You can train your willpower, just like everything else.
Will power is the ability to remember your life goals in the face of daily urges and impulses.
If you can’t do that, how else will you stop yourself from having another slice of pizza, going to the gym, and getting that promotion?
Remembering your goals will help you harness the three powers: I won’t, I will, and I want.
In this article, I will share three ways you can harness and strengthen your willpower, backed up by science.
Meditation
According to scientific research, your pre-frontal cortex is the source of the three powers, I won’t, I will, and I want.
One of the jobs of the pre-frontal cortex is to control what you think, how you feel, and what you pay attention to. In other words, your “self-awareness” and “self-control” parts.
Strengthening your pre-frontal cortex will automatically increase your willpower and how your brain tricks you out of self-awareness and control.
Research by neuroscientists shows that meditation is the only way to improve your pre-frontal cortex.
As much as working out improves your muscles by increasing blood flow in them, meditation increases blood flow in your pre-frontal cortex and makes it better and stronger.
Not only do people who meditate have a wide range of self-control, but they also have better stress management and focus.
An even better fact is that you don’t need to do meditation for hours. Daily practice of 10 mins is the closest to speeding up evolution and making the most of your brain’s potential.
2. Pause and Plan Response
A pause and plan response is the opposite of a fight or flight response. Instead of putting energy on the body (in the fight-or-flight response), it puts that energy on the brain.
It is the biological signature set in motion when your body wants to resist temptation and override self-destructive urges.
The main difference between a "fight or flight" response and a "pause and plan" response is that it starts with the understanding that it is an internal conflict, not an external one.
Although it is a biological response, you can assist it by slowing down.
Next time, take deep breaths to slow your heartbeat when you have fried chicken in front of you and are on a diet. Slowing down will help you be aware of the internal conflict instead of overriding it.
When you are aware of internal conflict, you can make better decisions for yourself.
The goal is not to be paralyzed in the face of internal conflict but to empower it.
3. Understanding Biases
Understanding biases and the tricks the mind plays with you will help you strengthen your willpower because not every impulse act is a result of being out of self-control but of conscious thinking that we are acting from a moral high ground. This has more to do with psychology.
A. Moral licensing: It is when you do something good and permit yourself to do whatever you want. You also let yourself off the hook and don’t question your impulses when you feel virtuous.
It is when you binge-watch an entire Netflix series after you have submitted your project.
It is when you go on an eating spree after a week of the diet.
Making progress toward a goal motivates people to engage in goal-sabotaging behavior.
B. Future Licensing: This is when we credit ourselves with planned virtuous behavior in the future and permit ourselves to indulge today. A fundamental mistake we make when thinking about our future choices is persistently expecting to make different decisions tomorrow than we do today.
For example — I’ll skip the gym today because I’ll go tomorrow, I’ll smoke this one cigarette, but I’ll stop tomorrow.
C. Halo Effect: This effect pops up whenever something indulging is paired with something more virtuous. This is when we’ll take any hint of virtue as a justification to give in. An example of research found that people who order a healthy main dish will also indulge in drinks, side dishes, and desserts.
Practicing and being aware of your biases will put you in a better position to control yourself and be the person you want to be.
People with self-control over their attention, emotions, and actions are better off in almost any way you look at it. Self-control is freedom.