On the road to success, willpower is the deciding ingredient. This is especially true for founders and professionals, who need a stronger reserve of willpower to draw on when they meet a challenge. So how can we cultivate willpower effectively?
This article introduces ways to strengthen willpower across three different layers, to help you keep making progress in your career or your venture. Not every one will suit you, but it is worth exploring and trying different approaches to find the techniques that fit you best — ones that can boost your willpower, and perhaps even reshape your career and bring you success. With that in mind, let us look at how to strengthen willpower from three angles: the physiological, the psychological and the social.
Willpower from the physiological angle: regulating the nervous system
Research suggests that cold-water bathing can activate the parasympathetic nervous system (Mäkinen et al., 2008), helping us relax and manage negative emotions more effectively. On top of this, cold-water bathing can alter our endocrine system and strengthen our capacity to cope with negative emotions; it has even been proposed as a potential method for treating depression (Shevchuk, 2008). Another approach is exercise — many studies have found that exercising can improve our mental health and strengthen our willpower.
Whether you choose a cold-water bath or decide to put on your kit and go for a workout, you have to put up with a certain amount of discomfort. But over time, if you can keep up these habits, the changes they bring will show up not only in your physiological state, but in your psychological state too.
Willpower from the psychological angle: build small habits, set clear goals, and understand the motive behind them
1) Build small habits
When you start to persuade yourself to overcome a challenge and form a new habit, you begin to cultivate what are known as meta-habits. This does more than just bring a habit into being — it reshapes the self, turning you into someone who is good at building and sustaining new habits.
Many people resolve to change after a personal setback, determined to remake themselves. Some throw themselves into reading or working out, only to fail soon afterwards because the goals they set at the start were too ambitious. To strengthen willpower, then, it is best to begin with small, easily achievable goals (Locke et al., 1981). Setting small goals is crucial to cultivating willpower: it helps us gradually build up a sense of accomplishment and form a positive self-image.
2) Set clear goals
The psychologists Chip and Dan Heath once observed: "What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity." (Heath, & Heath, 2011, p.17). This means that our reluctance towards certain things may stem from a goal that is unclear. For example, some people may only have a vague wish to exercise, with no concrete plan; this often leads to half-hearted effort, making it hard to cultivate willpower or spark genuine progress.
To solve this problem, we can use the implementation intention (Gollwitzer, 1999). For instance, you can set out the specifics of a goal: "After work, I will run twenty laps in the park." By clearly describing both the concrete situation in which the action takes place (after work) and the exact behaviour (running twenty laps), this addresses the problem of weak willpower. Often the problem is not a lack of willpower, but a lack of clear intention — which ultimately erodes our resolve.
3) Understand the motive behind it
Even with many psychological techniques to help us strengthen willpower, the process will still be full of challenges. Even with a well-laid plan, we still need to know how to hold on through adversity. And in the course of our efforts, we can often discover the real purpose behind our actions.
For example, looking back on the past, we may recall revising the night before a public examination, and be amazed at the stamina we had at the time. We might have put off the revision, but the importance of the public exam in our lives still gave us a powerful drive. Reflecting on goals in this way helps push us towards success; once we identify the motive, it can become the fuel for sustained effort.
For another example, pursuing a promotion may come from a desire to provide a better life for the family, or from a passion for the work. By contrast, if the goal is only personal comfort, the effort may seem to carry less meaning. This psychological perspective stresses the importance of uncovering meaning, pointing out that meaning is the very force that keeps us striving and successfully realising our goals.
Willpower from the social angle: join the right community
When we examine willpower from the social angle, we find that the social environment has a major influence on it. Take public examinations as an example: for most of the time, many students may have no motivation to study. But as the exam draws near, they often manage to find the drive and throw themselves successfully into their studies. Yet why is this so? One very likely reason is the influence of the study atmosphere. When everyone around you is concentrating on their studies, you naturally find it easier to follow suit. Human beings are social animals by nature, and the behaviour of the people around us tends to shape our own.
Another conspicuous social example is organ donation rates in Europe. In Denmark and Germany, the proportion of donors is less than 20%, whereas in Poland and Sweden it reaches around 80%. This difference is not because people in some places are kinder than people elsewhere, but because countries with high donation rates all use a default donation system. Unless someone explicitly opts out, every person is treated as a donor. By contrast, places with low donation rates use an opt-in system. Unless local residents actively register, they do not become donors.
This shows that the environment we are in can shape our behaviour, and even our willpower. Social pressure can prompt us to do things we would not do on our own, and over time this can ultimately lead to success. For example, if you are trying to start exercising or to read more, joining a group that shares the same goal can give you a much stronger drive than going it alone.
Download the MindForest App and use psychology to strengthen your willpower
In a fiercely competitive arena like entrepreneurship and professional life, strong willpower is the key to success. MindFor
est is an AI app grounded in psychology that offers a range of tools and strategies to help you get through tough times.
1) Tailor-made goal plans: MindForest is good at breaking grand dreams down into small, achievable goals, using AI to map out a clear path to success.
2) Your own personal AI coach: MindForest lets you interact with an AI coach 24 hours a day, anytime and anywhere; what the conversations offer is not only motivation, but practical advice too. By adjusting your habits, mindset and environment, it helps you strengthen your willpower.
3) Reflective journal: MindForest can generate reflective notes tailored to you by assessing your conversations with the AI coach, prompting you to think more deeply and helping you set clear implementation intentions.
Download MindForest now, and strengthen the willpower that carries you towards success in your career and in business.
References
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493
Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2011). Switch. Random House Business Books.
Locke, E. A., Shaw, K. N., Saari, L. M., & Latham, G. P. (1981). Goal setting and task performance: 1969–1980. Psychological Bulletin, 90(1), 125–152. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.90.1.125
Mäkinen, T. M., Mäntysaari, M., Pääkkönen, T., Jokelainen, J., Palinkas, L. A., Hassi, J., Leppäluoto, J., Tahvanainen, K., & Rintamäki, H. (2008). Autonomic nervous function during whole-body cold exposure before and after cold acclimation. Aviation, space, and environmental medicine, 79(9), 875–882. https://doi.org/10.3357/asem.2235.2008
Quirin, M., Jais, M., Di Domenico, S. I., Kuhl, J., & Ryan, R. M. (2021). Effortless Willpower? The Integrative Self and Self-Determined Goal Pursuit. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 653458. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.653458
Shevchuk N. A. (2008). Adapted cold shower as a potential treatment for depression. Medical hypotheses, 70(5), 995–1001. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2007.04.052
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