Willpower is a Muscle

“I wish I had more willpower.” The sentence heard repeatedly around dessert tables at holiday parties. The same sentence muttered by the “this is the time” guy that wants to kick some bad habits. Let’s not forget the New Year’s Resolutionist, this is going to be the year, fitness chaser that can’t seem to stay on track with their diet or training. But why do we say we don’t have the willpower to overcome these obstacles? Maybe it’s time we actually looked at this mystical thing called willpower, why it fails us, and how we can overcome.

Bear with me for a minute and see if this situation seems familiar.

You enter into health and fitness for some motivational reason: you want to lose weight, the doctor says you need to or you’ll have xyz disease, you want to grow an ass that holds your pants up, you want to be able to run with your kids, etc. Whatever the reason, you entered into this crazy venture and you’re beastmode, going ham, dedicated, and committed to doing it. You got the magazines, the supplements, the training books, and you’re on your way. After a few weeks the progress slows, the enthusiasm dwindles and eventually, you’re finding that “other” things just keep popping up and stopping you from training.

Your friends and family don’t support you and encourage you, and you’re on the verge of quitting. You hear about this website called Fitocracy that supports people on their fitness journey and you join. You get re-energized and you’re back on track with all your props, badges, and duels. Somehow, you still have demons telling you to just quit because the the novelty wore off. You reach out to the community and ask for support, and they give it, some say train with friends, others to get a trainer, and inevitably, somebody will give you the same old line about “get a goal.” [Read about why having goals isn’t enough here] You’re now in a position to make a choice, with community support you lose a few, fail, or succeed, or you can just quit.
**Losing and failing aren’t always bad things. There’s an important difference between losing, failing, and quitting as David Allen points out in his article on EliteFTS**

Bear Bryant said “The first time you quit, it’s hard. The second time, it gets easier. The third time, you don’t even have to think about it. If you’re reading this in disbelief, that’s great that you are one of the lucky ones that hasn’t thought “why am I doing this?” or you’re just delusional. I’m willing to bet my Ben & Jerry’s that you’ve been down this path with something. I know I’ve been there a few times where I was chasing goals and kept falling short but because I didn’t give up, I’ve been able to make it.

Back to willpower. What is willpower? Many would agree it is the “thing” that allows us to make good choices or fails us when we make poor choices. Some believe it’s a force inside of us that allows us to hold on and defeat temptation and others refer to it simply as “self-control.” The APA defines willpower as the “ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals.” I define willpower as the muscle behind habit and the scapegoat behind our failures.

So how do we get better at defeating temptation and continuing the pursuit of our goals? We train our willpower, of course! When we want to conquer physical tasks, we train and use our muscles. When we face intelligence-related tasks, we study and we use our brain. It is the exact same thing when we want to change our lives, only we can’t see or feel the immediate impact of our efforts. We change our lives through building good habits and we build good habits through exercising willpower.

Some studies say 21 days builds a habit, others, 66, and I’m sure if I were to look long enough I’d find 20 other timeframes. The short of it is habits take time and every day until it becomes a habit takes willpower. We’ve all been there, to that place where we’re so tired and so stressed that we just don’t have the energy to fight anymore. While we can’t flip a switch and make ourselves strong enough to resist, we can take three small steps to help us in the battle.

The first step, and probably one of the most obvious and overlooked steps is to minimize the exposure to the trigger that brings out the bad habit and to emphasize the good habit. If the problem is eating junk food, then removing the junk food, avoiding the fast food restaurants, and rearranging the kitchen so healthy foods are easy to access and junk requires more effort is a starting point. If the goal is to work out more, start with 10 minutes and increase in small amounts each day until you reach 45 minutes, and then add a second day, and a third.

The second very important step is finding a balance in your life. Over-indulgence and over-restriction are both tremendously detrimental to willpower and good habits. We read it all the time now with IIFYM and Flexible Dieting. If I am too strict, I am exhausting my willpower at every turn and eventually will run off track and give in before I have trained a new habit. If I’m too loose, I will never change.

Finally, for those times when we just can’t do it on our own, have a support group and an accomplice that truly does have your best interest at heart. Some will turn to family, some to friends, and some to social networks like Fitocracy. In any case, having others there to talk to and offer strength when you feel weak will help you beat those evil temptations and strengthen your willpower. And after enough help and support, that willpower will become a habit and you will be able to focus on your next healthy habit.

To sum up the three keys for stronger willpower

1. Minimize exposure to trigger objects, maximize exposure to healthy triggers
2. Find balance in your life, being too extreme only makes it harder to succeed
3. Have an accomplice to keep you on track, there are support groups for everything

A few years back I saw this posted on a weightroom door and it spoke to me.

The Habit
I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.
Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me,
And I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men.
And, alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine,
Plus, the intelligence of a man.
You may run me for profit, or run me for ruin; it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet.
Be easy with me, and I will destroy you.
Who am I?

I am a HABIT! 

And with everything I write related to health and fitness, BE PATIENT! Nothing happens overnight, and with health and fitness it will take time, so take a deep breath, get out the calendar and celebrate the successes, no matter how small (no, I did not say to eat the cake) because the little celebrations are what keeps us going. 

And if you need some support, join Fitocracy and follow Erin and I (GottaLift and ErinEW6916) or send us an email at zstrengthfit@gmail.com