Willpower, Habits and Who You Really Are
A couple weeks ago we dived into the importance of understanding the limits that willpower has in directing action towards our desired behaviors. We outlined that we are often naively confident that willpower will be enough to push us to do what we want to do when the time comes, and then, when the time comes, we are regrettably reminded that we do not have the motivation to do the thing our willpower said we would do.
We mix up motivation and willpower all the time. As a clinician, I often hear complaints from clients (and from parents about our clients) about how they are experiencing a “lack of motivation”. When they describe motivation, they seem to believe that they can just “will” themselves to be “motivated”, but talk about it as if it exists under one umbrella term of motivation. They either seem to have it (motivation) or they don’t.
This week, we are going to kill off the idea of needing motivation to do what needs to be done and will return some attention to habit forming.
A client recently mentioned that he had always thought of habits in the negative, not in the positive – as in, it was always important to “break a bad habit” versus build a better habit.
On the subject of forming better habits, I used the analogy of raising newborns (something that is prominent for me these days) to help underscore the point. For example, we would never subject a baby to random sleep/wake schedules throughout the week, nor would we subject them to variable feeding schedules. We want them on a routine, because a routine signals predictability (amongst other things), and predictability is the bedrock to begin to feel safe enough to launch into living.
Habits, like routines, can therefore be a more impactful and sustainable solution than willpower or motivation.
Habits are the automated systems that allow us to do what we should be doing or want to be doing. Motivation is like an injection of fuel into that system – it can propel us forward for sure – but is often fleeting once used.
So, how do we build better habits?
How do we begin to treat ourselves with the same level of commitment and common-sense logic we would when speaking about a baby's routines?
If we wouldn’t do it to babies, why do we do it to ourselves?
My take: We need to pay closer attention to the behaviors we want, and less attention to the behaviors we’re trying to get rid of.
Say for example you are trying to avoid eating so many sweets. This is a behavior you’re trying to avoid. So, as most of us do, we look to summon willpower and discipline to avoid the foods we so desperately are attracted to. However, from what you remember about motivation, by depriving yourself from what you want, you’re actually causing yourself to want it more. You’ve created absence and your body wants it present – so your willpower to avoid eating it is being taxed as your motivation overcomes it. It’s a bit like tug of war – your willpower pulls you to stay disciplined and your motivation, fueled by the absence of the thing that you are attracted to having, pulls you towards having it.
This is a common challenge for those that struggle with addiction too. As a licensed alcohol and drug counselor, I see clients who are interested in improving their life and breaking free from the bad habits of substance use – usually alcohol use. A common tactic clients with addiction try to use is “white knuckling” their sobriety. They’ll summon all their willpower to not use for an extended period of time, but pay less attention to building habits that are more sustainable to their long-term benefit. They grip onto their lack of use with all their might, but eventually their grip fails them. This creates a kind of whiplash effect as their body and brain can no longer fight off using willpower alone, and the client succumbs to using again. The cycle of addiction is repeated.
To truly rid bad habits, you must focus on building better ones. While there are several schools of thought on how best to do this, we’ll be briefly identifying three:
Habit Reversal
As the title suggests, in this approach, we’re simply replacing a “bad” habit with a better one.
Don’t want to eat the cookie, eat a piece of fruit instead.
Don’t want to sit on the couch and watch Netflix, sit on the floor or stand – you’ll be more likely to move around and not stay stuck that way.
Don’t want to get distracted by your phone at night, bring a book to your bedside.
Wish you didn’t doom scroll your phone when you’re bored, do 5 push ups instead.
This list goes on. One crucial note on this would be to engineer your environment to help you. It might be hard to enact habit reversal if your environment isn’t conducive to doing so. For example, it is estimated that 70-90% of households in the 70’s had at least one ashtray inside the home. The environment was set up to smoke cigarettes, and that was a normalized habit. Want to shift that behavior? Create an environment that isn’t conducive to smoking indoors. Eliminating ashtrays from inside doesn’t solve getting rid of the bad habit, but it creates an environment that is more conducive to the desired behavior (less smoking if you’re now only smoking outdoors).
Positive Reinforcement
I sometimes describe this to clients like viewing us as lab rats. Although we’re certainly more intelligent than rats, we’re just as predisposed to responding to positive reinforcement as lab rats might be.
Want to move towards habits you like? Reward yourself for doing the things you want to be doing.
Want to improve your work in school? Celebrate with a nice dinner surrounded by friends after a long week of work.
Want to cut back on drinking throughout the week? Replace alcohol with a drink you enjoy, like a mocktail, flavored seltzer, or soda.
Here’s a personal one for me – stave off my desire to sit and listen to a podcast or watch TV for only after I do my laundry.
We’re far more likely to respond favorably to rewards than punishments, so stack positive reinforcers after the desired behavior and watch your habits turn around. This would be classically summed up as the “eat your broccoli before having ice cream” type approach.
Identity Based Change
Calling back on our reference to Atomic Habits by James Clear, this one is perhaps the most potent, but challenging strategy to develop. Rather than reversing habits or rewarding ourselves for the more desirable behaviors, Clear gets at a more core intervention – changing who we believe ourselves to be.
If you identify yourself as being lazy, you’re far more likely to see your behaviors through the lens of a lazy person. You may quickly discount that physical activity is just too hard for you to do, that it’s easier if you just do what you usually do and relax over the weekend etc.
Clear writes New Year’s Resolutions are a good example of people trying to shift their identity. People say they are “trying” to lose weight, start hitting the gym on Jan 1, but eventually fall off those habits. How come? They haven’t quite bought into the notion that they are the kind of person that goes to the gym regularly. They’re going, but the shift in identity hasn’t been made.
To begin to shift your identity in the direction of more desirable behaviors, do this:
1) Eliminate the word “try” and simply say that you “are” doing the thing (ie: replace, “I’m trying to quit smoking.” to “I don’t smoke.”)
2) Fake it until you become it. You don’t need to know exactly what someone with the desired behaviors you want did to get there, you just need to do one of them. You don’t even need to believe you can do it to do it. If you want to run a marathon, you need to run. If you want to be braver in asking people out on dates, you need to start talking to people you’re interested in. You don’t need to enjoy it, or be good at it. Once you consistently do the action that you’re looking for, you can become the person you’re wanting to be (PS: you don't need to be motivated to do this either).
At the end of the day, motivation fades. Habits — especially those aligned with your identity — are what carry you forward.
Thanks for reading as always.
Time to win the week 🏆
See you next week :)
– J
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