593 - Stop Relying on Willpower

Tiny Leaps, Big Changes

Gregg Clunis

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.3 • 920 Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2020

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, we look at willpower and why you struggle to accomplish your goals.

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The Problem:

When we decide we want to build better habits things tend to be pretty straightforward– we are going to lose weight, stop smoking, organize our closets, and finally stop procrastinating. But by the end of the week your plastic bins for organizing are still in the trunk of your car, your new running shoes tossed in the back of the closet, and there are those cigarettes still being smoked.

What happened?

Digging Deeper

The dictionary definition of willpower is the control exerted to do something or restrain impulses, and the ability to control one’s own actions, emotions or urges.

It’s important to understand that willpower is like physical strength in that:

Willpower is a mind-body response, not merely a mindset
Willpower is limited (just like muscle power)
Willpower is trainable (just like muscle power)

According to researchers at McMaster University of Hamilton in Ontario willpower can be exhausted. Picture yourself working on, you might start out strong but by the end your last rep you find yourself struggling to do the exercise. The same thing happens to our willpower.

The Solution

But given how temporary that willpower can be it ends up being a bit of a double edged sword.

When we see ourselves as lacking willpower and failing at our goals our self-confidence takes a hit and we start doing nothing, or we replace action with fantasy. (One day when I lose those 30 pounds…)

So how can you train and strengthen your willpower to maximize its capacity?

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In this episode, we take a deeper look at willpower.
0:06.0	Get excited because this is tiny leaps.
0:10.0	Big change. Welcome to another episode of Tiny Leaps, Big Changes, where I share simple strategies you can use to get more out of your life. My name is Greg Klunis and in this
0:36.7	episode we are looking at the topic of willpower. This is something that I think we all sort of expect to just sort of have this available to us as we're trying to build habits, as we're trying to accomplish our goals.
0:50.0	We expect to be able to use this resource sort of whenever we need to in order to get things done and move things forward.
0:59.0	But there is sort of a little known secret to willpower and that is how unreliable it is and how much it probably
1:07.7	you relying on willpower is probably the reason that you haven't accomplished your goals yet.
1:12.8	So in this episode I want to dive into that
1:14.8	and have sort of a deeper conversation on willpower
1:17.8	and frame things a little bit differently
1:20.0	so that we can shift the way we view it and therefore shift the way that we rely on it.
1:26.7	And hopefully that leads to you getting more done in your day-to-day life and actually
1:31.9	setting those habits and accomplishing those goals.
1:34.3	Now before we jump into that, last week Wednesday I had the most amazing Kenwa tacos with
1:40.8	Keshu Kremma and then on Friday I had a maple carrot power Meanwhile What? I don't. I wish I did, but I do not. But if you do want to know my secret, it's called
1:56.6	Green Chef, and they have some seriously, seriously tasty food. Green Chef is a USDA certified organic company that makes
2:04.9	eating well easy and affordable with plans to fit every kind of lifestyle.
2:10.3	You may have heard of Hello Fresh which I've also mentioned in the past.
2:13.6	Well, Green Chef is owned by Hello Fresh.
2:16.4	It's their way to bring even more unique and interesting recipes to their
2:20.5	customers. The recipes are designed by expert chefs and are super easy to make and
2:26.2	taste amazing.
	...

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