Here’s How To Get More Willpower

In this audio track, I dive into the main things that allow you to cultivate and nurture willpower in your life. Will-power is the ability to do what matters to you even when it is difficult, making this an extension of self-compassion and self-kindness.

Transcript

So some people come to me for consultations and they say,

Elizabeth,

I don't have any willpower.

I just have no willpower.

Maybe at some point I had willpower,

Now I just have no willpower.

Comment in the chat if you've ever felt that way.

If you're like,

Well,

At some point in my life I had willpower,

I had energy,

Now I just have no willpower,

I can't motivate myself,

I don't have discipline,

I need more willpower,

And I just don't know what to do about it.

And what I say to them is,

You're thinking about willpower wrong.

The mainstream way we think about willpower is scientifically inaccurate based on the latest research,

So it's not helpful.

The way we define willpower for ourselves and our mind,

That you can just get like that,

Yes,

You can get it,

But not in the ways we think.

So this is a video for you if you want more willpower.

Let's define it.

One definition of willpower is the ability to do what matters,

Even when it's difficult.

In this sense,

Willpower is an extension of self-kindness.

Doing the things you really wanna do,

Even when they are hard,

That's an act of self-kindness.

Willpower is what gives you strength to act from your highest self instead of those automatic impulses.

Because what do the automatic impulses want?

They wanna be entertained and do nothing and be in comfy pajamas and not go out of the house and just eat that bag of chips and then the pizza and then order more food online and then eat that too,

Right?

That's not the kind of life you want.

Those are not the building blocks to make up for your happy,

Thriving life.

That's not even what you actually want deep down,

What you want deep down are your intentions for the fullest life you wanna live.

And that sometimes takes doing things that are hard.

What people don't always know is just how much willpower is a question of mindfulness and awareness.

This is why mindfulness actually trains willpower.

One practice I do,

And you can find many meditations like this on this channel,

Or you can reach out to me and I'll send them to you.

You can do a meditation where you just close your eyes and come back to the breath.

You feel the breath.

When the mind wanders,

You come back to the breath.

Every time you come back to the breath in this practice,

You're training willpower.

Think about it.

In this practice,

You have a higher intention.

The higher intention is I wanna stay with my breath.

In this kind of microcosm of your five,

10 minute meditation practice,

The intention is I wanna be with my breath.

The mind is basically a machine to produce thoughts.

It will always produce thoughts,

So the mind wanders.

Even the mind of like a Tibetan monk who's been meditating since age three,

That person's mind will also wander,

So will yours.

It's not because you're a bad meditator,

It's just the way the mind is made.

But then when you come back to the breath,

In that moment,

You're connecting to a higher intention.

You come back to the breath,

You come back to your higher intention.

What it trains in you is the ability to come back to any higher intention in anything you do,

Not just in the meditation.

The other thing that meditation does is helps your mind not be distracted.

When your mind is distracted,

When you're not fully aware,

It's your impulses,

Not your actual goals,

Not your heart that guides your choices.

And this is why the mind of a meditator becomes this finely tuned willpower machine,

Even when our minds are a machine that produce all these distracting thoughts.

What many people don't know is that a lot of your willpower comes from the state of your body at the moment.

People think of willpower as just mental,

But willpower is more physical than mental.

Your willpower is how many nutrients your body has right now.

Whether you eat nutrient-rich food,

That adds up to your willpower.

Your willpower is how much sleep you've received.

Put in the comments if when you're low on sleep,

Your willpower goes out the window.

That's true for me,

I think that is true for all of us.

You can't make yourself do anything and you'll just miss things.

So your willpower is how much sleep you've received.

Your willpower is also how stretched out or rigid your body is.

A more flexible body,

A more aligned body,

Higher willpower for you,

For your mind.

So these things are all part of willpower.

It's not just sheer mental force.

You can't have willpower without the body.

The more connected you are to the body,

The more connected you also are to what your genuine wishes are.

You're more connected to what you want willpower for.

And the more connected you are to your genuine wishes,

We all get inspiration from that,

And then the more willpower we have.

So that's like a wonderful non-vicious cycle in this case.

What people don't usually know about willpower and what we'll cover is that willpower comes out of self-compassion,

Not self-criticism.

Your self-compassion strengthens your willpower in a way that your criticism just depletes it.

And willpower comes from a place of rest.

It does not come from a place of fatigue or powering through or pain.

And willpower is about attaining fulfillment.

It's about a greater vision and fulfillment.

It's not about enforcement.

And as we said,

Willpower is physical,

Not intellectual.

It has more to do with the body than the mind.

So what is willpower?

One way to define willpower is the ability to do what matters most to you.

So willpower,

Think of it as a fuel that powers your intentional actions.

And we tend to think of just one fuel,

One big fuel,

One big willpower,

But in reality,

There are three different types of superpowers that we have.

There are three different processes and these three processes take place in different parts of the brain.

So look at this image up here.

This is from the Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal.

What we call willpower is actually I won't power,

I will power,

And I want power.

So there are three kinds of willpower.

I will,

I won't,

I won't.

Let's break those down so you can understand them.

I won't power is what we usually think of as a willpower,

But it's actually the weakest.

I won't power is the ability to resist temptation or break a habit.

So this occurs in the upper right side of the prefrontal cortex.

Maybe you see that extra dessert and you start to reach for it,

But then you decide not to do it.

That's your upper right side of the prefrontal cortex physically firing when you say no.

Or let's say you wanna check social media,

But you resist the urge and you choose to be present for your partner instead.

That's classic I won't power.

That upper right side of the prefrontal cortex is activated.

The thing that you need to know about I won't power is that it's really weak.

It's the weakest superpower you have.

It's much harder to decide not to do something than for example,

To decide to do something.

It's harder to say no than to say yes.

So that brings us smoothly right to I will power.

It's located in the upper left side of the prefrontal cortex,

And it helps you start and stick to and continue with the tasks that matter.

So I won't power is doing less of something.

I will power is doing more of something.

It's finishing that task.

It's like writing that video and producing it and posting it.

It's doing something beginning to end.

Or I will power is deciding to exercise when you just wanna stay in bed and your whole body is just screaming,

Keep me in my sweatpants in bed.

I'll wear exercise clothes,

But I will not wear it outside.

When you wear the exercise clothes outside and you exercise,

That's your I will power.

Remember that I will power is stronger.

So it's harder for you to say,

I won't go on social media than let me listen to my partner.

Let me stay present for my partner.

Or I will go do some stretching instead of I won't check social media.

So my life hack for you is if you wanna eat junk food,

For example,

Rather than telling yourself,

No,

I won't eat junk food,

It's bad for me,

Pick any activity to do instead.

Shift your attention to some other activity.

A good example of navigating I will power and I won't power is little children.

Comment if you've been interacting with little children and when they hear no,

They get really,

Really upset.

So like if a child has like a expensive crystal vase like a highly breakable,

Expensive crystal vase and they love it and they wanna play with it and you know they'll break it.

If you take it away,

They'll be frustrated or they'll cry.

They'll just be very,

Very unhappy.

But if you say,

Oh,

Let's look at the window.

Look at the birds in the window.

Look,

There's a baby bird in the window.

They won't even notice they're not playing with the vase anymore because they're saying yes to something else.

Our brains basically work like the brains of a two-year-old.

The brain is actually very,

Very linear.

So you can do something similar to yourself.

Don't say no to something,

Say yes to something else and you'll feel much more happy and your willpower will actually be much stronger.

And the last power is I want power.

That I want power is located right in the middle of the prefrontal cortex and it's very important in that it keeps track of your long-term goals.

So it's the part of the brain that remembers the bigger picture,

What you actually want and it makes decisions based on that.

The more rapidly your cells fire in the middle of the prefrontal cortex,

The more motivated you are to pursue your most important personal and professional goals.

So I want power is the most powerful.

Instead of thinking I can't eat junk food today,

Reframe it as I want power.

I want to live long enough to play with my great grandkids.

I wanna be healthy enough and have so much energy that I'll be playing soccer with my great grandkids.

That's I want power.

Very different from I won't eat that Hershey's kiss.

Say yes to the biggest thing possible.

Say instead of saying no,

I won't check social media,

Say I will practice my guitar because I wanna become a rock star.

Think of the biggest possible reason to do the thing you wanna do.

So this knowledge of the three willpowers,

It's something I hope you implement today.

You can implement it right away.

The language you use in your mind impacts the brain actually fires and that impacts what reserve of willpower you have.

So thoughts become physical and physiological.

Thoughts are not just mental.

The language you use is extremely important for your happiness because it's the difference between being able to motivate yourself to do something or not.

Thank you so much for listening.

May you use your willpower to make yourself truly deeply happy.

May you always keep the bigger picture in mind and may all your wishes come true.