Willpower Doesn’t Work.
Motivation is an imaginary friend.
It was a long day at work. I bathed, sat on my bed, and saw the book I was supposed to read every day.
“But I was so tired today”, I heard myself saying, or to be precise, my running-low-willpower said those words. I knew I needed to fight, but eventually, I lost the battle and ended up lying on my bed with a smartphone.
You might find the above scene familiar. We all face a similar situation where we just don’t have enough willpower to resist the temptations to do the opposite of what we should be doing.
“Success isn’t that difficult; it merely involves taking twenty steps in a singular direction. Most people take one step in twenty directions.”― Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn’t Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success
What is willpower?
Many would pay to get more willpower as if willpower is the ticket to success.
Willpower is at the expense of our mental resources — the same resource we use for cognitive ability that enables us to solve problems at work and survive the day.
Our willpower will likely elude us when we run out of mental resources after a long day at work.
So if you set a goal of reading 30 pages every day or exercising for 30 minutes after a hectic day, you are planning for failure.
Willpower doesn’t work. What does?
I realise I will never read or exercise regularly if I rely on willpower alone. Thanks to authors like Benjamin Hardy, Stephen Guise, and Charles Duhigg for sharing the studies on habit-building and motivation. I have learned the right way to make things happen.
Ever since I implemented the findings from the books I mentioned, I have:
- Read daily. From reading just about eight books per year to reading 60 books in 2021.
- Exercise regularly. I exercise at least…
