Willpower usage

I often find myself speaking with a determined tone, saying things like, “I will/won’t do that.” However, I’ve noticed this approach often doesn’t hold and the situation remains unchanged. To overcome this challenge, I’ve found it helpful to add a time period to my inner decision-making (e.g., “I will/won’t do that today“). Somehow this reduces the amount of willpower needed and makes it easier to maintain the decision. Over time, performing this inner decision making using willpower can lead to the formation of a habit, which is beneficial as habits are powerful.

Good advice is also to make a plan on how to achieve the required goal. This plan will guide behavior in the needed direction, leading to good habits without less willpower usage.

Approach I’ve found even better is to stop when I realize I’m making an inner decision, which is just a thought. I let that thought to go and instead change my focus on what needs to be done to achieve the goal I’m contemplating. This shifts the mind directly to a worker role where it performs best. The mind can then solve the given problem without needing to dominate or guard a particular decision thought (willpower), which isn’t actually necessary at all, because what truly matters at this point is action. So no willpower needed in this approach!