Will Power is So Overrated !

Willpower is overrated. It might help you to gut out the last five miles of the Boston Marathon, but it won’t take you from the couch to actually qualifying for next year’s Marathon in the first place.

We romanticize grit and stick-to-it determination as being hallmarks of strong character and gloss over the fact that we’re social creatures and that willpower often requires us to isolate ourselves from people or situations we fear might be a challenge to it in order to toil in a vacuum.

Better that we should focus on accountability – both to ourselves and our values and to others who are depending on us. Whether it be the buddy system to get in your training runs or volunteering at your grandmother’s nursing home or a group project for one of your marketing classes, we are less likely to slack off when we know that doing so would publicly let others down and not simply disappoint ourselves.

This is part of the logic behind the Virtual Brain Trust and part of the impetus that recently allowed me to bang out 24 consecutive think pieces on the Gen Y experience in modern America for Bitch Magazine*. Believe me, willpower and divine inspiration had nothing to do with those columns.