Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: That’s What Will Power is Made Of




So my darlings, it turns out that my instincts about will power were spot-on.

I wrote that will power is a precious, fleeting and unsustainable resource. (I also wrote ‘eff will power’ but that is entirely beside my current point.)

Turns out…it is! My folk wisdom (ahem) has been validated by new (to me) research.

According to Roy F. Baumeister, PhD (and summarized handily by Kelly McGonigal),

  • will power is NOT a personality trait that you either have or sadly lack;
  • will power is a physiological ‘mind-body’ response to challenge that is much like your fight or fight instincts (visceral and temporary); and
  • will power is limited and, like a vampire, drains your body’s physical energy resources.

In fact, will power literally tires you out. Exerting will power requires glucose – and lots of it – which triggers a drop in blood sugar, which in turn causes whole body fatigue.

What does all of this mean? It goes like this, dear reader:

First, dieters are hooped. Need to bolster your resolve not to eat sweets? Eat a sugary snack. Son of a biscuit, how unfair is that?

Second, when trying to accomplish your goals, it helps to get your diet right. Dips in blood sugar sap your ability to summon will power. Complex carbs, protein, lots of small meals keep your blood sugar stable so that when you need a hit of will power, your glucose resources are ready and willing.

Third, conserve your will power resources. Set up your life so that you do not need to muscle through it – that way when you really need it, you can tap into it and the sweet syrup of will power will flow.

Fourth, and most importantly, I was right! I was right ! I was right!

Told you so.

April 23, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Purpose, Will Power Series

3 people have we need you too.

Eff Will Power




In my last post on will power, I suggested – nay, shouted to the heavens – that will power is not a necessary ingredient in the recipe for success.

Will power is a casual boyfriend – fun when he’s around but temporary, fickle, and mercilessly short-term. Trying to build your longterm plans on this kind of foundation is a bad, bad, BAD idea. (We can talk about dating in another post, my darlings.)

However you can harness the energy of will power, when it deigns to pay you a visit, and use that energy to set up systems that will serve your purpose and help you achieve your goals. Automate will power, if you will.

Steve Pavlina (he’s the male, online Oprah of personal development) writes much the same thing in his blog, Personal Development for Smart People:

“Don’t try to tackle your problems and challenges in such a way that a high level of willpower is required every day. Willpower is unsustainable. If you attempt to use it for too long, you’ll burn out. It requires a level of energy that you can maintain only for a short period of time… in most cases the fuel is spent within a matter of days.”

He uses losing weight as his example (I now worship you, Steve Pavlina). When will power pays you a visit and sings his siren song of potential achievement, use that moment of motivation to make a plan, and execute. Now. Right now. I said NOW, soldier.
This is what Steve Pavlina says, and he says it so perfectly that I’m just going to quote directly:

“So you sit down and make a plan. This doesn’t require much energy, and you can spread the work out over many days…

Then you execute — hard and fast. You can probably implement the whole plan in one day. Attend your first Weight Watchers meeting and get all the materials. Purge the unhealthy food from the kitchen. Buy the new groceries, the new cookbook, and the new scale. Post the weight chart and the sample meals list. Select recipes and cook a batch of food for the week. Whew!

By the end of the day, you’ve used your willpower not to diet directly but to establish the conditions that will make your diet easier to follow.”

Yes! Yes! YES! (I’m channeling Meg Ryan here.) Use will power to set up a self-perpetuating, sustainable lifestyle ecosystem. You’ll grow into your goals organically, because you’ve designed your environment for success.

Think about it this way. If, like me, you’re carrying around a whole whack of extra weight, it is because you designed your life to make you fat. Not consciously, maybe, but we’re not talking about intentions, we’re talking about results. If you habitually eat fast food, processed food, think potato chips are a main course and that walking is for people who cannot afford cars, then yes, darling, you’ve designed your environment so that you will be fat.

You don’t require will power to be fat, do you? H-E-double-hockey-sticks to the no. You just engineered your life so that on a daily basis you have no choice but to be overweight. (Hellooooo North America!)

You don’t need will power to achieve your goals. Will power is useful to fuel your initial plan, but ultimately it exhausts itself quickly. Instead of relying on fuel that is only temporarily available, build yourself a self-fueling system of daily habits that will move you towards your goals automatically.

I know, I know – this is not a sexy prescription. But think of it like software: good software, the kind you like to use, just works. No bells, no whistles, no drama, no random error messages (Yo! Bill!). It is just a boring system that does what you want, when you want, and helps you produce what you choose.

Eff will power. Design your life. Build a boring system that works.

____________

The Will Power Series:

How to Make Will Power Last

Eff Will Power

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: That’s What Will Power is Made Of

April 19, 2009 | filed under: Purpose, Will Power Series

4 people have we need you too.

How to Make Will Power Last




Who knows how to make love stay
Help before it gets away
That’s the question of the day
Who knows how to make love stay…

- Doug and the Slugs, “Who Knows How to Make Love Stay” from Music for the Hard of Hearing, 1983

In 1983, a dignified gentleman by the name of Doug, who consorted with slugs, lyrically pondered one of life’s grand questions: how do we make love stay?

I think the answer to this question parallels the answer to my big question of the day/week/month/lifetime: how do we make will power last?

Ah will power, my frenemy.  You get me all excited and hopped up on plans and potential and then desert me me when I am faced with dessert.

The way we think about will power sets us up for failure.  We wonder how to make will power last because we think that will power will help us achieve our goals.  Will power is not an end, but a means to an end.

We think that the answer to a problem that requires personal discipline to solve (weight loss, smoking, overspending) is to simply muster up our will power and muscle through it.  Then, when our weak, underdeveloped will power muscle fails to lift the elephant in the room, or wanders off into the bushes to pee long before the race is over, we feel like failures.  We blame ourselves.  We blame will power.  We blame our mothers.  And none of those things are at fault (well, except maybe your mother.  I’m so sorry).

Yet will power is compelling.  We’ve all had those moments when we are absolutely lit from within, on fire for a project, passion, or cause.  There is magic and force in that moment when desire, motivation and action collide.

Will power is a lightning flash.  It is fleeting.  Temporary.  Evanescent.  Damn it.

Now, cursing aside, let’s not bemoan the fleeting nature of will power, but simply accept it and embrace it.  If humans can turn rushing water into electricity, you and I can transform the momentary thunder and clash of will power into a sustainable source of productive action.

Embrace the energy of will power and launch yourself into a flurry of action.

Make your action plan, make a list of all the resources and tools you need to execute the plan, and gather each and every one of them.  Now.  While you’re still motivated.

Make a list of the risks to your plan and figure out how to contain each and every one of them.

Failure-proof your environment.  If you want to write a novel but TV owns your ass, haul it out to the curb.  Call the cable company, wait your requisite fourteen minutes on hold, and cancel all the channels you like.  When you’re in the grip of will power, it does not hurt as much (kind of like sex and pain, but that’s another post) and by the time you will power wanes, your TV will be bathing your neighbour’s basement in blue light.  (Do not stand outside the window and weep.  That is just bad form.)

On the upside, you won’t whine about your lack of will power anymore.  If anything, you’ll be kvetching that you have too much will power and that it makes you take radical, transformative action.  Crap.

In essence, use will power as the inspiration to build a little lifestyle machine that will keep functioning long after will power has gone for a nap.  Be mercenary.  Use will power when it presents itself but do not depend on it to fuel your success.  You don’t need will power.  You just need a boring system that works whether you are inspired to tend it or not.

So, back to Doug and his 1983 question, “who knows how to make love stay”?

We all do.

If we want something in our lives, we create the environmental conditions necessary to sustain it.  Sunflowers need sun.  Children need love.  Weight loss needs a padlocked fridge, a food diary, a publicly embarassing blog and a passle of distractions.  Success does not require will power, it needs boring systems of small habits performed every day.  Love needs happy people.

And dear reader, if all of that fails, novelist Tom Robbins knows how to make love stay:

Tell love you are going to the Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half.  It will stay.

It might work for will power too.  And if you have cheesecake, do not call me.  We all know I don’t have the will power to say no.

_________________

This post was the first of a series on will power. Here are the two that followed:

Eff Will Power

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: That’s What Will Power is Made Of

| filed under: How To, Purpose, Will Power Series

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