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You see that piece of cake in the refrigerator and you want it so badly. But, you are on a diet and shouldn’t have it. But you want it. Maybe just a bite? One bite turns into two and the next thing you know, the piece of cake is gone.
While eating the cake, you feel great. But afterwards, you feel guilty. Youmake your brain think more and work are on a diet after all. How do you increase willpower so that you don’t give in to your urges?
Many people want to increase willpower but just don’t know how to go about doing so. In this post I am going to give you 6 ways increase willpower. By working these techniques into your daily routine, you will find that you can easily increase willpower and stay on track for meeting your goals.
How To Increase Willpower
Start Your Day Off With Success
Whatever your goal is, make it a point to start your day off by achieving some success. Let’s say your goal is to lose weight. When you wake up in the morning, make it a habit to do 10 jumping jacks or pushups and then have a healthy breakfast. These might seem insignificant, but tiny habits are your key to success.
Additionally, by starting your day off with a positive attitude and mindset, you are more likely to focus on the positives throughout the day and make smarter choices as well. In fact, this is one of the lessons I teach in my course, 30 Days To Positive Thinking.
Strengthen Your Mind
We all have our set habits. Doing these are great because they are easy for us, but they don’t allow us to strengthen our mind. When we perform habits, our minds take a nap because it doesn’t have to think. To increase willpower, we need to keep our mind alert and thinking in new ways.
To do this, find simple habits that you do and do them differently. Always brush your teeth with your left hand? Do it with your right for a few days. Find a different way to get to work. Learn a few new exercises. Whatever you can do to make your brain think more and work, the stronger it will become. When your brain is stronger, you will increase willpower in the process.
Avoid Not Resist
When that piece of cake is in the refrigerator, you have to resist the temptation of eating it. When it isn’t there, you avoid the temptation altogether. Make it a point to avoid temptation rather than resist it.
When there are potato chips and fatty foods in the house, I eat them. I can’t resist. I know this about myself. So I make it a point to not buy them in the first place. When we celebrate a sibling’s birthday, I refuse to bring home any leftover cake. This makes eating healthier easy for me. I have no temptation in the house.
Figure out how you are tempted and then find a way to avoid that temptation at all costs.
Face Tough Tasks In The Morning
Our willpower is strongest in the morning when we are fresh. As the day progress, we get beat down with work and stress. This makes us more vulnerable to giving into temptation. If you know you have a challenge to face later in the day, find ways to face it earlier.
If you know you will be staying late at work and won’t feel like cooking dinner, try to cook a meal ahead of time so that you can just reheat it. Or, pack some extra snacks to munch on throughout the day so that you aren’t starving when you head home.
Use Outside Help
With technology, you can use outside help to increase willpower. There are many apps and programs that you can get for free that will help you stay focused on a task at hand. If you find Facebook or Twitter tempting, there are apps that will block them for you so that you can’t be sucked into them.
Additionally, there is a program that can track what websites you visit and how long you are on those sites. It then displays the information for you in graphs and charts. This is great because it will open your eyes to just how much time you are wasting or how/when you give into temptation. The more you can learn about and understand yourself, the stronger you become and the more you increase willpower.
Accept Failure
No matter what you do to increase willpower, you are still going to fail at times. It’s part of being human. But don’t beat yourself up over it. Accept the failure and understand why you failed in the first place. Was it because you tried to resist instead of avoid? Maybe you just had a stressful day and couldn’t take it anymore. Whatever the reason, accept that failing is OK and then learn from the mistake and grow. As long as you can do this, you will be making yourself a better person because you are growing and learning. This will help you increase willpower as well. You won’t fall victim to the cause as long as you learn from the mistake.
Final Thoughts
If you use these steps to increase willpower, I am sure you will become a stronger person. As I just mentioned, you are going to fail. Many people never accept this failure and give up because of it. Don’t be like that. Everyone fails. You have to accept it and learn from it. When you are able to do this, you can make yourself a stronger person that can push through more obstacles more easily.
Jon Dulin is the passionate leader of Unfinished Success, a personal development website that inspires people to take control of their own lives and reach their full potential. His commitment to helping others achieve greatness shines through in everything he does. He’s an unstoppable force with lots of wisdom, creativity, and enthusiasm – all focused on helping others build a better future. Jon enjoys writing articles about productivity, goal setting, self-development, and mindset. He also uses quotes and affirmations to help motivate and inspire himself. You can learn more about him on his About page.
Great post Don. I especially agree with “Avoid, not resist”. It’s a lot easier to erase old habits when you make it so you can’t do them to begin with!
I agree. I’ve found that avoiding is the best option for me.