In the next newsletter, we’ll go over all the best tips for cheating your way to discipline.