How to acquire unshakable willpower

Did you know willpower is it a mental muscle that can be trained? Those who train their willpower are more likely to lead happy and successful lives.

Dr. Roy Baumeister, an eminent researcher in social psychology, distills three decades of academic research into self-control and willpower. This prestigious social psychologist openly identifies willpower as "The key to success and a happy life."

In the 60s, a sociologist named Walter Mischel was interested in how children resist instant gratification. Made the famous marshmallow experiment which consisted of offering the children a marshmallow right then or two if they could wait 15 minutes. Years later, he located some of the children who participated in the experiment and made a surprising discovery.

What he found was that, even taking into account differences in intelligence, race, and social class, those who resisted the urge to eat the marshmallow immediately in favor of eating two marshmallows 15 minutes later were healthier, happier, and financially richer adults.

In contrast, children who succumbed to temptation had higher rates of school failure. They became adults with low-paying jobs, had more overweight problems, problems with drugs or alcohol, and had more difficulty maintaining stable relationships (many were single parents). They were also nearly four times more likely to have a criminal conviction.

Mischel's findings were confirmed by a study conducted in New Zealand.

Bausmister argues that willpower is one of the aspects that differentiates us from animals. The ability to contain our urges, resist temptation, do what is right and good for us in the long run is what makes a person have a fulfilling life.

How can we improve our willpower?

Like a muscle you can train your willpower. With small acts of your day to day you can strengthen your willpower, examples: maintain a good posture, speak using complete sentences, ... As you can see they are simple exercises that are part of our daily life. To better remember your assigned task (for example, you have decided not to speak ill of anyone all day), you can sit or stand up whenever you do not remember. According to Baumister, this type of reinforcement helps maintain attention.

Another good advice that Baumister gives us to strengthen the willpower is that don't try to do too many things at once. Establish good habits and routines that don't strain your willpower. Learn how to make an effective to-do list.

Don't expose yourself to temptation And if he can't help it, make it harder for you to succumb to it.

This similarity of willpower to a muscle means that there may be signs of exhaustion. Faced with this type of signs of fatigue, a very effective measure can be adopted that consists of take more glucose. In order for there to be good glucose levels in your body, you must sleep and eat well.

Baumister cites an "impressive demonstration" of the glucose argument: a study showed that Israeli judges who had to make a difficult and sensitive decision about whether or not to grant parole to a certain prisoner, they chose to make the decision (in 65% of the cases) after lunch.

Source

Has this article helped you? Why do you want to strengthen your willpower?