More than willpower

It is now February and few of us are sticking to their new year resolutions, thinking about the gym membership, the special diet to help you lose weight. When such plans don’t come through most people blame it on willpower or rather the lack of it.

According to psychologists we need three components to achieve our objectives.

Firstly, we need to establish the motivation for change and set a clear goal.

Secondly, we need to monitor our behaviour toward that goal.

The last component is willpower which is a critical step in achieving our goals. Willpower is defined as the ability to resist short-term temptations to meet long-term goals. That’s what makes you attend school and study hard in order to pass your exams with good grades, or skip that tempting cheesecake in order to remain in a healthy body shape.

According to research, self-discipline which is linked to willpower is more important than IQ in predicting academic success and this is not a surprise as we could think of people, we know who despite their high intelligence did not achieve good grades because they lack self-discipline.

Willpower can also be defined as the ability to overcome unwanted thoughts, feelings, that put you down and discourage you from working toward your goals when you experience a setback, or the ability to restrain yourself from reacting emotionally and impulsively, which makes you overreact to certain situations without thinking clearly.

So, the question that comes to mind, how can one boost his willpower?

According to Dr Frank Ryan, a clinical psychologist and author of ‘Willpower for Dummies,’ there are few tips that can improve your self-control and boost your willpower.

This includes believing in yourself and having self confidence that you can complete the task ahead, imagining yourself in graduation gown smiling to the camera as you receive your award would keep you motivated to study.

Clarifying your goals and planning ahead can help you focus, as well as monitoring your progress.

Developing a routine will also help you stay organised, set up a fixed time for physical exercise, sleep early so you can have enough time in the morning to prepare your healthy meal and carry it with you instead of eating fast food at work. Avoid temptation as it could be very hard to resist. If you are planning to lose weight avoid going to the area of the supermarket where cheesecakes are on display. If you are quitting smoking, don't go out with friends who smoke.

Such situations can lead to setbacks which makes you go back to the behaviour you were trying to change in the first place.

Get support from friends and family, explain to them that you are starting a healthy diet so they don’t invite you to restaurants that serve junk food. Having a companion to the gym or a jogging buddy can motivate you and help you form a routine of regular exercise.

Remember the quote “Rome was not built in a day”, so be patient and keep going slow and steady, use technology to monitor your progress, be it a smart phone app that counts the number of steps or an excel progress sheet so you can monitor your progress and modify your efforts as you reach your goals at the end.