As we come to the end of January, I’ve heard from several people that their willpower and focus on those New Year’s Resolutions are waning. Well, this should certainly come as no surprise. For many of us, this is the pattern of each year; we make some new vow to improve our life, only to find that by the end of the year, we were largely unsuccessful. So, why is this?
Well, it has a lot to do with willpower. Understanding a few keys things about how our willpower works could help you on your way to actually achieving your goals. So, for those of you who watched my webinar or participated in my courses a few weeks ago on how to set your goals, let me first say a huge THANK YOU!!! Now that you’ve got those goals set, here’s a little more help in making them stick.
WILLPOWER IS NOT A LIMITLESS RESOURCE
It’s important that you understand that willpower is something that can run thin. Most of us are aware of this, but we act as if we just want it bad enough, (whatever IT is), we can simply will ourselves to do it. This is simply not true. While it is absolutely imperative that you get some real, solid clarity on your goals, this will not be enough to feed your willpower infinitely. So, what do we do with finite resources? We’re very careful with where and how we spend them! You need to be careful that you’re using your willpower when and where it counts the most. For example, if I want to save $20 a week, but I know I need to change my lunchtime routine to do it, then it would be wise to spend my Sunday afternoon meal-prepping my lunches for the week. That way, the lunches are there, ready-to-go, and I don’t have to expend any extra willpower to avoid eating out. I can reserve that willpower for another, perhaps more daunting activity. Just as with any scarce resource, we should be as proactive as possible to store up our willpower to utilize when it’s most needed. Do not be tricked into thinking that you’ll have enough to see your resolution through, especially if you have multiple or difficult resolutions. Also, be sure to practice building your willpower tolerance through being faithful in the small things. This is a principle that we see throughout scripture, nature, the business world, ALL AROUND US! If you can build a resolve to be trustworthy and accomplish the little things, you will be given and trusted with weightier matters.
WILLPOWER CAN GIVE WAY TO AUTOMATICITY
We’ve often heard it said that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit, but new research shows that it may take closer to 66 days for our brains to rewire and develop new neural pathways. This means that you may need to keep up your willpower for a little over 2 months rather than the 3 weeks that most of us have been told! But…there’s some good news with this as well. Once you’ve used your willpower to keep up this habit for the 66 days, the habit becomes, for lack of a better term, installed on your brain’s permanent hard drive, and you begin to perform the task automatically. Automaticity is the term psychologists use to describe the installed habits that our brains essentially perform on autopilot once our neurological system adopts them as a habit. Once this happens automatically, you’ve truly developed a new habit; and our habits and happiness are inextricably linked. Our daily behaviors, these habits, reflect our core values and beliefs. That is why it’s so important to understand that it’s not the things that we do once in a while, but the things that we do consistently that truly impact our lives.
WILLPOWER FEEDS OFF POSITIVITY
Often, our willpower is more rapidly depleted when we realize we’re not getting where we want to go as quickly as we had hoped. There’s a two-fold method that I use to stave off the negativity that comes with feeling unaccomplished. First, and I simply cannot emphasize this enough, practicing gratitude is absolutely a must. Most of the time, even when we’re trying to implement new habits or resolutions to improve our lives, our lives are already better than a multitude of others’. For us to have the emotional fortitude to harbor the energy needed for developing new habits, we must take time to recognize the blessings that surround us daily. In addition to celebrating our daily blessings, it is also important that we celebrate even the small successes. Have some type of reward set in place on the first day you succeed. Then, put something in place to celebrate when you’ve achieved a week’s worth of success. Plan something, something to look forward to when you’ve hit that 66 day mark, or when you’ve reach the goal that you set out to achieve. Celebrating these blessings and successes are HUGELY important to creating what Robin Sharma calls a “pharmacy of mastery”. We get our hormones and neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, (responsible for our happy feelings and feelings of inspiration), from celebrating, as well as reducing cortisol, which is associated with stress and feelings of fear. For many of us, negative feelings are the default setting of our mind, so along with rewiring for these new habits, we must rewire our minds to recognize the good that we are perpetually surrounded by OR we risk depleting our willpower; and without that willpower, we find ourselves stuck in the same situations day after day, year after year. We actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy of the negative things we convince ourselves are our reality. We work against our desire to achieve our goals. We use up our limited willpower just to get through another day.
By being more mindful of where you use your willpower, focusing on using it for the 66 days until your brain can switch to autopilot, and celebrating the joys and successes along the way, you are going to be much more prepared to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.
If you are still struggling to develop some clearly defined goals, please feel free to reach out to me through this link! And no matter where you are in your goal-setting path, definitely begin to work on better building and utilizing your willpower to achieve your goals!!! And when I say reach out, I really hope that you’ll consider that seriously. Many of us spend longer than we need to on our achievements because we try to reach our goals on our own. We could really collapse that timeline if we would only use the gifts of those around us to help us achieve what we hope to achieve and become who we want to become.
Peace and Blessings,
Mindi
Comments