What if the secret to achieving your biggest dreams lies in mastering the art of willpower? Discover how you can turn your aspirations into reality by harnessing the transformative power of self-control. Join us as we unpack the definition of willpower, as described by the American Psychological Association, and explore its critical role in various aspects of life, from maintaining a healthy lifestyle to securing financial stability.
In this episode, we'll tackle the common pitfalls that often derail our efforts, such as decision fatigue and setting overly ambitious goals. Learn why pacing yourself and setting SMART goals are crucial for sustained progress without burnout. We'll also delve into the emotional factors and stressors that can chip away at your willpower, providing you with practical strategies to stay on track. Understand the concept of willpower depletion and how to safeguard your self-control throughout the day by making informed, mindful choices.
Finally, we share actionable tips and techniques to enhance your willpower, from identifying your deeper motivations to employing visualization techniques and establishing positive habits. By implementing these strategies, you'll not only uplift your own life but also inspire those around you. Build a supportive community of accountability and take the first step towards transforming your life through the power of willpower. Listen in and equip yourself with the tools you need for long-term success and personal growth.
Thanks for listening and for being one of our valued subscribers! Our GiveAway Contest Is Running For Another 30 Days - you gotta keep those entries ticking up if you want a shot at the MacBook Air. You can enter here
What if the secret to achieving your biggest dreams lies in mastering the art of willpower? Discover how you can turn your aspirations into reality by harnessing the transformative power of self-control. Join us as we unpack the definition of willpower, as described by the American Psychological Association, and explore its critical role in various aspects of life, from maintaining a healthy lifestyle to securing financial stability.
In this episode, we'll tackle the common pitfalls that often derail our efforts, such as decision fatigue and setting overly ambitious goals. Learn why pacing yourself and setting SMART goals are crucial for sustained progress without burnout. We'll also delve into the emotional factors and stressors that can chip away at your willpower, providing you with practical strategies to stay on track. Understand the concept of willpower depletion and how to safeguard your self-control throughout the day by making informed, mindful choices.
Finally, we share actionable tips and techniques to enhance your willpower, from identifying your deeper motivations to employing visualization techniques and establishing positive habits. By implementing these strategies, you'll not only uplift your own life but also inspire those around you. Build a supportive community of accountability and take the first step towards transforming your life through the power of willpower. Listen in and equip yourself with the tools you need for long-term success and personal growth.
Thanks for listening and for being one of our valued subscribers! Our GiveAway Contest Is Running For Another 30 Days - you gotta keep those entries ticking up if you want a shot at the MacBook Air. You can enter here
Work-Life Balance. Introduction. Let's talk about willpower. According to the American Psychological Association, willpower is the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals. It's what helps us make big strides and reach lofty goals. Without willpower, it's hard to make serious progress in all areas of our lives, from how we look and feel through to how much money we have in our bank account. To say it's an important life skill to master and improve is an understatement. It's an important topic and the reason why I decided to sit down and put this short e-book together for you on what willpower is, why it's important and what you can do to boost your own. That's right. You're not born with a set amount of willpower. You're not limited to what you have right now. Instead, there is much you can do to increase yours and just as much you can do to avoid failing to utilize it. All of this is what we'll cover in the following chapters. I suggest you read through the report in its entirety for a quick overview. Then come back, particularly looking at chapter three again, to work on the tips, strategies and skills that will help you supercharge and improve your willpower. Do this and reaching your goals, no matter how far-fetched and lofty they are, will become a piece of cake. I don't say that it'll be easy, but I can promise that I'll provide you with the tools needed to enable you to reach those goals and stick to what you've set your mind to do. Are you ready to dive in and learn more about willpower, what's holding you back and, more importantly, how to tap into your will to reach those goals? Keep reading and, more importantly, start implementing.
Speaker 1:We'll start with a closer look at what the fuss is all about with willpower. That ensures that we're on the same page and talking about the same concepts. It's also important to realize just how important this idea of willpower is in our day-to-day life. Next, we'll take a closer look at what's holding us back. It's easy to make up our mind and decide we want to do or not do something. It's another matter to stick to that decision day after day. There are reasons why we give up. There are reasons why it's easier to stick to a diet in the morning than in the evening, for example, and there are reasons why it's so hard to get back on track after a misstep. We'll cover some of the most common reasons why willpower fades or why we fail to utilize it. Knowledge is the first step towards avoiding these mental traps. Last but not least, we'll get into the hands-on tips and ideas for boosting our willpower and making sure it lasts. That's the most actionable advice in this short ebook and where you want to spend most of your time and attention. After reading this entire guide, come back to this section and work on selected ideas and strategies until you reach your full willpower potential.
Speaker 1:Let's get started. What is all the fuss? As mentioned in the introduction, we'll start by making sure that we're all on the same page when it comes to willpower. It's a bit of a flexible term that can mean different things to different people. Most of us also use willpower in various areas of our lives and with different end goals in mind. However, for this ebook, we'll go with the definition by the American Psychological Association, which is willpower is the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals.
Speaker 1:Let's break that down and use some examples to illustrate what we're dealing with here. Willpower is what allows us to postpone instant gratification and go for something bigger and better instead. A super simple example we can all relate to from our childhood is to exercise our willpower and not spend the weekly allowance on candy. Instead, we can save up for a bike. It's not always easy. That candy looks mighty tasty, but if we continually give in to the urge to splurge, we won't be able to save up enough to buy a bike.
Speaker 1:Let's run through a few more examples of where we may come across this concept in our day-to-day life. You skip the slice of cake to help you with your weight loss goal. You pick a salad for lunch instead of a double cheeseburger with fries to stay healthy for years to come. You don't buy the new pair of shoes or latest video game to work towards saving up for a down payment for a new house. You skip dinner and drinks with friends to make sure you can pay off some of your credit card debt. You set up an auto-draft into a savings account to build your nest egg, thus reducing your disposable income. I'm sure you can think of many more examples of things you do on a regular basis to control your initial impulses and do something you don't like as much for a greater good or to reach a bigger goal. Anytime you do, you're using willpower to make it happen.
Speaker 1:Looking at that list, you can easily see why it's crucial to exercise willpower and why we should do everything we can to get better at controlling it. Without willpower, we wouldn't be able to create meaningful change. We'd have to accept the miserable apartment, accept being overweight and unhealthy and, in the long run, be unhappy. That's where the real danger lies. Crafting a full and happy life isn't possible when you're running on impulses. Sure, you'll feel great for a little while when you give in to the urge to eat the treat or buy the thing, but that happiness fades very quickly. Making yourself strive for something bigger and better, on the other hand, gives your life meaning and a much longer-lasting feeling of fulfillment and happiness.
Speaker 1:Think back on some of the things you've accomplished for which you're proud. They wouldn't have been possible without exercising willpower, often on a daily basis, for quite some time. If it were easy, you wouldn't feel nearly as proud or accomplished. Maybe it was working hard in school, doing well on your SATs and getting into a great college. Maybe it was working long summer jobs to finance a postgraduate trip overseas. Maybe it was pinching pennies to pay off those credit cards and improving your credit. Maybe it was making do with less and saving everything you could to make a down payment on your dream house. Maybe it was following a strict meal plan or diet to lose weight and improve your health. Maybe it was working until midnight each day to build a side gig into a business that supports your family. Maybe it was taking night classes to move up and get that promotion or change your career. We've each achieved accomplishments, big and small, that took willpower. Without it, we wouldn't be where we are today. With more of it, we could have made even more progress and reached some of those goals that have so far eluded us. That's why willpower is important and it's why we need to take a closer look at what's holding us back and what we can do to get better at sticking to our goals and intentions.
Speaker 1:Before we move on, I want to get into one more concept in this introductory chapter. Before we move on, I want to get into one more concept in this introductory chapter. It's the connection between willpower and habits or routines. The two are closely connected. Here's why it takes willpower and a drive to create new habits and routines. Once established, we no longer need to use willpower to make them happen on a daily basis. Let me illustrate this with an example. Let's say you want to start spending the first half hour of your day reading books. That will help you learn more and become better at what you do.
Speaker 1:In the beginning, it takes willpower to make yourself sit down with your cup of coffee and crack open that book. It's different from your regular morning routine, so it takes conscious thought and effort to make it happen. After you do this for a few weeks, it'll become a new habit and part of your morning routine. It takes less and less willpower to sit down and read as it simply becomes part of what you do in the morning. It's important to understand the connection between willpower and habits. Firstly, it takes willpower to establish any new habit. Secondly, and possibly a more powerful concept to grasp, is the fact that you can use habits and routines to save your willpower. Keep that in mind as you work through the rest of this guide. You can use habits and routines to help you reach your goals without having to exert a lot of willpower on a daily basis. Think about what you want to accomplish, figure out what needs to happen and what you need to do to reach the goal, and then create routines and habits to help you get there. Now that you have a better idea of what willpower is and why it's important we can move on to the next chapter.
Speaker 1:Here we take a closer look at what holds us back and what keeps us from using our willpower until we reach the goals we've set for ourselves. What holds us back? If it were just a matter of making up our minds and tapping into our willpower to achieve whatever we wanted, everything would be easy, wouldn't it? Things such as losing weight, learning a new skill or paying off consumer debt would be a snap, wouldn't they? Yes, we all have willpower and we use it successfully at times, but there are just as many, if not more, times when willpower fails us times, but there are just as many, if not more, times when willpower fails us. Sometimes we fail to come through from the start, but more often than not we give up somewhere along the way. We stick to the healthy diet for a few days or weeks that we know will gradually have us losing weight, and then give in to the temptation of eating chocolate, cake and pizza. We stick to our frugal budget for a month and then splurge on a big purchase. The list goes on and on. In this chapter, we take a look at some of the common reasons why willpower fades or why we fail to utilize it. Being able to recognize these causes helps us pay attention when we encounter them in our daily life and hopefully find strategies and techniques to counteract them something we'll look closer at in detail in the next chapter.
Speaker 1:Doing Too Much Too Quickly them something we'll look closer at in detail in the next chapter. Doing too much too quickly. When we embark on a new task, like losing weight or paying off those credit cards, we're excited and highly motivated. We go all out and do as much as we can, as quickly as we can. We stick to the strict diet, work out daily and put every spare penny towards repaying the debt. It works great for a little while. Between enthusiasm and willpower, it even feels easy. Before long, though, we start to burn out. When we set the bar too high, it's too hard to maintain and far too easy to slip up and fall behind. That's pretty discouraging. You don't want to make it a huge chore to stick to your plan. You don't want to expend huge amounts of willpower to try to keep up. Instead, start a little slower and make sure you're in it for the long run.
Speaker 1:The Willpower Depletion Effect Willpower is a limited resource that depletes throughout the day. Think of it as a bucket of water. Each time you use willpower, you're removing a cup or two of the water. In the morning, it's easy to say no to those donuts on the break room table. By later afternoon, it becomes much harder because much of our will power is used up. That's another reason why it's important not to try to do too much at once. Use will power wisely. That also ties in with decision fatigue. Early in the day it's easy to make decisions, but as time goes by it becomes harder and harder, to the point that picking something for dinner or deciding what to watch on Netflix feels like a chore.
Speaker 1:Missing smart goals. Have you heard of smart goals? They're specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and time-bound. If you set random goals, like I want to lose weight or I want to educate myself to get a better shot at promotions, it's hard to stick to them because you don't know what you're supposed to do and how much time you have to get it done. Smart goals help you use your willpower wisely and use just enough to make sure you're making progress.
Speaker 1:Emotions take over. If there's one thing that will sabotage willpower, it would be emotions. They come from the heart, while willpower requires the head to take charge With these high emotions, the heart overwrites the head. I'm sure you've experienced this. You're doing well, eating healthily and getting out for daily walks. Then a relationship ends, you get sad news or you're finding work particularly stressful. Your emotions take over and you conclude that you deserve to sit down in front of the TV with a pint of your favorite ice cream to help you cope. Perhaps you decide that the only thing that could make you feel better is the new video game or drone you've been eyeing. In days gone by, it made sense to have emotions take over. Having a fight-or-flight response to a big lion eyeing you for lunch is a good thing and improves your chances of survival In modern life, though these ancient fight-or-flight responses don't always work so well, particularly when they overwrite our good intentions and goals.
Speaker 1:Small stumbles escalate. How you react to a small stumble in what you're trying to do can determine whether or not your willpower fails you. We've all experienced this. We start a new exercise program and make it a point to hit the gym every morning before work. We're doing great, we're on a roll, and then something happens. For one reason or another, we miss a day or two. What we do next determines if willpower will help us stick to this new healthy habit or if it fails us. We can react to the small stumble in one of two ways. We can use some extra willpower and motivation to make it a point to get back on track, or we can use that small stumble as an excuse to fall off the wagon, since we already missed two days in a row, we'll just take the week off. We deserve a break. Right. A week turns into months and in the end, there's nothing left but good intentions to get back into the swing of things.
Speaker 1:Stress and how it affects willpower. Last but not least, there's stress. I don't know about you, but I don't know a single person, aside from a toddler, who isn't stressed out. Our lives are getting busier and busier, and stress is sadly becoming part of our daily routine. The problem is that stress affects both our decision-making and our self-control and willpower. The more stressed we are, the more likely we are to give in to cravings and impulses. That's not a good thing when it comes to exercising willpower. Once you realize that this is a problem, you can start to recognize what's happening. When you get stressed out, you can make more of a conscious decision about your choices. That's a great start, but you don't want to stop there. You should also do what you can to reduce and remedy stress in your life through things like meditation, yoga, exercise and the likes. Cut out stressors to make sure you can tap into your willpower when needed.
Speaker 1:Now that we've covered some of the biggest reasons why willpower fades or why we fail to utilize it to its highest potential, it's time to get into the most actionable portion of this e-book. The next section is all about simple things you can do to tap into that self-control and willpower and make things happen. Boosting Willpower. Now that we've discussed in great detail what causes willpower to fail us in one way or the other, let's take a look at what we can do to avoid this. There are a lot of simple tricks and techniques you can try to make sure you stick to your plan and reach those long-term goals. Remember, willpower is about resisting short-term temptations to reach long-term goals. Read through the list below. Pick one or two tips and techniques and give them a try. If it works, keep using it. If not, drop it and try something else. Not every tip will work in every situation and over time you'll find new and more effective favorites. Give each of them a try so you can find the ones that work best for you, your personality and your particular circumstances. Practice makes perfect.
Speaker 1:Willpower is a skill that we get better at with regular practice. It isn't easy to resist temptations, but the good news is that it becomes easier the more we do it. Also, exercising willpower in one area of our lives translates into increased strength in others. For example, if you get better at avoiding food temptations day in and day out, exercising your willpower, you'll find that it also becomes easier to stick to a frugal budget and pay off consumer debt over time. How will this help? That's simple. You just make it a point to practice willpower every single day. Choose something in your life and stick with the long-term goal instead of the temptation. It doesn't matter if it's snacking on an apple instead of a donut, getting that workout in, or skipping the fancy coffee drink and sticking to a cup of plain coffee brewed at home to save an extra $8. Every time you exercise your willpower, it'll help you improve.
Speaker 1:Make a plan and set those goals. Building the life you want is hard when you don't know what your goals are and you don't have a plan on how to get there. Here's an analogy for you. Let's say you live somewhere in the middle of the US and you decide you want to go to the beach fora couple of weeks. Without a clear goal of what beach, in what town or even state you want to go to and a route mapped out to get you there, your chances of making it to the beach are slim to none. Without those goals in place, you won't even know if you should be driving south, east, west or north.
Speaker 1:Do you see the problem of not having good goals in place? Getting out of debt or being thin are both excellent ideas, but they aren't goals. They don't help you make a plan and schedule for reaching those goals. Paying off $8,000 in credit card debt by Christmas is a much better goal. From there, you can make a plan for cutting your spending and generating extra income to make sure you can reach those goals. In turn, those details make it easier to put willpower to work. You will know where you can and can't spend money. You'll understand if you can take the weekend off or if you need to work on a little side hustle to make sure you stay on track with your plan to pay off the debt. It gives you something concrete to work with as you make those daily decisions. Having a time limit on it also lets you know that you won't have to work this hard and live this frugally forever. Take a little time to think about your goals and how you can make them specific. Add a deadline as well, and be sure to put it all in writing so you can remind yourself regularly of what your goals are. From there, you can map out a plan again in writing, adjust as needed and regularly check it to make sure you're on track.
Speaker 1:It takes much less willpower to decide to take one little step in the right direction today than to constantly worry about the big picture. What's your why? Another great aid to make sure you get a willpower boost when you need it is to work on your motivation. One of the best ways to do this is to figure out what genuinely motivates you. Once you work this out, you'll be in a much better position to aim for those long-term results. In other words, you need to figure out your why. Dig deep when you work on discovering your why. You don't just want to save a certain amount of money in your bank account. You want to save it to put down a down payment on a house. The real reason, or why, is because you want to create a safe and secure home for your family and build a financial asset that increases your net worth and helps you prepare for retirement. You also want to raise your kids in a safe environment and good school district. Retirement you also want to raise your kids in a safe environment and good school district. All those reasons and motivations go a lot deeper than simply making sure you have X amount of dollars in the bank. It isn't very motivating to work towards adding an extra $200 towards that goal each month. It's a lot more motivating when you remind yourself that this puts you one step closer to having a home where each of your children has a bedroom of their own and they can move to a better school.
Speaker 1:It's essential that you remind yourself of your why. Once you've figured it out, write it on some note cards or sticky notes and tape them to your bathroom mirror. Hang them on the fridge and post them on your desk. Create a screensaver with the details on it. Save a message or image on your phone that you can pull up and look at regularly. Surround yourself with simple little reminders of why you're working towards those long-term goals. Each time you see it, your motivation and willpower will get a little extra boost. That'll come in handy Using Visualization.
Speaker 1:Another great option is using visualization techniques. Another great option is using visualization techniques. There's a reason most super athletes and other successful people in all walks of life swear by these techniques. They give you a visual image of your why and the results you want to achieve. Close your eyes and picture yourself at the point where you've already reached your ultimate goals. If getting down to a healthy weight is your goal, picture what you look like, what that feels like, what type of clothes you'll be wearing, what you're eating and how you're moving. Imagine how much easier it'll be to get up three flights of stairs when you're healthy and in good shape. Picture the compliments you'll receive or the looks of admiration you'll be getting. Be as detailed as possible in this visualization. Work on visualization exercises daily and supplement them with visual aids like vision boards. They'll become a constant reminder of what you're aiming for and help you find the willpower you need to create the daily actions and habits that'll get you there, creating positive habits.
Speaker 1:Worried about losing your willpower? The best way to make sure you don't run out of willpower is to use it to create positive habits. Once established, you no longer need the willpower to make sure you stick with those routines. You don't have to talk yourself into brushing your teeth in the morning and before bed. It's a habit that you're doing automatically. Take a look at your goals and your plan. Find the steps that you need to take on a regular basis and decide which ones you can turn into positive habits. Make a note of each and then work on establishing those habits one at a time. It's important that you don't try to do too much at once. We've discussed earlier that willpower comes in a limited daily supply. Focus on establishing one positive new habit at a time daily supply. Focus on establishing one positive new habit at a time. Once it's a fully established habit, you no longer need willpower and can turn to the next one. Rinse and repeat until you've completely made over your life and are well on your way towards reaching your goals, measuring Progress and Celebrating Wins On this journey towards making meaningful and positive changes.
Speaker 1:It can be hard to see progress. It takes time to become healthy, improve our fitness, lose large amounts of weight or dig out from under a mountain of debt. Progress is small at first and it can feel like you're not making progress at all, even when you do. That's why it's important to track and measure progress and to celebrate your wins, no matter how small they seem. Start by making a note of your starting point. When you set your goals and make your plan, you need a starting point and you need to be specific and related to your end goal. For example, if you want to lose weight to get down to a healthy size, you want to make a note of your starting weight and what you want to aim for the end weight. By recording your starting weight, you have a measurement you can compare yourself to and measure your progress. In the big scheme of things, losing two pounds when your total weight goal loss is 50 pounds may not seem like much, but it's a step in the right direction and small win that you must celebrate. A journal can also be a great tool when it comes to tracking small changes over time. Being able to look back and see how far you've already come can be very motivating. Browse through your journal and anything else you're doing to track your progress to get that extra boost of motivation and willpower whenever you need it.
Speaker 1:Avoiding temptation. Have you noticed that it becomes harder to stick to the plan and make smart choices as the day goes on? It's easy to stick to a healthy diet in the morning, but much harder to skip the snack or treat late at night. You're a lot more likely to stick to an exercise program if you make a point of working out early in the morning instead of doing it after work. The reason is that your willpower wanes throughout the day. As we've discussed earlier, it's important to do what you can to avoid temptation, especially late in the day. If you're trying to lose weight, don't keep snacks in the house. If you're getting your finances under control, freeze your credit cards so you're not tempted to make impulse purchases. You know better than anyone else what those temptations are, and I'm sure you'll start to come across more of them on this journey towards strengthening willpower and reaching your goals. Make it a point to avoid as many of them as possible so you don't have to use up your valuable willpower to pass on them.
Speaker 1:Fighting Decision Fatigue as the day goes by. One of the reasons that it becomes harder and harder to resist temptation is because of decision fatigue. As with willpower, we have a set number of decisions we're capable of on any given day. As the day goes on, decision fatigue sets in and eventually we run out of the ability to make decisions, so it's vital that we use them wisely. Think about the type of decision-making you can cut out of your life. For example, quite a few executives have a self-prescribed uniform when it comes to the clothes they wear. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are great examples. They wear the same type of pants and shirt every day. Cutting out quite a few daily decisions about what to wear, creating a capsule wardrobe or coming up with your version of a uniform can be great options for you. Creating routines like a weekly exercise or cleaning routine and a rotating meal plan also help you make fewer daily decisions, leaving plenty of them left for the important stuff, including working on your willpower. What can you do to cut out some of the daily decisions you make? Sit down and make a list, then add to it regularly. While also working on routines. You might even delegate tasks to others so you don't encounter decision fatigue too early in the day.
Speaker 1:Let's pause and try breathing. Exercises, impulses and giving in to them are some of the biggest issues when it comes to willpower fails. Let's look at some examples. We're doing great about saving money and paying off debt until we see a pretty new dress in the window and give in to the impulse to buy. We're sticking to our healthy diet until, faced with a slice of cake, we head to the pub with the guys when invited, instead of the gym as planned. Impulse decisions are emotional decisions. We go with how we feel instead of thinking things through and making an informed and rational choice.
Speaker 1:The good news is that there's an easy fix to impulses. The fix is just to pause and take a breath. Delaying a decision by as little as 30 seconds can be enough to allow the rational mind to kick back in and take over. In other words, it gives our willpower time to get to work. Take over. In other words, it gives our willpower time to get to work when faced with temptations. Simply get in the habit of making yourself wait a little while. Sleep on an impulse purchase, make yourself drink a glass of water or do a simple breathing exercise before grabbing a snack or treat. Come up with coping mechanisms that make you wait just a little while. More often than not, that's all you need to find the willpower to stick with your plan and your goals. Best of all, we usually don't regret these choices made later. Giving in to impulses, on the other hand, is something we often regret the moment we do give in. Don't let this happen to you. Find ways to help you pause and make the right choices. Living without regret makes it all the worthwhile.
Speaker 1:Finding cheerleaders and accountability partners. You don't have to go it alone. One of the best things you can do to boost your willpower and increase your chances of success, no matter what your goals, is to enlist the help of others. There are two types of people who will help you along there are cheerleaders and there are accountability partners. Let's look at each of them. What are cheerleaders? A cheerleader is a person you share your goals and plans with, who then encourages you and helps you through the rough spots. Your cheerleader is the person you'll call when you're ready to throw in the towel and call it quits. It's the person you reach out to when you need a little encouragement. They can also be great at highlighting to you how much progress you've already made. They encourage you, cheer you on and remind you why you're doing what you're doing. They can be a great boost to willpower when you need it the most.
Speaker 1:Think about who in your life would make a good cheerleader for you. Not everyone will align with each of your goals and ambitions. Choose wisely and share what you're trying to do with them. Ask them to encourage you and to check in with you from time to time. What are accountability partners? Accountability partners are another great resource. Your workout buddies or fellow students are great examples of accountability partners. In essence, they're others with the same or similar goals. You work together to encourage and hold each other accountable. You check in with each other, maybe even get a little competition going. At the very least, it helps to know that there's someone out there waiting for you and relying on you to do what you said. You would Find one or more accountability partners and give it a try. Ideally, you want to have one or more of each, both cheerleaders and accountability partners. Their input can make a huge difference and help you stay motivated. That brings us to the end of this chapter on boosting willpower and also the end of the guide. Let's wrap things up and let you get started on exercising your willpower and working towards your goals.
Speaker 1:Conclusion We've covered a lot of ground on the topic of willpower in these pages. We started out by taking a closer look at exactly what willpower is and why it's such an important skill to cultivate. We discovered that willpower is a skill that you can improve with regular practice. We then moved on to talk about some of the reasons why it fails us from time to time. I hope the chapter about the causes of willpower fading or why we occasionally fail to make use of it was helpful. It's always good to know what's causing the problems when things go wrong or worse than expected. When we know the reasons, we can work towards a remedy or avoid it the next time around altogether. By far the most actionable and helpful section of the guide is, of course, the last chapter of tips and strategies to help boost willpower and strengthen resolve.
Speaker 1:Now that you've made it to the end of this guide, I invite you to go back and revisit that chapter. Pick one or two ideas from that section and start implementing them. Start with the ones that seem easiest or most interesting. Try them out for yourself and once they've become habits, come back and try something else. Keep working your way through the list until you've tried them all. Some will work well for you, but others may not.
Speaker 1:Come up with a short list of willpower-boosting techniques that work for you and you can make your own. Not only will you be able to craft and mold the life you want to live, but you'll also be setting an example for your family and loved ones. Your children, your partner, your friends and even co-workers and acquaintances will see you exercise willpower and make positive changes in your life. They'll be inspired to follow your example and do the same. Their participation will result in more accountability, partners and cheerleaders for you. Don't forget to give back something by sharing some of what you've learned in these pages and by becoming a mentor and cheerleader for others. Meaningful change starts by someone somewhere, making up their mind to make a difference. Why shouldn't that person be you? Make up your mind, set a goal and start exercising that willpower until you get there.