because
willpower is temporary. It’s for sprints, not
marathons. Willpower requires conscious
focus, and conscious focus is very draining —
it cannot be maintained for long. Something
will eventually distract you.
Here’s how to tackle that same goal with the
proper application of willpower. You accept
that you can only apply a short burst of
willpower… maybe a few days at best. After
that it’s gone. So you’d better use that
willpower to alter the territory around you in
such a way that maintaining momentum
won’t be as hard as building it in the first
place. You need to use your willpower to
establish a beachhead on the shores of your
goal.
So you sit down and make a plan. This
doesn’t require much energy, and you can
spread the work out over many days.
You identify all the various targets you’ll
need to strike if you want to have a chance
of success. First, all the junk food needs to
leave your kitchen, including anything you
have a tendency to overeat, and you need to
replace it with foods that will help you lose
weight, like fruits and veggies. Secondly, you
know you’ll be tempted to get fast food if
you come home hungry and don’t have
anything ready to eat, so you decide to pre-
cook a week’s worth of food in advance each
weekend. That way you always have
something in the refrigerator. You set aside a
block of several hours each weekend to buy
groceries and cook all your food for the
week. Plus you get a decent cookbook of
healthy recipes. You learn about Weight
Watchers, and find out where the closest one
is to you, so you can go to the first meeting
and sign-up. Setup a weight chart and post it
on your bathroom wall. Get a decent scale
that can measure weight and body fat %.
Make a list of sample meals (5 breakfasts, 5
lunches, and 5 dinners), and post it on your
refrigerator. And so on…. At this point all of
this goes into the written plan.
Then you execute — hard and fast. You can
probably implement the whole plan in one
day. Attend your first Weight Watchers
meeting and get all the materials. Purge the
unhealthy food from the kitchen. Buy the new
groceries, the new cookbook, and the new
scale. Post the weight chart and the sample
meals list. Select recipes and cook a batch of
food for the week. Whew!
By the end of the day, you’ve used your
willpower not to diet directly but to establish
the conditions that will make your diet easier
to follow. When you wake up the next
morning, you’ll find your environment
dramatically changed in accordance with your
plan. Your fridge will be stocked with plenty
of pre-cooked healthy food for you to eat.
There won’t be any junkie problem foods in
your home. You’ll be a member of Weight
Watchers and will have weekly meetings to
attend. You’ll have a regular block of time
set aside for grocery shopping and food prep.
It will still require some discipline to follow
your diet, but you’ve already changed things
so much that it won’t be nearly as difficult
as it would be without these changes.
Here are some previous blog entries that will
give you even more ideas for modifying your
environment:
Environmental Reinforce of Your Goals
Are Your Friends an Elevator or a Cage?
Your Personal Accountability System
Don’t use willpower to attack your biggest
problem directly. Use willpower to attack the
environmental and social obstacles that
perpetuate the problem. Establish a
beachhead first, and then fortify your position
(i.e. turn it into a habit, such as by doing a
30-Day Challenge ). Habit puts action on
autopilot, such that very little willpower is
required for ongoing progress, allowing you to
practically coast towards your goal.
This post is part three of a six-part series on
self-discipline: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4
| part 5 | part 6
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