Day 81: Using Self Control and Willpower to Change? That May Explain Your Consistent Failure...

"Willpower: The Biggest Failure in Behavior Change (and What Works Instead) Surveys consistently show people believe they need willpower to make healthy habits stick. According to the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America study, most people cite willpower as the reason their health resolutions fail." - Maryann Tomovich Jacobsen, MS, RD

There is no secret why so many high-achievers make a habit of success while others struggle to get out of bed: they consistently do that things that will produce the results they are looking for. You want a fit body? That would mean you exercise and eat correctly… You want to be an author? That means you write, on a regular if not daily schedule… The idea is simple: If you want to succeed, then you have to get off your ass and do it… But if it’s so simple, why doesn’t everyone follow this formula? What factors allow some people to create their ideal future while others stay stuck and overwhelmed? There are blogs, books, podcasts, and motivational speeches easily accessible to everyone, but with my usual pleasant contention, I have to say that I think well-meaning productivity experts everywhere have got it wrong when it comes to high achievement using “willpower”…

First, lets define that dastardly word… What is willpower? The dictionary defines willpower as “control exerted to do something or restrain impulses.” Now look, I know that sounds great but the serious problem with this definition is that most everyone lacks the one thing needed to make willpower an action step… Control… Control as in “Self-Control” which almost no one has… In order to utilize willpower, you would first need to foster self-control…

I hate to tell you this but if you want to make any permanent change in your life, willpower won’t get you there. The good news is that knowing this can help you stop struggling and reframe your plan to move closer to your goals… Remember that we discussed this before, information is god and eliminating bad information is absolutely necessary to success… Whether you want to get healthier, stop using social media so much, improve your relationships, be happier, write a book, or start a business , willpower won’t help you with any of these things. So now what? The best chance for personal progress and achieving success should be approached like you’re overcoming an addiction. Because, quite literally, that’s what you’re doing. As human-beings, we all have addictions.

I openly admit that my past includes being addicted to alcohol, drugs, the internet, bad food, television, an incorrect belief system, my comfort zone, and my excuses. Now, one by one I am eliminating these addictions, replacing them with good behaviors that do not contradict my goals. The truth is, we are all addicted to something or multiple things, and the cognitive dissonance of wanting one thing and exhibiting behaviors that indicate the exact opposite is mind numbing

If you’re serious about the changes you want to make, willpower won’t be enough. Quite the opposite. Willpower, or more concisely, lack thereof is what is holding you back. Let me be very clear here… Willpower is a broken approach to thriving and success… It rarely works…

If you’re required to exert willpower to do something, there is an obvious internal conflict. You want to eat the cookie, but you also want to be healthy. Now we have environment versus goal. The tension is mounting… You’re standing there, the cookie is laying there.  What are you going to do? Are you going to be strong this time and resist? Or are you going to crumble?

Most will crumble like the cookie and then lick the counter to make sure they got all the crumbles…

According to research your willpower is like a muscle. It’s a finite resource that depletes with use. You struggle all day long with your addictions and your goals and as a result, by the end of your strenuous day, your willpower muscles are exhausted, and you’re left to your naked and defenseless self  with zero control to stop the night-time munchies and the time wasters. After an entire day of “being good”, we end up rewarding, over rewarding and then binging as we slowly lose control of our willpower muscles…

So now what? If willpower isn’t enough, what do we do?

We commit…

How do you lose weight? You marry the fucking idea… You ask yourself the question “What do I want?” If your reply is you want to lose weight, you vow to yourself to make the leap from willpower to determination and resolve yourself to do what it takes, to the best of your ability to lose weight… You do research, you correct your mistakes, reframe your thinking, and alter your behaviors to achieve and then exceed your goals… Like a boxer who eyes their target six inches past the chin of their opponent, you punch through your goals… Willpower is weak, resolve is a powerful means to gain access to a new mindset of accomplishment and success.

If your life requires willpower, you aren't fully determined to get what you want. Because once you make a decision, the internal debate is over. As Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan has said, “Once I made a decision, I never thought about it again.” To clarify, I think Mr. Jordan meant that he never had to think about whether he would fail or succeed once he made up his mind. When a decision is made, there is no more room for debate… This is why I suggested that you marry your goals… Taking a vow defines the goal… There is no room for failure past that point. After you decide what you want, the decision is made. Thus, all future decisions regarding that matter have also been made. No questions.

So, are you serious about this? Or are you just bullshitting yourself to assuage your guilt? Are you still on the fence, or have you decided? Until you decide, you’ll be required to use willpower, and will continue making minimal or zero progress. That choice is up to you…

If you’re truly committed to something, in your mind, it’s as though you’ve already succeeded. All doubt and disbelief are gone. Recently I interacted with a person with an addiction problem and I witnessed the process of moving from conflict and struggle to resolve…  She told me that once she made the concrete decision to kick the habit, the whole world changed in an instant. You see, if you’re committed to getting into shape, you’re going to put everything in place to make sure it happens. You’re not going to leave it up to chance. You’re going to start by signing up for a gym or formulating an exercise plan (investment). You’re going to make it public by telling people your plans. (phase one of accountability). You’re going to get a workout partner or someone who will hold you accountable (phase two of accountability). You’re going to track your progress with data, schedules, and monitoring equipment like an Apple Watch (feedback) and report your progress to your accountability partner. Lastly, you’re going to remove things in your life that keep you from working out. Commitment means you build external defense systems around your goals to protect and foster them.

This is known a “creating conditions that make success inevitable.” If you’re trying to stop drinking alcohol, you must stop being 1) around people that drink alcohol and 2) stop going to places that serve alcohol. Your willpower will fail if you don’t. You need to truly decide you’re done, to commit, and then to create an environment to make the success of your commitment inevitable.

If you want to become a professional rock-climber, you need to surround yourself with professional rock-climbers, get the proper equipment and orient your whole lifestyle to fit that goal.

This is how evolution works. We create a new environment and then adapt to our new environments. Thus, conscious evolution involves purposefully choosing or creating environments that mold us into the person we want to become. Everything in life is a natural and organic process. In conscious evolution, we create a new environment and then adapt and evolve based on the environments we select. You are who you are because of your environment. Want to change? Then change your environment. Stop the willpower madness already. Willpower sucks. Forget about it.

Instead of focusing on your behavior, focus on your environment. Your environment ,  including the people you surround yourself with  is the clearest indicator of who you are and who you’re becoming. The idea is a simple one, in order to succeed we must change just one thing, that one thing being everything… You have to make up your mind and change your environment and get to work because like my co-worker Brady says, “no one else is going to do it for you…”

The 90 Day Life Change Challenge update… Apparently I was wrong about finding that motivation to finish this 90 day Hell Ride strongly… This blog was born because this morning I had no desire to get up, workout, go to work or even get laid… I would have rather just laid there staring blankly at the ceiling in the dark… Instead, I sat up, turned on the light, drank my pre-workout drink I keep on the nightstand, got dressed, bathroom, into the kitchen to mix the after workout protein and then back into the bedroom to get to work… I started the timer and started doing burpees... During my workout I thought about this blog… Today was not about “willpower” because today I had no willpower… Today was about a commitment I made to finish… There may be discussion in my head about whether or not I want to, but there is clearly no doubt about what I will do... I will ignore the doubts, the voice that asks me to stop or delay and I will start the timer and get to fucking work because that is what I do...

Another update... After a fucking crazy day in the field, I stopped by my happy place on the way home from work to talk to my meathead fitness friends at REV Nutrition and decided to do a BodyScan for body fat content...  I was a little hesitant because I didn't need a disappointment after the day I had... I have a broken toe and it was a long ass day full of pain in addition to the human misery I experience in my daily life as a street outreach worker... So I got rid of all my excess weight, keys, wallet, phone, badges, and took off my boots and stepped on the scanner... 14.50% Body fat...

LOWEST BODY FAT PERCENTAGE EVER!!!! Woo! I'm up two pounds in muscle weight and down in total fat weight...  It was the pick me up I needed to finish out my work week... Hard work, lots of good food, good sleep, lots of water and an iron will to meet my goals... Closer now than ever before... I am shooting for 13.5% because that is what the professional athlete has for a body fat percentage... One last hurrah before age takes me down to the place where I simply can't... For all of you who read this blog, this is my Look Good Naked Project Last Dance... I will damn well meet my goal of 13.50%... I don't give myself any other option... It may take me longer than the average 25 year old, but hey, it takes me longer to do a lot of things a 25 year old does and that ain't always a bad thing... Enjoy your youth boys, but work as hard as you can because when it fades, like my dad used to say, getting old isn't for pussies... 

So maybe that motivation I was looking for printed out of the BodyScan printer today... Looking forward to getting my mojo back, finding the edge I needed to make that percentage a reality... When I started I looked up the body fat percentage average for professional athletes and I set that as my goal.. It looked fucking impossible and I meant for it to be... I love making the impossible happen, makes me me a cocky bastard but then again, when you can back up what you say, that isn't cocky, that's confidence... 

I love all of you... you help me make this shit happen and that isn't something to sneeze at... I appreciate all the reads, the comments, the texts and the amazing conversations I have with people about making and meeting goals... In the last three months I have made an amazing transformation, watched people get started making theirs, assisted people beating addictions, setting goals and making their lives better... Fuck, there isn't anything better than that... Have a great day and I will see all of you tomorrow... Another day, another workout and another blog...

Love you like street outreach worker love hand sanitizer...