Strengthen Your Willpower: 2 Easy Steps To Greater Self-Discipline
Find Your Way to Get Rid of Your Marshmallow’s
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” they say.
The only annoying thing is that willpower is a limited resource and a store of energy that we have to use every day.
So what happens when there is no will left to follow the path?
Learn why self-discipline as a guarantee for success is overrated anyway and how to use your will power in a resource-saving way. You will also learn a new aspect of the famous marshmallow experiment, which has too often gone unmentioned.
What Is Willpower?
Maybe you have heard of the Marshmallow Experiment. In it, you put a marshmallow in front of the children and leave the room. The rules of the game:
If the children wait until the adult comes back before eating the treat, they get a second marshmallow as a reward. As you can see in the video, amusing and heartbreaking minutes follow in which the children try with all their might to resist the sweetness.
Despite singing, holding hands under their butts, and not looking at the plate, only a small number of children manage to leave the candy untouched.
Exercising willpower means postponing rewards.
For example, if you resist the urge to buy a pretty blouse here and reduced jeans there, you can instead use the money you save to take a vacation in Spain at the end of the year. There you can toast your willpower with a cocktail in your hand!
The same principle applies if you have the self-control to enjoy just two pieces of chocolate instead of plastering the whole bar. You will have a shorter pleasure experience now, but you will enjoy your beach body even more on your next vacation.
In other words:
If you don’t give in to your impulses, desires, and emotions at all times, you may experience less immediate satisfaction, but your long-term rewards will be greater.
In addition to a beach vacation with a beach figure, a healthy dose of self-control also makes you more successful in education, at work, and even in relationships.
How Do I Train My Willpower?
Make a career, lead a harmonious relationship, have a dream body — these goals are worth to resist temptations, and to keep your impulses in check, aren’t they? So, grit your teeth and hold on! Yes, you can do it!
This type of motivational speech is used by many coaches to appeal to your self-discipline. This may work too — but only as a short-term strategy.
Because willpower is a limited resource, a store of energy that we have to use every day anew.
So if you’ve already resisted the doughnut pack in your fridge in the morning and had to make several decisions at work, your willpower tank is already tapped by lunchtime.
If you then boldly reach for a burger instead of talking yourself into a salad, that’s only human.
The Secret Of Strong Willpower
That willpower does not require superhuman self-control is shown by the often unmentioned part of the original marshmallow experiment.
As described above, some children sat in front of the candy with big eyes. In another test group, however, the test supervisor took the tempting candy back and the children spent the 15-minute waiting period in an empty room — with the option of asking for the individual marshmallow as a reward at any time.
The difference was remarkable: In the first test arrangement, the children only managed to keep their hands off the marshmallow for an average of six minutes. Without the temptation under their noses, the average waiting time was a full eleven minutes. Out of sight, out of mind.
In the same way, you can use your willpower wisely to remove some “marshmallows” from your life:
Hide candy in the back of the closet, have the bicycle key ready instead of the car key, or take the side street instead of walking along with the storefront windows.
Another example: If your cell phone is permanently within reach and you hear one popup sound after the other, it would be a Herculean task not to quickly check if it is a message from your boss or your best friend.
A clever way to save your willpower?
Install App-Blocker to receive only the most important of all important calls, set your smartphone completely to flight mode, or put it into a soundproof, chained box in the bathtub.
Whatever you are doing. This way you only have to apply willpower once to eliminate your phone as a source of interference. Afterward, you can invest your remaining willpower in your work or a deep conversation with friends.
A big secret of self-discipline is, therefore:
Use your willpower to eliminate as many “marshmallows” as possible in your environment.
‘Willpower is the greatest strength of man, but the best strategy is not to rely on it in all situations. Save it for emergencies.’ — Roy F. Baumeister
Step 1: Eliminate Marshmallows And Avoid Bad Habits
First, think about what your marshmallows are.
Remember typical conflicts of conscience in everyday life, where you think “I’d better not … turn on the TV, scroll through Facebook, order from the delivery service, go to bed for a moment …”.
How can you now create your environment in such a way that these marshmallows simply no longer dance under your nose and you hardly need any self-discipline to resist them?
Get creative!
Set up a workspace instead of lolling on the same couch you’re watching Netflix on. With the delivery service app, use the timer in the app blocker for one day of the week and cook for yourself the rest of the time. At work, you arrange with your colleagues to cover the coffee machine with a cloth or hide it in the cupboard after 3 pm.
It may sound silly, but it works.
Step 2: Find Marshmallow Alternatives And Build Good Habits
Unfortunately, sacrifice rarely puts you in a good mood and also costs an awful lot of willpower. Therefore, find a healthy alternative for each eliminated marshmallow that will make you happy:
Instead of coffee, you can experiment with delicious teas in the afternoon or switch to decaffeinated coffee. Instead of having pizza delivered, you can subscribe to a healthy cooking box. Instead of sweets and potato chips, you can boldly go for fruit and nuts. You replace a bad habit with a good — or at least better — one.
Don’t be afraid to set the hurdles for a habit as low as possible. Gritting your teeth every day when you exercise or eat salad costs you a lot of willpower.
But what do you think about taking a small portion of salad with you in the canteen from now on, which you eat first? Or to always take the stairs to the second floor from now on?
It takes about 66 days for something to become a habit. During these 66 days, you need a little willpower to remind yourself of your goal from time to time.
But the more attractive your alternatives and the smaller the hurdles are, the less you have to discipline yourself during this time.
And once these good deeds have become second nature to you, you will not have to deal with inner conflicts. Instead, let your habitual tempo carry you through the duties of the day without thinking.
Self-discipline Without Stress
Life is difficult enough, so please don’t be too hard on yourself!
Don’t plan to banish all marshmallows from your life and replace them with good habits at a stroke.
Instead, choose one marshmallow at a time.
‘It is better to make many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.’ — old chinese proverb