Procrastination can be defined as a form of willpower failure.
We can also call it self-regulation failure, self-control failure, self-discipline failure, or whatever-else-people-call-it failure.
The issue is that you want to study more, finish projects on time, get up
earlier, or exercise regularly. The desire is there, but you can’t get yourself
to make these things happen. In other words, you fail to regulate your
behavior.
Procrastination shares this fate with many other self-regulation problems,
such as excessive gambling, overeating, drinking too much, and reckless
spending.
The issue is always the same. The monkey is pulling you in all the wrong
directions, but you lack the willpower to veto it.
More often than not, the reason we fail to regulate our behavior comes
down to negative emotions.
Since overcoming procrastination ultimately comes down to willpower —
every time you resist the urge to procrastinate is an act of willpower — it is
incredibly helpful to learn more about how it works and how to get better at
it.
Any improvement in your overall self-control directly translates into less
procrastination.
The better you get at willpower, the less you’ll struggle with procrastination.
The good news is that willpower is very much subject to change. If you’re
willing to put in the necessary time and effort, you can strengthen your
willpower significantly. In other words, you can become much more selfdisciplined.
A brief personal experience
I can offer a great personal example. For most of my life, my self-discipline
has been an utter and complete joke. I couldn’t get myself to study for
exams, I couldn’t get up on time, I couldn’t stop playing my favorite video
game until 4 a.m., and I couldn’t stop getting drunk every weekend. Heck, I
could barely sign up for university classes on time!
Without a huge amount of outside pressure, I literally couldn’t get myself to
do anything, not even the simplest things like throwing away old milk
cartons, cleaning dirty dishes, or washing my sweaty gym clothes that had
been stinking up my room for weeks.
Looking back, I wonder how I ever got anything done at all.
Today, things look a whole lot better. My room is always orderly. I get up on
time every day. I haven’t used the snooze function on my phone in over a
93
year. I’m meditating daily. I’m taking cold showers daily. I’m exercising
multiple times a week. I read about 100 books a year. I eat healthy. I do the
dishes right after eating or cooking. I pay my bills on time. And so on.
I’m not telling you that to impress you. I just want to show you that it’s
possible to go from almost zero self-control to a level that allows you to live
a healthy, happy, and inspired life.
BK
1. Willpower
What is willpower?
Some of the different ways we can define willpower are;
“The ability to get done what needs to get done, whether you feel like it or
not.”
“The ability to delay gratification, resisting short-term temptations in order to
meet long-term goals.”
“Conscious, effortful regulation of the self by the self.”
“The capacity to override an unwanted thought, feeling or impulse.”
At its core, willpower is the skill of noticing what you are about to do and
choosing to do the more difficult thing instead of the easiest. It’s the skill of
94
feeling the pull of the monkey toward immediate gratification and resisting
it. It’s the ability to resist short-term pleasure in favor of long-term success.
2. Optimize Your Health and Energy Levels
According to Dr. Piers Steel, a leading procrastination researcher, it’s
fatigue.
The reason fatigue plays such a huge role is because the use of willpower,
just like the use of any other muscle, takes energy.
That’s right. Every act of willpower requires and uses up energy.
If you resist eating a piece of cake, that takes energy. If you suppress an
emotion, like anger or laughter, that takes energy. If you cook a healthy
dinner in spite of not feeling like it, that takes energy.
Interestingly enough, the energetic component for the willpower muscle is
the same as for any other muscle: blood sugar. Researchers have found
that if people perform a self-control task (e.g., ignoring distractions or
controlling emotions), their blood sugar levels tend to drop. And the more a
98
person’s blood sugar level drops after a self-control task, the worse he or
she performs on the next task.
If you give willpower-drained individuals a glass of lemonade, the resulting
boost in their blood sugar temporarily restores willpower.
Low blood sugar levels translate into low energy. And low energy levels
mean these people have trouble regulating their behavior, resulting in more
crime and other self-control-related issues.
The same thing seems to happen with diabetics. (While they have high
blood sugar levels, their bodies have trouble converting that blood sugar
into energy, which also results in a lack of available energy.)
If you don’t have energy, you don’t have self-control. Or as Roy Baumeister
puts it: no glucose, no willpower.
It’s that simple!
3. Simplify Your Life
Making decisions is hard work.
Depending on the type of decision, you must consider possible upsides and
downsides, take responsibility, struggle with moral questions, and so on.
It’s an energy-intensive process that leads to a peculiar phenomenon called
101
decision fatigue: The more decisions you make, the worse your judgment
becomes.
Every decision you make takes energy. And unfortunately for you and me,
that’s the same energy we’re using for willpower as well. Every decision
you make sucks a little bit of fuel out of your willpower tank. The harder the
decision, the more energy/willpower will be needed.
Here are three simple things you can do to reduce decision fatigue and free
up willpower.
a) Plan your day the night before
b) Eat the same meals over and over again.
c) Minimize your wardrobe. Steve Jobs was famous for his sneakers and
black turtleneck. Barack Obama cycled through the same three or four suits
during his presidency. Mark Zuckerberg has 10 identical gray shirts in his
closet. You don’t need to go that far, but try to simplify your wardrobe a bit.
The less stuff you’ve got in there, the fewer decisions your brain is forced to
make.
4. Meditate
Neuroplasticity is a term used to describe the brain’s ability to change itself.
That’s right, it turns out that the brain is incredibly responsive to experience
and changes itself based on what you do. When you practice a certain
behavior, you’re strengthening the neural circuits responsible for that
behavior, making it more accessible and more likely to occur in the future.
When you’re angry, you’re literally getting better at being angry and the
brain region associated with being angry will grow denser. When you’re
happy, you’re getting better at being happy and the brain region associated
with being happy will grow denser.
Just like that, you can train your brain to be better at self-control. And
meditation is one of the best ways to do that.
Why? Because meditation has powerful effects on many skills related to
willpower: focus, attention, impulse control, self-awareness, stress
management, emotion regulation, and so on.
5. Exercise
Exercise is one of the absolute best tools you can use to strengthen your
willpower.
It’s best to start with a modest and realistic goal — consistency over
intensity is the maxim.
Anything that you like to do and gets you moving is great.
Best of all, walking, gardening, grocery shopping, yoga, swimming,
dancing, playing with your kids or pets — they all count!
Ahaa! There you go! If this article was helpful remember to leave a comment on which tips you think might effectively work for you. Until another day. Thanks for passing-by!
Comments
Post a Comment