Direct Connect Forum: Willpower

Reading Time: 3 Minutes

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Post By Anna Thiele, Deliberate Directions Leadership Strategist

Anna focuses on writing website content and hosting a “Leadership, No Homework” book club. Anna received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication, with a certificate in Leadership and Human Resources, from Boise State University. In her spare time, Anna enjoys rock climbing, traveling, music, and the Enneagram.

Some people believe in willpower while others believe that other factors contribute to an unsuccessful day. In our latest Direct Connect we took a look on the side that favors willpower’s influence. We used supporting materials from the book Willpower by Roy Baumeister, an American Social Psychologist.

Willpower is your personal limit to what you can achieve on a daily basis before you begin to feel depleted. Since everyone is different, it’s important to look for a few indicators to know when you’ve reached your maximum giving potential. If at any point you begin to lose control over any of the following, you need to make time to refuel.

  • Control of your thoughts

  • Control of your emotions

  •  Impulse control

  • Performance control

Refueling can look like a number of things but to keep the list short; make sure you have enough glucose in your system, take mental breaks frequently, and make sure you are getting plenty of rest!

As far as strategies to make sure you last until the end of the day (with practice of course) watch the attached video and complete the activities in the downloadable attachment. 

From our live event on September 14th, one of our attendees, Nikko Banda, had an interesting perspective on one of the strategies. The second strategy of making a to-do list, Nikko made the comment about worrying. This conveniently tied perfectly into strategy three, positive procrastination. 

Nikko mentioned the benefit he has experienced with writing something down, especially if it’s a looming task. He spends less time worrying about when or how it is going to get done because his routine and task list for the day tells him when those deadlines are. So, he can spend less mornings at 3 AM trying to problem solve and schedule his day because he already knows when he plans to commit time. Thus, spending less willpower on something he isn’t able to control. 

And on those days when he does have a looming task that he knows will take a commitment to finish (depleting his willpower for the smaller tasks) he made note of positive procrastination. Meaning he can substitute other important tasks for the looming task. Giving him the opportunity to still be productive, using less willpower, so he is fully charged to eventually take on his looming task. What a great insight!

Remember, if you begin to feel a loss of control that’s your cue to take a break. Until then, try each of the strategies until you find your unique success plan for getting through the day!

 

Willpower Script

Download to learn more about Willpower

Willpower in Action

Fill out this worksheet to explore how you’re applying your learnings from Willpower.

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