What Willpower Actually Is
We’ve been thinking about it the wrong way the whole time.
After a particularly tough day at work, one of the remedies that many self-help gurus offer is to use these opportunities to treat yourself. While some of the more pragmatic among us will say their “reward” is more work, reading a book, or doing some other mentally engaging task, the reality is many of us veg out.
We binge Netflix and scarf down a tub of ice cream. We play video games. We sit for long hours.
We know these are probably bad ideas when done excessively. But we justify these things by saying that this is our reward. Our true reward.
For decades, psychologists have studied this, which they call "ego depletion." It’s a theory that our willpower is connected to so much of our mental energy. The lower our mental energy is, the more likely we’ll lose self-control. Be it self-sabotaging behaviour, or a guilty pleasure we indulge in once in a while, science has proven that this is why we do these things.
Or do we?
Because a particular and significant study begs to differ about this “ego depletion” nonsense. In fact, this study is evidence that ego depletion is not really a thing at all, and believing it can result in losing control more often than not.
Why We Still Think Ego Depletion Is A Thing
It’s understandable why we cling to the ideas of willpower and ego depletion. It received scientific support in the late 1990s. Roy Baumeister and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University conducted an experiment that has since been cited over three thousand times.
As a result, millions of articles have presented the idea that our willpower has a limit. And in order to refill our willpower, we need to indulge in mindless activities and guilty pleasures.
But there are studies that counter those findings in the end. The one I linked above is one such study. Another study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, which used the same Baumeister-approved methods, found no evidence of ego depletion.
And then there were two more (this one, and this one) that failed to replicate the original study’s results.
Baumeister has disputed the methods these other studies have used, but it seems like a growing number of scientists are now doubting this theory entirely.
Even the use of cookies in the experiment is a bit dubious, as there is research out there that shows sugar has nothing to do with willpower. This is on top of brain experts knowing for quite some time the brain doesn’t consume more blood sugar when working on difficult tasks.
We know at this point that the brain is an organ, not a muscle, so it doesn’t consume extra energy. It will always consume the same number of calories per minute whether you are watching Netflix or solving physics problems.
So what’s really happening?
Early Researchers Were Too Eager
To begin, this is a problem of correlation, which does not imply causation. Sure, some of the early research might have been authentic. However, with more studies happening now, we can tell the researchers back then were jumping to the wrong conclusions.
Carol Dweck and her colleagues, when not studying growth mindsets, also looked into ego depletion and found people displayed that only when they believed that was true. Whenever a subject didn’t think of willpower as this finite resource, there were never any signs whatsoever of this phenomenon.
What this study leads us to believe is that ego depletion is another way in which our belief in certain concepts or ideas drives our behaviour.
If you think being spent is bad and using a reward makes you feel better, then that will be wired into your way of thinking. You will believe that eating cookies or something sweet will refuel you or that it is justified. Particularly after a long day at work or a strenuous workout.
A placebo effect is at work, driving a belief system that causes us to have self-defeating thoughts.
Beyond that, one can argue that since we love to quantify things, the idea of our minds having a willpower tank justifies certain feelings. Fueled by eager researchers who want to provide a reason, we didn’t pause and question when we were told willpower is finite.
The Real Harm Of Thinking Willpower As Finite
Aside from the researchers, the self-help industry is one of the most active promoters of ego depletion. I can imagine the vast majority of them are not doing this with malicious intent. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that talking about ego depletion today—when it’s scientifically shakey at best—is causing real damage to people.
To begin, convincing people of this idea can cause people to stop in their tracks. It provides a convenient excuse to stop working on something in a situation where they could’ve persisted.
Goals or projects might’ve been done sooner if people realized they were not actually tired. This reminds me of the phrase “two more reps” in workouts, where even if your body is telling you to stop, you could probably manage to do two more reps.
And it also doesn’t help that researchers like Baumeister are fully convinced this is real and will prove it. It may be the case in a controlled lab situation, but the mounting contradictory evidence right now shows that it’s not a thing outside of labs.
This is not to say that we should always be hustling and work 80+ hours a week like Elon Musk. But the persistent nature of ego depletion can cause us to cut ourselves short when we know we could’ve gone for a little bit longer.
How Do We Fix This?
Ego depletion is likely never going to go away. It’s part of the self-help industry and like so many other misguided things, there will always be people who will encourage that thinking. Combined with other researchers who believe this to be real, there will be more research to suggest this is real when it isn’t.
The only real fix in this situation is to look at your own relationship with willpower and change it. Believing in ego depletion isn’t really working. We cut ourselves short or we just give up on something too soon.
Thinking of it as an emotion, however, does make a difference. Emotions don’t “run out,” but rather they ebb and flow based on what’s happening around us and how we feel. One way to think of it is that willpower is very high when you’re in a flow state or intensely focused on something.
It’s also more productive to think that when you lack motivation, this is a temporary feeling, and no amount of sugar is going to amp you up to do anything.
That one can be a bit tricky because sometimes a lack of motivation isn’t temporary. That’s your body’s way to communicate something our consciousness might miss. When we lack mental energy in a chronic way, it’s here where you want to listen to willpower and our emotions for insight.
On a fundamental level, we tend to give up on tasks and goals when they don’t engage us. One of the other big flaws with ego depletion studies is that puzzle section.
No sane person finds it fun or purposeful to try and solve a puzzle that has no solution.
In work situations, we really don’t care about mindless tasks. The same can be said for those “necessary evil” tasks too. When we have to deal with these we tell ourselves to buckle down and just do them. Even if it’s only for an hour or two, we feel drained from them.
That is not due to ego depletion, but rather to the risk of not paying attention to our emotions.
Instead of thinking of willpower as a finite resource, we'll focus on the power of will and engaging in enjoyable activities to increase our productivity.
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