Summary

The web content discusses the psychological strategy of using positive self-talk and visualization to protect and enhance one's willpower in pursuit of personal goals, as exemplified by the experiences of individuals like BeWhy, Warren Buffet, and Jim Carrey.

Abstract

The article "How To Protect Your Willpower From Draining Self-Talk" emphasizes the importance of self-belief and positive internal dialogue in achieving success. It draws on the experiences of Korean hip-hop artist BeWhy, who wrote about his future success as if it had already happened, and later found that he had indeed achieved those goals. Similar anecdotes from Warren Buffet and top blogger Anthony Moore reinforce the idea that confidence and conviction in one's eventual success can lead to significant personal and professional achievements. The concept of the "winner effect" is introduced to explain how repeated successes can enhance one's abilities and self-assurance, while the limited nature of willpower is acknowledged as a challenge to overcome self-doubt. The article suggests that reframing outcomes as "non-successes" rather than failures can maintain motivation during the early stages of a project. It also advocates for setting definite deadlines to shift from a validation-seeking mindset to a preparation mindset, allowing for a calm and motivated approach to long-term goal achievement.

Opinions

Lee Byung Yoon, known as BeWhy, believed in writing about his future success as if it had already occurred, which later materialized in reality.
The article suggests that acknowledging oneself and one's achievements, even if only imagined, is crucial to fulfilling dreams.
The "winner effect" posits that consecutive successes build confidence and intelligence, leading to further achievements.
Self-doubt is seen as a drain on willpower, which is a finite resource, potentially leading to quitting.
Reframing early-stage project outcomes as "non-successes" instead of failures can prevent ego damage and maintain perseverance.
Setting a definite deadline for goals is recommended to foster a preparation mindset and delay the judgment of failure, allowing for a more enjoyable and motivated pursuit of one's ambitions.

How To Protect Your Willpower From Draining Self-Talk

The most draining battle is the battle you have with yourself

Lee Byung Yoon, known by his stage name ‘BeWhy’, is one of the representative figures in the stage of Korean hip hop music. He started his career organically growing as an underground rapper before he won the reality show ‘Show Me The Money 5’ and rose to commercial fame. After winning the competition, his popularity grew and his name topped the brand reputation for hip hop artists in Korea.

Just like indie artists, the underground rapper also went through the slow burn of growing in a saturated market where people try to make it into the public’s radar without the support of a big agency.

In an interview, he even mentioned that he didn’t think about working in music when he was little. He considered himself as an average kid who likes music before finally acknowledging his passion and qualification in music.

During this early career stage, one of his habits was to pretend that he was writing an article for himself the way the media would write about him as an already famous rapper. He would write made-up things like the ‘BeWhy Fever’ and how he imagined his success will be.

He wrote about his goals as if they have become an achievement.

Years later, he looked back to these moments and realized that he has achieved everything that he wrote in those articles.

He mentioned that acknowledging himself was an important step in achieving his dream. He said:

It’s about the act of today just like you achieved your tomorrow’s goal. I am the one who already fulfilled my goal.

It’s not just the confidence, this is the conviction.

I never think about ‘What if it doesn’t come true?’

Because it never comes true if you think so.

“Live your life as if your dream has happened”.

Even though you are still in the pursuit of your dream, believing you have achieved your dream comes preceding the actual achievement. Warren Buffet also has a similar mindset:

I always knew I am going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.

In another case, a top blogger Anthony Moore also shared his story where his career grew drastically after he started to believe he has what it takes to be an elite writer— he grew from 180 email subscribers to 20,000+ subscribers; from 50 views/day to 200,000 views/month.

This looks like a simple law of manifestation, but there is also a psychological explanation behind this mindset. The winner effect explains that repeated wins make people smarter, better trained, and more confident. People who build consecutive success feels like they can achieve anything, so they end up achieving their goals. This belief pushes them to give full effort knowing it will be worth it — there is no self-talk of doubt, no draining inner conflicts on how much they should give for their dream.

When you feel doubt, you constantly ask yourself “Am I competent enough?”, “Should I just stop?”, and “Is this really worth the effort?”. It requires a lot of willpower to resist these thoughts, and willpower is a limited resource — it’s just a matter of time until these thoughts push you to quit. People say that getting up from the fall is part of the journey, but your ego can only experience so many beating before it finally gives up.

The habit of building repeated wins is not about achieving your goal immediately — but to reframe the outcome of your action in a way that feels like a ‘win’.

Tim Denning shared his story when a lot of young people approached him and they felt lost because of their failed projects — but, upon closer inspection, they are not really failing. They are still at the beginning of their projects, so it’s still way too early to give a verdict on whether their effort is a failure or a success.

It’s not a failure when in the timeline of your success, it’s too early to achieve your first win.

The word ‘not-yet’ is a powerful mantra against self-doubt.

Danny Schleien even suggests that instead of calling your outcome as a ‘failure’, call it as a ‘non-success’— a term that is used by Ed Viesturs to describe that the required elements for success have not aligned yet for him to conquer the mountain top.

There are many reasons why success has not happened to you, and a lot of them are external factors that are out of your control. Refusing to call it a failure means to separate life setbacks from your actual capabilities.

Give Yourself Time To Achieve Your Goals

Jim Carrey’s story of writing a 10 million dollar check for him was a well-known story on the law of manifestation. He sat in his car, wrote a check, and dated the check with ‘Thanksgiving 1995’. Just before Thanksgiving in 1995, he found out that he will be paid 10 million dollars for his acting performance.

But the most memorable part for me is when he dated the check with the Thanksgiving date 10 years later.

His goal might be so out of reach from his situation when he wrote the check, but he gave himself 10 years to close the gap between his present reality with his vision for the future. And he made those 10 years count.

When you only say that ‘success will happen’, your mind will be confused. How soon is success? Next week? Tomorrow? In the next 5 minutes?

The attachment to your desire for success can create incessant worry and impatience. This in turn will drive you to call yourself a failure if you don’t find success in the next 5 minutes.

Setting a definite deadline creates a mindset switch from a validation-seeking mindset into a preparation mindset.

By giving yourself a deadline, it turns your dream from being a validation of your present capability into a future goal that you approach slowly by working hard.

It delays the judgment of failure, it puts you in a mental state that is calm enough to learn and grow, and it gives you the motivation to chase a goal.

Instead of getting impatient and anxious from waiting for a sign of success, you invest your time in getting better. Most importantly it fills you with enough energy to make you enjoy the long marathon of achieving your goals.