What Exactly is Willpower and How Can It Be Harnessed?

Inevitably, I will miss goals and deadlines during the week because I gave in to distractions or temptations or failed to do what I was supposed to do. In my head, this comes off as a weakness and a personal failure. Having ADHD can make it difficult to start, organize, and sustain effort on tasks or projects. This can impact my motivation levels and lead to negative reactions and internal recriminations.

I would like to order some willpower from Amazon and download it into my brain. But since it does not seem available, I grabbed The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. I can easily see how this became such a popular class at Stanford, especially since the author is the professor. Do yourself a favor and add it to your list of must-read books.

This book is based on Stanford University psychologist and educator Kelly McGonigal’s popular course, “The Science of Willpower.” The book mirrors her 10-week course, with each chapter combining life-changing advice and complementary exercises to help readers achieve goals ranging from losing weight to more patient parenting, less procrastination, better health, and greater productivity at work.

Willpower is the ability to exercise self-control when you need it. To improve your self-control, you must understand why you lose control and what you can do about it. McGonigal recommends that you approach the ideas like a scientist. Choose a willpower challenge you’ve been trying to overcome and try out some of the strategies discussed in the book. Collect data and determine what works (or doesn’t work) for you.

Willpower is more than the ability to say “no” to temptation. It is comprised of three powers to help you become better:

• “I will” power: Doing things that improve your quality of life.
• “I won’t” power: Not doing things that impair your happiness, well-being, or success.
• “I want” power: Focusing on your most important long-term goal.

In short, self-control is about finding your motivation at the right time. It’s about remembering what you genuinely want so you can do what you should and resist what you shouldn’t. All of us have the capacity for self-control, but how much you use it determines your physical health, financial stability, academic and professional success, quality of relationships, and levels of stress and happiness.

Willpower Is Affected By Your Brain

The prefrontal cortex in our brain controls logical thinking and what we focus on. It has three different regions:

• The left side helps you to start and persist in tasks (“I will”).
• The right side helps you to resist acting on every impulse (“I won’t”).
• The lower-middle area helps you to track your goals and desires (“I want”).

The more primal part of our brain acts on urges and instincts. These impulses evolved to help us survive. For example, we prefer sweet and fatty foods because they give us energy, and our feelings (e.g., fear or disgust) stop us from doing things to hurt or isolate ourselves. The prefrontal cortex is built on top of the primal brain.

In short, part of our brain seeks to feel good now, while another part manages the impulses so we can achieve long-term goals. The two minds are in a constant battle. You want a slim body, but you also want to enjoy a cookie. Kelly McGonigal states, “While we all can do the harder thing, we also have the desire to do exactly the opposite.”

When we’re fatigued, distracted, or drunk, the prefrontal cortex loses part of its capabilities, making it harder for us to exert self-control. We want to excel in our exams, but we end up watching Netflix instead.

To strengthen your willpower, you need to develop self-awareness. Understand your impulses and recognize when you must exercise self-control so you can activate your prefrontal cortex to make conscious choices instead of defaulting to the easiest option.

Willpower Is Affected By Your Body

Scientists have found that self-control is more about physiology than psychology. This means you can train yourself to achieve an ideal physiological state of self-control. Psychologist Suzanne Segerstrom found that self-control comes with an opposite physiological state from stress. She calls this the pause-and-plan response.

Pause-and-plan is about slowing down so your prefrontal cortex can calm your breathing/heart rate, relax your muscles, and redirect energy to the brain. This allows you to think clearly and calmly, refocus on your long-term goals, and explore options instead of acting impulsively.

Your heart rate variability is one of the best indicators of your stress or calmness. Under normal circumstances, your heart rate varies naturally; for example, it increases slightly when you inhale and decreases when you exhale. When you’re stressed, your heart rate goes up and stays up (i.e., variability decreases).

People with higher heart rate variability are more likely to delay gratification, resist distractions, persevere in the face of difficulty or failure, and cope with stressful situations. To exert self-control, first, calm your body, decrease your heart rate, and increase its variability.

Stress is the enemy of willpower. Anything that reduces stress also improves your willpower reserve. This includes exercise, adequate sleep, a sound diet, quality time with family/friends, and spiritual practices. Also, extensive research shows that exercise helps increase focus and self-control in all aspects of life. Participants in a study had less cravings after just 15 minutes on the treadmill. In the long-term, exercise also increases baseline heart rate variability and the growth of gray/white matter in the brain to make your brain bigger and faster. As the author stated, “Exercise turns out to be the closest thing to a wonder drug that self-control scientists have discovered.”

Sleep deprivation makes you more vulnerable to stress and temptations. When you’re tired, your cells can’t absorb glucose as effectively and become under-fueled. A lack of sleep (<6 hours a night) impairs your prefrontal cortex to reduce focus and self-control. Prolonged lack of sleep also increases stress hormones and decreases heart rate variability.

“To preserve your health and happiness…you must choose your willpower battles wisely.” In other words, Don’t try to control everything, or you’ll run out of energy/focus and feel chronically stressed.

Willpower Works Like Muscles

Our willpower follows the same use-it-or-lose-it rule as physical muscles. It becomes weak with neglect and can get exhausted from nonstop use, but it can also be strengthened with proper training. Learn to pace yourself: alternate between pushing your limits and recovery. Once you exhaust your limited willpower reserves, you become more susceptible to temptations and bad decisions.

Our self-control is the highest in the morning and gradually depletes throughout the day with every conscious choice and activity we undertake. Aim to:

• Start the day with the most complicated or most crucial challenge;
• Periodically replenish your willpower reserves and
• Build your overall willpower capacity.

Self-control requires energy. When the brain detects a drop in blood sugar, it stores energy, leaving less mental resources for self-control. Maintain your blood sugar level with a low-glycemic diet (e.g., lean proteins, nuts/beans, high-fiber grains/cereals, fruits, and vegetables).

Find your most significant want and use it as a source of motivation whenever you need a willpower boost. “We cannot control everything, yet the only way to increase our self-control is to stretch our limits.” Athletes routinely push past the initial fatigue to perform closer to their physical limits. Likewise, our brain conserves mental energy before our willpower reserves are indeed depleted. You can transcend your initial mental exhaustion with the right motivation.

In summary, willpower is a mind-body response, not a virtue. It is a biological function that can be improved through mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and sleep. Willpower is not an unlimited resource; temptation and stress can hijack the brain’s self-control systems. But the brain can be trained to have more incredible willpower. Everyone has willpower, and how far you use it determines your level of success, relationship quality, health, and well-being.

I read the book the first time without putting anything into practice, and while it was interesting, I got much more out of it when I did the exercises. The learning was more impactful when I took a chapter at a time, and it was less stressful to make small changes versus all at once. Your results can be impactful as you add to habits over time.

The Center for Living Well with ADHD has many opportunities to support you, such as individual coaching, free body doubling, group coaching, and workshops for people of all ages and topics. Feel free to schedule a complimentary get-acquainted session with me or any of our coaches to learn more about how ADHD coaching and our services could help you.