Willpower is no power at all

(Less than 2-minute read time)

We often wish we could just change our behaviors with the flip of a switch.  

Honestly, sometimes that actually is possible.  

Think about medical diagnosis and sudden health habit changes.  

Someone learns they have diabetes and immediately stops eating sugar as they used to.  Someone learns they have cancer and stops smoking.   Someone learns they have heart disease and starts eating more vegetables and putting less salt on them. 

But, most often, habits are formed over time.  The bad ones we have are formed over time.  Recreating new ones also takes time.  

If it were a light switch we wouldn’t really have any problems to solve.  Goals become tasks when we can just go do them.  

Yet, we still just try to flip the switch don’t we?

We make a decision like “For the next 30 days I am going/not going to _____”.  

Maybe we get through a day or two.  

And then it gets hard.  

Here’s why it never works.  It’s because we are using willpower.  

What is willpower?  

Willpower is trying to just change our actions without addressing what causes those actions.  

Thoughts create feelings which drive actions.  

If we just try to change the action without having a look at the thoughts and feelings that created that action, we end up fatigued and we quit.  Way too early.    

Could you use a hand creating a new habit, a new result?   I can definitely help, let’s chat.