How to Strengthen Your Willpower

Willpower is crucial for accomplishing difficult tasks. If you aim to lose weight, quit smoking, or reach a career goal, willpower is a key factor in determining success. Set personal goals, pursue them, and modify your lifestyle to enhance your flexibility.

Break a task into smaller, manageable parts. When faced with an overwhelming task, success can seem more difficult to achieve. It's hard to maintain willpower if you feel like you're setting unattainably high standards for yourself. To strengthen your willpower, break a challenging task into smaller, manageable steps.

• In the memoir Bird By Bird, author Anne Lamott recounts her brother working on a school report about categorizing various bird species. The looming deadline made her brother feel overwhelmed. Their father came to his side, placed a hand on his shoulder, and said: "One bird at a time. You just need to categorize them one by one." This reflects how a large task can be broken into smaller, controllable sections.
• If you're feeling overwhelmed, try breaking a big task into smaller, more manageable ones. If you have a 20-page assignment, promise yourself to write 2 pages per day until the deadline. If you want to lose 18 kg, aim to lose kg per month. If you want to run 8 km, use apps like "Couch to 5K" to gradually build your speed and strength over time. Breaking a large task into smaller pieces makes it feel more achievable.

Set realistic deadlines. If you're looking to strengthen your willpower, it's important to create deadlines for yourself. No one can operate effectively without a schedule. Set a deadline that is achievable and stick to it.

• For example, if you want to exercise five days a week but currently don't work out at all, you'll burn out in a week by aiming too high. Instead, create a schedule. Commit to working out twice a week for the first week, then gradually increase it to three, four, and eventually five days a week.
• Track your success. Invest in a large calendar that you can stick on your fridge or wall. Write a note on the calendar for each day you succeed. For instance, on October 3rd, write something like, "Ran 5 km today." Seeing tangible success can inspire pride and motivate you to keep going.

Create a plan. A helpful technique to test your willpower is using the "implementation intention," or the "if-then" strategy, to plan for situations where you might face temptation.

• For example, if you're trying to quit eating sweets but know there will be cake at an upcoming birthday party, plan ahead. Tell yourself: "If someone offers me a slice of cake, I will choose to eat some of the fruit salad I brought instead."
• Having a plan in place reduces the pressure on your willpower because you've already made a decision and don’t have to struggle with the urge to eat something sweet in the moment. This can be especially effective, even if your self-control is already weakened.

Take full responsibility. A crucial step in strengthening your overall willpower is to accept personal responsibility. Own both your successes and failures as you work towards your goals.

• It helps to clearly articulate or write about your actions. Identify what you've done, why you did it, and how it made you feel. For example, "I was feeling stressed about finishing my essay, so I decided to distract myself by watching TV. I will work on better managing my stress so I can finish the work instead of feeling lazy and unproductive." On the flip side, it could be something like, "Today I wrote 2 pages of my essay because I wanted to stay on track, and this made me feel positive and accomplished."
• Holding yourself accountable requires absolute honesty. It also strengthens your ability to resist impulsive urges and encourages a mindset of "safety through caution" and responsibility, as you stop blaming external factors for your circumstances. This boosts your willpower because you recognize that change comes through your own efforts.

Manage negative thoughts. Negative thoughts will inevitably arise in life. You may face failures that make you think you'll never change or hear an inner voice that tells you that you're destined to fail. If you're trying to boost your willpower, negativity won’t help, as it leaves you feeling defeated and discouraged. While it's impossible to completely eliminate negative thoughts, you can change how you respond to them.

• Note down your negative thoughts. Keeping a daily journal can be incredibly beneficial, and one thing you can do is write about any negative thoughts that come up throughout the day. Soon, you’ll be able to spot patterns in these negative messages and start identifying their roots.
• When you catch a negative thought, such as "I can't achieve my goal," ask yourself if that is really true. Do this by looking at objective evidence, rather than just the negative voice inside your head. You can create two columns in your journal: one for "evidence supporting" a belief and the other for "evidence against" it. In the "Supporting" column, you might write, "I tried for a month to stop eating sweets but couldn't do it. I feel like I'm not strong enough to change my habits." In the "Against" column, you could write, "When I set smaller, achievable goals, I was able to accomplish them. When I worked consistently day by day or week by week, I achieved significant success. I have previously succeeded in completing my studies, getting a promotion, and quitting smoking. Maybe I didn’t succeed in quitting sugar entirely, but I can try again using a different approach."
• For deeper insight into negative thinking and how to manage it, read more on strategies for dealing with negative thoughts.

Being authentic means knowing your limits and setting realistic goals. For example, if you're trying to quit smoking, it may be ideal to stop completely within a week, but that might not be the case for you—perhaps you've been smoking for years and still enjoy it. Rather than pursuing the perfect scenario where someone can easily break free from an addiction, you may need to gradually ease away from it. In doing so, you're being true to yourself while setting achievable goals that align with your understanding of who you are.

Focusing on the tasks at hand and holding yourself accountable is important, but equally essential is learning to reward yourself for positive actions. Be kind to yourself regularly to build the willpower needed to keep going.

• Establish a reward system for yourself. For instance, if you're trying to lose weight, promise yourself a new piece of clothing every week as a reward for sticking to your diet and exercise plan.
• Each person has a different reward system that works for them. Find something that motivates you and treat yourself frequently. Rewards along the way will help you stay committed to your long-term goals and enhance your willpower.

Building good habits is key. Stress is one of the main culprits that weaken willpower. When we overwork and become frustrated, we often give in to behaviors that we should resist. By developing positive personal habits, we are more likely to stay on track, even when stressed.

• Incorporate specific activities into your daily routine, such as physical exercise and learning. These can help counteract stress. When willpower-boosting actions become part of your daily life, like brushing your teeth at night, you will be less likely to avoid them when stressed.
• People with good habits are less affected by stress. Regular exercise, healthy eating, and a consistent sleep schedule can help lessen the impact of life's stresses.

Procrastination can destroy willpower. Avoiding tasks that we consider burdensome often leads to never getting them done. To enhance your willpower, avoid procrastination.

• Procrastination often stems from perfectionism. People tend to abandon tasks when they feel pressured to do them perfectly. Understand that putting off tasks doesn't reduce stress; it often makes it worse. It's better to take action despite limitations than to dwell on what needs to be done.

Keeping a journal can strengthen your willpower by allowing you to track your progress over time. Failures seem less discouraging when compared to your achievements. For example, if you gained 2 kg during the holiday, review your journal from when you first started your weight-loss plan to remind yourself how much progress you've made.

No one can do everything on their own. If you want to boost your willpower, seek support from others.

• For certain tasks, like quitting alcohol or smoking, joining a support group at a hospital or community center can be helpful.
• Talk to your friends and family about your goals. Ask them to support and help you throughout the process. For instance, if you're trying to drink less, request that your family refrain from drinking in front of you.

• Don't be afraid to restart something worthwhile if you've experienced a setback or failure. Just like Rome wasn't built in a day, everything takes time, so give yourself permission to take a break when needed.