Strategic Willpower: How to Keep Going When Life Gets Hard

Use your willpower to become consistent

Sometimes life is so draining that you feel too tired to make a decision. We say things like:

• “I want to work out but I can’t get up from the couch after dinner!”
• “I don’t find my work fulfilling but I can’t quit!”

It requires willpower to do anything, whether that’s eating healthy, working out, being a supportive partner, or starting a business.

I look at the concept of willpower as mental energy. Whenever you want to do something, you need to dedicate energy to that. Whether you can follow through on your intention or not depends on willpower.

In my experience, you can set your life up in a way so you can maximize willpower/mental energy. But before we get into that, let’s look at the science.

One of the most popular studies done on willpower is the marshmallow experiment in the 1970s. In the study, Stanford University researchers left a marshmallow to a child, with the condition that the child who doesn’t eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes gets another marshmallow.

It’s a test to determine the child’s willpower for delayed self-gratification.