Willpower is overrated

[ANVEEROY 65,231]

People with a lot of self-control — people who, when they happen upon a delicious food they don’t think they should eat, seemingly grin and bear the temptation until it passes — have it easy.

But why? For a long time, the thinking was that these people are good at inhibiting their impulses. That they have a lot of willpower and they know how to use it.

People who are bad at resisting temptation, meanwhile, supposedly have insufficient or underexploited willpower, a view with deep cultural and moral roots. (Think Adam and Eve and the original sin.) It’s also deeply embedded in the pop psychology of reaching goals and self-improvement. “People are happiest and healthiest when there is an optimal fit between self and environment, and this fit can be substantially improved by altering the self to fit the world,” argued an influential 2004 paper that proposed a questionnaire to rate people on self-control.

But this idea, that people have self-control because they’re good at willpower, is looking more and more like a myth. It turns out that self-control, and all the benefits from it, may not be related to inhibiting impulses at all. And once we cast aside the idea of willpower, we can better understand what actually works to accomplish goals, and hit those New Year’s resolutions.

As anyone who has struggled with a diet knows, willpower won’t work in the long run. And failures of inhibition are too often confused for a moral failing. We blame willpower failings for weight gain, even though it’s genetics and our calorie-laden environments conspiring against out waistlines. We blame addicts for not restraining their urges, even though their addiction has a biological hold on their brain.

And overall, psychologists are shying away from the concept, as years of work suggesting that willpower is a finite, essential resource has come under intense scrutiny.

In a specific situation, sure, you can muster willpower to save yourself from falling back into a bad habit. But relying on willpower alone to accomplish goals “is almost like relying on emergency brake when you are driving your car,” Saunders says. “You should focus on things that drive you toward your goals rather than stopping things that are in your way.” What’s more, the human “emergency brake” that is willpower is bound to fail in some instances, causing you to crash.

And it’s time we all took these lessons to heart. Focusing on failures of willpower leads to shame, both public and private, and holds back our curiosity from finding and enacting solutions that actually work.

More: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/1/15/16863374/willpower-overrated-self-control-psychology?fbclid=IwAR3LXs8NKeMAYydCMeuLkigktsdFiu9W4bbBSZYFQw7Rl_LGrY_FVFGBPqg

[COOOK 76,406]

[DutchHooker 8,600]

1 hour ago, COOOK said:

That 90 degrees haircut on the left keeps bothering me everytime 

[Scri 990]

9 minutes ago, DutchHooker said:

That 90 degrees haircut on the left keeps bothering me everytime 

OT

Actually

 what bothers me it's that isn't a perfect 90° ahah

(Jk)

 

[ANVEEROY 65,231]

1 hour ago, COOOK said:

 

11 minutes ago, DutchHooker said:

That 90 degrees haircut on the left keeps bothering me everytime 

 

6 minutes ago, Scri said:

OT

Actually

 what bothers me it's that isn't a perfect 90° ahah

(Jk)

 

Read the article. A very well written piece! 

[not Chromatica 5,393]

I think when you truly want to make a change (or do anything, for that matter), that's when it happens. Restriction doesn't work because on the inside you wish you were doing anything but the thing you are doing and being so strict about. Intention is key.

[Regina George 59,387]

I had weight problem since forever but I was not overweight since I was kid because I don’t want to be (nothing against overweight people but it is just something I struggle with). Every day I restrict myself from eating something I want to eat because I know if I eat it I’ll get more weight. Sometimes I’m literally dying to eat something but I just don’t. It was not always that easy but I do think that willpower improves over time and I think that strong willpower is one of major reasons why people achieve their goals. I read the article and I don’t necessarily think people should blame their willpower because of their failures in life but I do think that those real reasons of failures can be solved by having strong willpower. 

[Guest]

Motivation and willpower is to me the same thing, they tend to dissipate and go away. Yet we rely on them to do something. You can only go through with something if you have a specific goal in mind and that you want it hard enough for you to sacrifice certain things. Having discipline is an art and takes time as well but you shouldn't rely on motivation and willpower to get there, you gotta look for something else inside yourself... only you can know tbh