The Truth about Willpower| Our bad Habits

How many mornings have you woke up this week, when the alarm clock rang and instead of starting your day you hit snooze?  It’s been 5 days this week for me, only because I don’t set an alarm clock on the weekend! LOL

I typically wake up to my two cats approximately 30 minutes before my alarm goes off; they are hungry and eager for a meal.  Some days I get my started with my day right away after feeding them.  Other days I end up back in bed and sleeping for another hour or so.

At some point, I developed the habit of feeding my cats and going back to bed.  It takes a lot of willpower to not do so, yet there is no effort to follow through on that habit.  Willpower is a finite resource and our habits never tap into those reserves.

Why is it that habits no longer require the willpower it took when we originally were creating a habit?

There are tons of studies that have been conducted about the topic and I will focus instead on speaking from my own experience.  I remember when I first was learning how to drive a car. Stressful.  Would be an understatement.

I was trying to not ride the brakes and focus on the road all while my mother was yelling at me!  Even in the midst of that stressful experience, I adapted and learned to drive.

Adaptation, I believe is a strong component to making new habits and behaviors.  When you’re a child you can’t walk, talk, and yet most of us grow up to do both.  Our parents don’t teach use how to walk, yet through the power of observation we learn as children to mimic those around us.

We also learn to mimic body language, facial expressions, sounds and speech.

At first, it takes a child a lot of effort to learn to walk and to do so consistently.  They have to learn to balance their body and develop the muscles to support, which are non-trivial in nature for a child.  During that time of learning we are exerting willpower, until we have learned the habit of walking.

When we start to develop a new skill or habit, we have to iterate.  With each iteration we are one step closer to developing the habit and less reliant on willpower alone.  A large part of our day-to-day life is enhanced by the habits we have developed for ourselves.

If you want to change your life, you have to start by changing the habits that no longer serve you.  One habit at a time.  We will be diving deeper into developing habits in future posts.  If you’ve enjoyed this post, please do me a favor, share it and sign up to be notified of future posts.