“My own behavior baffles me.

For I find myself doing what I really loathe

but not doing what I really want to do.”

— St. Paul

Ever feel like you don’t have enough willpower to achieve your goals, like losing weight, getting in shape, or starting a side hustle. There are ways to improve your willpower, but that may not be enough. In this article, I will explain the difference between the Low-Road and the High-Road of Willpower so you can accomplish what you want to achieve.

Willpower is Limited

Willpower is an exhaustible resource. We only have so much will each day. When that supply runs out, we often find ourselves doing things we know we should not. For example, you start the day with good intentions to eat healthily, and you do good for the first part of the day, but then you breakdown in the afternoon when your willpower runs out. There are ways to improve the amount of willpower you have. These techniques are what I call the Low Road to Willpower.

The Low-Road to Willpower

The Low-Road of Willpower is where you try to either build up more willpower or use it more slowly, so it last. There are lots of things you can do to better husband this limited resource.

1. Eat Regularly. Willpower lags when blood sugar is low. To avoid this problem, eat regularly throughout the day. Stick to healthy snacks like fruit and nuts between meals. High-sugar foods may give you a temporary burst of blood sugar and energy, but the crash that comes after usually undoes all the good.
2. Drink Plenty of Water. Dehydration, like nutrition, is an underappreciated key to maintaining willpower. When people feel their will and energy fail, it may often be due to a lack of fluids. So drink a large glass of water first thing in the morning and keep water handy during the day. If you feel yourself losing control, start by downing a large glass of water.
3. Sleep. People wear their lack of sleep like a badge of honor in our society, but that should not be. Inadequate sleep may be one of the biggest causes of low willpower problems like obesity. No one thinks about being overweight as a badge of honor. So, aim for seven to eight hours of sleep a night, every night. If you find yourself sleeping in on weekends, you are not getting enough rest during the week. Fixing that problem can improve all of your other willpower produced problems as well.
4. Take breaks. Willpower gets run down while you are busy and working. Scheduling mini-breaks in your day can allow you a little willpower recharge. These breaks need to be a complete disengagement from your work. Lunch at your desk does not count. Answering emails does not qualify. You need to change your environment and do something that you find relaxing and helps you forget about work for a little while. Reading a book, taking a walk, meditating, shooting baskets, or whatever works for you. As long as it is a complete disengagement from what you were doing, it can give your willpower a recharge.
5. Exercise. The physical benefits of exercise seem obvious, but the mental and emotional benefits are equally compelling. People who exercise regularly not only have more energy, but they experience less stress. This is a double bonus for willpower.

If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, you may wake up each day with failure in mind because the goal is hard to reach, and you are progressing only by small amounts. It takes up all your willpower. I recommend that instead of a goal, you have a system.

— Scott Adams

The High-Road to Willpower

These are all excellent low road techniques to maintain willpower, but the real secret to willpower is something more. I like to illustrate with this analogy. Imagine you want to move a boat across a lake. There are two ways you can do this. The first is to jump into the water and start swimming while you pull the boat along behind you. This method is effective but slow and may result in exhaustion before you reach your goal.

The second method is to get into the boat, raise the sails, and harness the wind to do most of the work while you use comparatively little effort to hold the tiller and the ropes. Odds are, you will make the other shore in less time and by expending less effort. This is the High-Road to Willpower.

Use Willpower Strategically

The High-Road to Willpower relies on using willpower strategically by using small amounts of willpower to set up systems that become automatic and do the work for you. Like the initial effort to raise and set the sails on the boat, the initial step needed to set up sound systems can save a lot of effort down the road.

The High-road to Willpower means using willpower strategically.

Automaticity is Key

Good systems are habits we develop that made our desired behavior automatic. And being automatic makes those habits virtually effortless to perform. Take brushing your teeth as a classic example. You do it at certain times of the day as part of a routine without planning or using your willpower.

Teeth brushing is an excellent example of a good habit, so let’s break it down. The odds are that you brush your teeth at certain times of the day, like before you go to work and before bed. Those times become your cues to brush. When those cues arrive, you know what to do. You probably brush your teeth in a designated location. That place also becomes a cue to engage in the habit. Those reminders in your environment mean that you don’t have to do the work of remembering to engage in the activity.

By brushing in one particular area, you ease the path to success. You probably have a tooth brushing station where you keep your toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and sink. Brushing would be harder to do if you scattered those items all over your house, and you had to search for them every time you needed to brush. Making the process easy improves the odds of success.

Toothbrushing has an added benefit you may not have considered. There was a time in this country when toothbrushing was not the norm. Not because brushes and paste were not available, but because people just didn’t do it. Then a manufacturer decided to add mint to the paste. The mint gives you that fresh and tingly feeling when you finish brushing. The clean mouthfeel is a little reward for having brushed. That small reward was enough to change the behavior of the nation.

So how can you put these insights to work for you? Let’s break it down.

1. Choose the result you want. I did not say to choose the behavior you desire; I said to select the result. There is a difference. If you are going to use that high road, then you are looking for results. Don’t get mired in the small steps. Only once you know what result you want can you gauge whether or not your process will get you there.
2. Break it down. If the result you want is to run a marathon, you don’t start on day one by running 26.2 miles. Instead, look at where you are and where you want to be. Then break down the difference into small, achievable steps.
3. Select your starting step. Make sure it is one aimed to get you to your goal and not what you think you should do. Nor should you select the one that looks easiest. Select that one that will move you closest to your desired endpoint.
4. Start small. Big results can come from ridiculously small beginnings if you repeat the effort daily. The key is that results compound over time. The most important thing is to get started today, so those results can start compounding as soon as possible. To that end, I recommend starting small. So small that to not follow through would be ridiculous. For example, if you plan to start exercising tomorrow, set your shoes next to the door right now to be ready when you need them. That is easy to do, so easy it would be ridiculous not to do it. So do it right now. I’ll wait.
5. Set a Cue. This is a simple “when _____, then _____.” statement. In my case, it was, “When I finish work, then I will go to the gym.” A cue’s advantage is that it eliminates having to expend the energy and willpower to decide to do something. You have already decided and know what to do. All you have to do is follow-through. Another trick that can help is to decide the night before. It is easy to decide to do something at a time down the road. It doesn’t cost you anything at the moment you decide. Then when the time comes the next day, you don’t have to decide; you just have to do.
6. Ask, “What stands in my way of making this a habit?” When I set out to get fit, I knew one thing that would keep me from hitting the gym was not having my gear with me. So I rented a locker at the gym and kept my stuff there. I also paid for the towel service, so I always had a fresh, dry towel. This eliminated obstacles that would have prevented me from following through.
7. Reward yourself. That minty taste after brushing your teeth is the reward that you get for engaging in the habit. Rewards do work to change behavior. The problem is that people sometimes pick the wrong incentives. A reward should be immediate and support your ultimate goal. Eating an Ice-Cream Sunday after a workout may motivate you to exercise, but it undermines your purpose. In my case, exercising was part of a bigger goal of improving myself. So I allowed myself to purchase and read magazines while walking on the treadmill. Later I had to move on to audiobooks as my workouts became more intense. Today I watch Netflix when forced to run indoors. It is not the kind of thing I would otherwise waste time doing, but that little brain candy keeps me going to the gym.
8. Re-evaluate. Periodically stop and see if what you are doing is taking you where you want to go. Is it achieving the result you selected in step one? I like to see most of what I do as a series of experiments. I plan to try new things or variations on old stuff for a set amount of time and then review my results. Recently I tried an aggressive weight training regimen for six weeks. At the end of the six weeks, I could tell I had improved in muscle and strength. The only problem was that I had soreness in my joints. So now, I am trying a regimen that focuses on lifting heavier weight but doing fewer repetitions. After six weeks of this, I’ll see where I am and make a new plan. Remember, if your project is not getting the results you want, you will need to modify it. That is not failure; it is learning.
9. Continuously improve the system. Once the habit is set, making small improvements becomes easy. You can add to your process or subtract things that aren’t helping. You can look at books or other people for advice on how to improve. A coach may be helpful as well. Don’t ever see a habit as finished. Always be looking for little experiments you can try to tweak and make it better.

Conclusion

There you have it, both the Low-Road and the High-Road to Willpower. This is not a one or the other proposition. The reality is that you need both. Although creating high-road systems for your behavior is a more effective long-term strategy, you will need to use your low-road willpower to get started in the initial phase. So work to improve both systems simultaneously. Focus on the results you want to achieve and adapt your plans as needed until they produce those results. Lastly, remember this process is never complete; there will always be room for refinement. Look for opportunities to improve and get better results continuously.

Read More:

Learn Why You Fear Death and How to Use that Angst to Live Better Or learn about the The Three Thieves of Your Happiness and How to Arrest Them.