Want the Secret to Willpower? Do This to Make New Habits Stick

“It would be easier to make new habits stick if I had better willpower.” Once when a client said this to me, I asked what would change if her willpower improved. She replied, “I’d stop falling back into my old patterns. I would stay consistent even when life gets extra crazy.”

This particular client had spent $1000s on personal development courses and coaching programs. She always started out full-throttle, but soon her enthusiasm fizzled. She never completed any of them. Most recently, she’d confided this to another coach she’d been working with. The coach blamed her inconsistency on a lack of willpower.

She worked for several months to strengthen her willpower muscles. No matter how hard she tried, she kept falling back into old habits. This led to exhaustion and frustration with herself. The whole thing felt hopeless. She was mentally beating herself up over her failure to improve her willpower.

Maybe you can relate. I bet achievement and personal growth rank high on your priorities list too. You keep searching for ways to boost your willpower. You think it’s the only way to maintain better habits, reach your goals, and build the life of your dreams. If only you were stronger, more disciplined.

Let’s stop it with the lies.

Willpower hype has duped us for decades. Society insists that if only we had better self-control, we’d finally be able to ditch our old, ‘bad’ habits once and for all. We’ve believed it. Low willpower is largely considered a personality flaw. It’s seen as one of the worst kinds of weakness. We presume this about others. We internalize it about ourselves.

This mindset cultivates shame. Shaming ourselves does more harm than good. It stifles the growth we seek. This is especially true when trying to develop new habits. It sparks stigma, which itself squelches the actions needed for healthy behavior change.

The secret to willpower that nobody tells us.

Changing our habits stems from wanting to relieve some form of pain. Losing weight may end the embarrassment of feeling unattractive or having low endurance. Quitting alcohol can relieve the regret of not showing up fully for ourselves or our loved ones. Learning relaxation methods could alleviate the pain of crushing overwhelm and stress.

Stigma sabotages our efforts. The belief that we’re inherently weak if we struggle to keep our new habits adds pressure to the situation. It decreases our capacity to cope. The brain’s natural response is damage control. Its focus turns from extinguishing pain at the source, to chaotically flapping at the flames of added stress.

It happens despite the deeper source of pain that prompted us to change in the first place. This has even been demonstrated in people with debilitating mental or physical illness. The stress of stigma prevents them from seeking or complying with treatment. It overrides their ability to take action to resolve their condition. If this can happen when someone’s life literally depends on it, then surely it can occur with any attempt at habit change.

Overcome the hidden consistency block.

We saw an example of that phenomenon in the story of my client. The more she felt failure, the more intense stress and hopelessness she experienced. This compounded her struggle with consistency. Stigma sparked those feelings. She believed that an inability to achieve in this area of her life meant she was defective. It became a vicious cycle that left her feeling defeated.

It wasn’t her fault. (And if you relate to her experience, it’s not your fault either.) She wasn’t a failure. Like most of us, she just didn’t understand how willpower does, and mostly doesn’t, work. It didn’t help that she’d received false information from a person she trusted (and paid) to help her.

Use this brain hack to make new habits stick.

The truth is that reliance on willpower saps our mental energy. Change is hard, even when we’re at the top of our game. One reason is that our brains are lazy. They’re wired to conserve energy at every turn. This is the reason that most of our actions happen on autopilot. In fact, it’s estimated that the unconscious mind influences 95% of our behaviors. This is the opposite of where willpower originates. We literally can’t will, force, or discipline our way to lasting change. Our brains don’t work that way.

The willpower ideal relies on logic tied to outdated knowledge about how the brain works. It pulls from antiquated pages that state the only way to manage our behavior is through iron-clad impulse control. But willpower is a mirage. It dances seductively in the distance. We chase after it, and it slips through our fingers. Meanwhile, chasing willpower only depletes us of energy. We need to conserve that energy so we can actually take action on our goals.

The simple strategy that works better than willpower.

The most effective method of habit change is one that takes advantage of your lazy brain. The brain loves repetition and rewards. The more we do something, the easier it is to cement it as a habit. However, the self-bullying approach sabotages this. My client was eventually able to let go of the futile pursuit of willpower. How did she do it? Well, she had to eliminate the guilt and shame elements first.

Instead of pushing her toward habit perfection, we worked on permitting herself to be human. She moved away from self-judgment. She accepted that missteps don’t equal failure. On the surface, it might seem not ‘hardcore’ enough to be effective. This is the willpower myth at work. But science shows that a self-compassionate attitude actually improves goal success. It develops emotional resilience that gets us through the life challenges that otherwise block us from sticking with new habits.

Overcoming the odds: an inspiring success story.

At the end of our work together, my client had been successful in sticking to her new habits for six months. (In contrast, 45% of people quit on their New Year’s resolutions within the first month.) Was she perfect every day? No way. She still had rough days where life got crazy and things didn’t go as planned. But instead of lurching through abrupt start-stops with her new habits, she learned to glide through those moments. She mastered the art of grace and the skill of resilience.

Removing the pressure of perfectionism and self-judgment ends self-sabotage. It gives us the space to mess up, as all of us inevitably will. Habit success requires that we don’t succumb to feelings of failure as a reason to quit. If you want to make new habits stick too, ditch the guilt, shame, stigma, and energy drain of chasing willpower. Choose self-compassion, and you’ll never give up on yourself, no matter how many times life tries to knock you off course.

Leah Borski is The Scrappy Sensitive ™: Type A mind + HSP body. She writes about holistic mental health + high-performance habits and how they intertwine… with a pinch of personal life lessons and plenty of neuroscience.

Read more of Leah’s work here.