Willpower Depletion - Is Your Willpower Falling As We Go Throughout Life?

Strengthen Your Willpower, you say. Well, I agree that will strength is necessary to succeed, but I also believe that it can be strengthened. I say strengthen it because I know it can be done. I have used many methods to strengthen my willpower. Here are a few of them. They have been very effective.


Habits - One habit to strengthen your willpower is to stay away from the things that cause you temptations. Do you smoke, eat too much, drink too much? Stay away from these things! Doing so reduces your tendency to give in to temptation. And when you give in, do it less often and eventually you'll find yourself not giving in as often.

Self-Regulatory - You can strengthen your willpower with self-regulatory habits. What are these? Well, they are anything that you do to strengthen your self-discipline or self-regulatory habits. For example, if you smoke, quit.

Self-Control - This is important because it improves self-control. And in turn this gives you more willpower. So roy Baumeister says that one of the best ways to improve your self-control is to meditate, focus on the breathing and visualize. Focus your mind on the process and the end result and then let go of your thoughts.

Commitment - This is actually related to self-control. The better you commit yourself to something, the more likely you will remain committed. This means that the more you focus on doing the right thing and getting it right the more likely you are to resist the temptation to do things that lead to a loss of willpower. As research shows, focusing on one thing for an extended period of time has a profound effect on one's ability to resist temptation.

Consistency - This is probably the hardest part of all. It takes effort on your part every time you resist the temptation and then you must be consistent. There is no such thing as giving in to something else every time; you must resist the temptation and resist it every single time. No matter what you focus your mind on, you have to keep resisting it because something else might happen and it is better to not give in than to give in to something else every time.

Compulsion - This is the best way to resist temptation. It involves very strong will power but in fact, it is not that difficult. The first step is to find something that is very tempting and distract yourself from that by doing something else. After that, continue with the distraction until you have given up and then you can get back to focusing on your willpower again.

Consistency and motivation are the best ways to strengthen your willpower. Do not underestimate the power of these techniques because even something as simple as habit can be broken. The first step is to make a list of your bad habits, then do your best to eliminate them. Then you have to monitor how much you are thinking about those bad habits and if you stick at them, change them. Finally, change them so that you have no more habits that hinder your progress toward success. This might take some time because you need to change as many things as possible, but it is definitely worth it.

One study by University of Cincinnati psychologists showed that people who lack self-control eat more than those with higher self-control. A follow up study by the University of Iowa College of Medicine found that a diet high in sugar (which leads to obesity) also leads to increased temptations. The study also showed that obesity causes increases in stress hormones, which weakens willpower. Using these studies to strengthen your willpower to avoid food temptations is definitely a good idea.

You might think that you need to give up cookies, candies and other foods that cause you cravings but one study says that it is actually possible to resist those temptations by mentally making it acceptable. That means that if you feel hungry you mentally tell yourself that you will eat a chocolate bar. When you do this, you will find that your willpower has strengthened. There is another study that shows that if you eat the same amount of calories without thinking about it for one hour, then after one hour you will have physically craved for the calories. If you mentally accept that you have a mental desire for a sugary snack then your body will probably fight against that craving.

This mental acceptance can lead to an increase in your self-control and an increase in your will power. Using the above techniques to combat temptation is undoubtedly a good way to prevent willpower depletion. It takes work to make sure that you are not so easily influenced by others and you should make efforts to avoid negative people and situations. Taking a good look at yourself and your relationship with self-control is the first step to defeating temptation.