Ooops, didn’t mean for this article to get picked up by LinkedIn’s algorithm because I had the word “trump” in the subject line :-). Anyhow, this content applies even to Trump supporters, so read on …

Willpower matters!

· Walter Mischel’s famous marshmallow experiment strongly demonstrates the value of willpower. In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who could wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes [1].

But, willpower is difficult to exert

· For all of those who have tried to exert willpower (e.g. to diet, to study, to exercise, etc.) you know just how difficult it is.

· When making decisions, you’re engaging (or not) the deliberative part of your brain to allow cool rationality to prevail or to be driven by the more primitive part of your brain that is focused on survival and hence prioritises the here and now. This takes cognitive effort. And cognitive effort depletes willpower. Note that being ill, tired, hungry, etc. also depletes our willpower [2].

· When we’re depleted, we are more likely to take defaults, more vulnerable to bias, more impulsive and more indulgent.

· A study of parole judges delivers a fascinating finding. The judges have two daily food breaks, which result in segmenting their deliberations of the day into three distinct “decision sessions.” The default outcome is to not grant parole because this carries risk. The study finds that the percentage of favourable rulings (i.e. granting parole) drops gradually from about two thirds to nearly zero within each decision session and returns abruptly to about two thirds after a food break [3].

Habits are another way to get things done

· Rather than fighting our innate tendency to save energy, we can take advantage of this tendency.

· Habits form because we’re cognitively lazy, i.e. our brains are seeking ways to save energy. When we follow a habit, we engage our auto-pilot, which is far more energy efficient [4]

· By instilling habits in your life, you reserve your limited willpower resource for those important, non-repetitive decisions.

So, let’s say you want to get something done on a regular basis (e.g. studying, eating healthily, etc.): you have two options:

1. Exerting your willpower when you need to

2. Build what you want to get done into your auto-pilot

If you select option 1, there are some great tips, two of which I explain below, but I think you’ll agree that option 2 is the more reliable route.

· The concept of “pre-commitment” has been known since ancient times [5], e.g. Odysseus ordering that he be tied to the mast so that he could safely hear the Sirens.

· To improve your chances of success in option 1 requires making it easier to do what you want and/or making it more difficult to not do what you don’t want.

· A creative example of making things difficult, is to freeze your credit card in a block of ice as suggested by Dan Ariely [6].

· To make it easier to do what you want, Katy Milkman introduces a new twist on pre-commitment called “temptation bundling”. Temptation bundling devices allow people to pre-commit to coupling instantly gratifying activities (e.g. watching lowbrow television, eating an indulgent meal) with engagement in a behaviour that provides long-term benefits but requires the exertion of willpower (e.g., exercising, reviewing a paper, spending time with a difficult relative). The decision maker commits to engaging in the gratifying, indulgent activity only when simultaneously engaged in the virtuous activity. The result: increased engagement in beneficial behaviours like exercise and reduced engagement in guilt-inducing, indulgent behaviours [7].

Option 2, i.e. creating a good habit, is perhaps the best strategy. A contemporary investigator of the power of habits is Tim Ferriss (of “The 4-Hour Workweek” fame). He interviews world-class performers from various fields to learn about their tactics, routines and habits. One of his podcast guests was Jocko Willink. Willink spent 20 years in the US Navy and commanded SEAL Team 3’s task unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated special operations unit in the Iraq War. Willink neatly summarises the argument of this article: “Don’t count on motivation; count on discipline” [8].

Concluding, probably the best use of your willpower is to focus it on building the habits you want.

References:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

[2] "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength", Roy Baumeister

[3] http://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889.full

[4] “The Power of Habit”, Charles Duhigg

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commitment_device

[6] “Predictably Irrational”, Dan Ariely

[7] “Holding the hunger games hostage at the gym: An evaluation of temptation bundling.”, Katy Milkman et al

[8] http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/09/21/jocko-willink-on-discipline-leadership-and-overcoming-doubt/