14 tips to have more willpower

How do you increase those levels of motivation and willpower for improvement and personal growth?

The end of the year is approaching and with it the typical list of resolutions for 2018. Within that wish list, in a large number of cases we will find old acquaintances such as "go to the gym", "lose weight", "quit smoking". As a general rule, these resolutions are abandoned shortly after starting to carry them out, or they are not even attempted to be fulfilled.

The reason for this? There can be many reasons, but if we leave excuses aside, we find that one of the biggest obstacles is the lack of willpower..

And it can be difficult to maintain, given that in the day to day, there are many situations that can lead to discouragement and stop striving for something. Therefore, in this article we are going to talk about how to have more willpower.

The importance of willpower

We all or almost all know or have an idea about what is the willpower, being easy to find some example of this ability or its absence. But in order to improve the understanding of what we are proposing to increase, it is useful to make a brief definition of the concept we are talking about.

Willpower is understood as the capacity or ability to capacity or ability to pursue a specific objective in spite of the existence of obstacles, difficulties and distractions.difficulties and distractions. It is not about knowing how to reach the goal itself, but to persist in the will to achieve it even though we may not know how to deal with the difficulties that prevent us from reaching it. We would therefore be faced with the idea of not giving in to our pretensions, not giving up and persevering even if we do not see immediate results.

Willpower usually correlates positively with the ability to delay gratification: people who are able to postpone obtaining a gratification in order to be rewarded later with something that especially motivates them.

Let's look at the examples given in the first paragraph of this article: losing weight or going to the gym. The objective is something desired and rewarding for the person who sets it as a goal, but it requires a continuous effort over the course of time. a continuous effort over a period of time, which can be relatively long. that can be relatively long. And in between there will be continuous temptations in the form of food, drink, plans or obstacles such as fatigue and even suffering.

The same thing happens with someone who wants to quit smoking: he knows that he wants to quit, but picking up a cigarette gives him immediate satisfaction. Only those people who are able to resist the temptation to get immediate reinforcement to achieve their goal will be able to persist until they reach their goal. will be able to persist until they reach their goal (although they may have some occasional slumps).

Tips for more willpower

Willpower, in short, is an important skill that is highly valued socially, personally and also in the workplace and academia. But it is not something that appears out of nowhere, but rather it is a psychological capacity that is acquired and strengthened throughout life..

In this sense, we can carry out different activities to improve willpower. Some strategies and actions that can help us are the following.

1. Set clear objectives

One of the possible reasons for not being able to maintain the willpower to do something is ignorance and lack of confidence in what we want to achieve. Setting clear goals and knowing how to achieve them is essential and helps us to generate enough motivation and willpower to pursue them.

2. Be realistic

Another major problem most people have is that they want immediate and unrealistic results. I want to lose 15 kilos in a month or I want to stop doing something I have been doing for the last ten years in a moment. People who already have a strong willpower base may be able to achieve it, but the majority of the population should be able to achieve it.However, the majority of the population should take into account that to achieve something, shortcuts are not usually worthwhile and that it requires a continuous and prolonged effort over time. Take into account previous experiences and adjust your expectations regarding what it may cost you to achieve your goal.

3. Step by step: break down tasks into subtasks

Something very useful to achieve your goals and at the same time to reinforce your willpower is to break down your goal into different steps, phases or subtasks.. Identify and create short and medium term objectives that will allow you to reach your final goal.

4. Establish a plan

The opposite of the previous point can also be a problem: setting a goal to be achieved in an undetermined period of time can lead us to procrastinate and do nothing. That is why it is highly recommended to establish a previous planning of the time we are going to dedicate to a specific objective and make an effort to achieve it. In this way we will be advancing in our objective, and the knowledge of this fact will reinforce the motivation to move forward..

5. Keep a record

Related to the previous point, another way to strengthen our willpower and achieve our goals is to keep a record of our activity, so that we can evaluate our achievements and progress..

6. Give yourself small rewards

Achieving something at once is very complicated. Self-gratification as we make progress in achieving our goals (as long as such self-gratification does not go against the final goal itself) can help us to preserve and strengthen our motivation.

7. Don't do everything at once

We all have many goals in life. However, if we aim to find a partner, do sports, be more productive at work, lose weight, sign up for a cooking course and do three master's degrees and two doctorates, we will end up doing nothing or exhausting ourselves. We must keep in mind that we cannot do everything at once. And much less if what we are trying to do is to train willpower: the most advisable and healthy thing to do is to identify one element at a time and focus on it.

8. Meditation

The practice of meditation contributes greatly to strengthening willpower, relativizing the importance of things and seeing the world from a more focused perspective. In fact, it has been demonstrated how the regular practice of meditation decreases stress levels and even contributes to improving synaptic connectivity in brain regions such as the prefrontal.

9. Exposure

One of the ways to train willpower is, precisely, to expose ourselves to stimuli that put it to the test. The idea is to encourage us to resist temptation. To do this it may be useful to begin by exposing ourselves to situations that, although tempting, do not generate an immediate and irresistible need, to gradually and as we see that we can resist, proceed to expose ourselves to elements that cause us greater attraction.

It is possible to expose ourselves directly to the elements that we find more difficult to resist, but with this we also risk not being able to bear it and favoring that rather than increasing the willpower this decreases. If applied correctly and if successful, this method also helps us to improve our sense of competence. helps us to improve our sense of competence and self-efficacy, which can also contribute to an increase in willpower.which can also contribute to increase self-esteem.

10. Give yourself positive self-instructions

Generally, when doing anything, various self-talk about what to do and how to do it comes to mind.

Frequently, these self-instructions include mental and emotional content and expectations about the outcome (e.g. whether we are going to do well or badly, whether we are going to achieve our goal or not, etc.). Try to make these instructions positive and include messages that reinforce and positively consider one's own capacity can make us feel more capable in the long run and increase our willpower.

11. Find a role model

One way to strengthen willpower is to be inspired by people you appreciate. drawing inspiration from people you appreciate and admire.. Learn about them and their way of doing things and achieving their goals. Observing the presence of a great willpower can help us to try to imitate it and strengthen our own.

12. Relativize and accept the falls

No matter how much willpower we have, we can all fall into a moment where we forget our goal or have a moment of weakness where we do the opposite of what we intend to do.

This can lead us to blame ourselves, feel incompetentThis can lead us to blame ourselves, feel less competent and finally to become unmotivated and give up. A good idea to increase our willpower is, although it may seem contradictory, to accept that we can fail and have a moment of weakness. However, without overindulging in self-indulgence: it is a matter of not beating ourselves up if a fall occurs, not just letting it happen.

13. Better accompanied

Maintaining motivation and willpower to achieve a goal is complicated. Receiving external support in the process or establishing a shared goal makes it more difficult to give in to temptation. On the other hand, it also depends on the attitude of each personIf someone continually tempts you to abandon your goal, it will become a challenge to your willpower.

14. Exercise

What for many people is a goal to achieve can also serve to help us increase our willpower to do others. Tightening and loosening muscles can help us strengthen not only our body but also our mind, releasing endorphins and improving our sense of competence.. It also requires an effort that diverts some of our attention away from possible temptation.