Willpower. Discipline. Grit. Self-control. Call it what you want to, but we can all agree on two things: it’s important, and we don’t have enough of it. So, like any critical but finite resource, we need to spend it wisely. To do that, we have to know what willpower is actually for. Willpower, when used appropriately, should be spent in just two ways: Investing in better habits when you have… Read More »What Willpower is For
We’ve already covered the strategic value of predicting how you could fail when you’re trying to establish a new habit or quit an old one: Imagining the situations that could lead you to slip up gives you a chance to mitigate them in advance. One thing we haven’t discussed that I’ve come to see as equally important is the emotional value of imagining failure. Here’s what that looks like: Think… Read More »Visualizing Failure
You are what you repeatedly do.1 Any behavior that you repeat over years naturally solidifies into part of your identity. This makes the behavior feel impossible to change – like it’s just who you are. But this is wrong. You can still change; it’ll just be harder. I was a marijuana addict for 11 years. For much of that time, it felt like I couldn’t possibly be anything else. The… Read More »You Are What You Repeat
James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) recently wrote something that I disagreed with: “You will rarely outperform your self-image.”1 Actually, this is precisely how you improve your self-image, but you can only outperform it incrementally, improving your self-image bit by bit via self-perception. Your self-image is partly the result of your thoughts – what you think you’re capable of. But a larger factor is your actions – what you’ve seen… Read More »How Your Self-Image Improves