How do you effectively exercise willpower to achieve your goals? Willpower is the mental energy you expend for self-control—forcing yourself to work when you’d rather relax, or choosing a healthy meal over junk food. The key is recognizing that willpower is finite, like a battery that drains with overuse and needs recharging.
In their book Willpower, Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney explain how to maximize your limited willpower through strategic planning and sustained motivation. They argue that clear goals, monthly schedules, and visible progress tracking create systems that reduce the amount of willpower you actually need to expend, helping you coast toward your objectives rather than constantly fighting uphill.
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How You Use Willpower
In their book Willpower, Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney say that you exercise willpower for any act of self-control. As such, it’s crucial for pursuing goals, which generally require you to exert consistent effort while avoiding distractions and temptations. Another way to think about this is that willpower is what you use to make good decisions, as opposed to easy decisions—for example, cooking and eating a healthy meal to support your health goals instead of ordering a pizza.
It’s also important to recognize that willpower, like any other form of energy, is limited. Just like your phone runs out of battery power if you overuse it, your mind can run out of willpower if you overexert yourself and don’t take time to recharge.
(Shortform note: Making good decisions instead of easy decisions may make you think of discipline, rather than willpower—and, in fact, many people use the two terms interchangeably. However, many psychologists and productivity experts say that willpower is the ability to resist short-term temptations to pursue long-term goals, while discipline is a support system of habits and plans that reduces the need for willpower. For instance, someone who’s in the habit of going for a jog at 5 a.m. every morning might seem to be using a superhuman amount of willpower, but in reality, they’re barely using any; they aren’t really choosing to go for an early morning run each day, they’re just following a habit.)
Setting and Reaching Goals
The authors say that the basis of self-control is setting clear goals, then working to achieve those goals. The key is to do so while spending as little of your limited willpower as possible, so you don’t become tired and give up. You can achieve this with effective planning and motivation.
This is because willpower is, in essence, how you force yourself to stay on task and do things you don’t want to do. Having a plan helps you to stay on task and minimizes the need for further decision-making (which, remember, requires willpower). Similarly, the right motivation makes you want to do a task, rather than needing to spend a great deal of willpower to force yourself to do it. Therefore, these two strategies minimize how much willpower you actually have to use while pursuing your goals.
We can illustrate this principle with a metaphor: Imagine that you’re a car, and your willpower is your fuel. Forcing yourself to stay on task and do something you don’t enjoy is like driving up a steep hill—it requires a lot of power, and therefore a lot of “fuel.” On the other hand, effective plans and the right motivations will instead put you at the top of a hill, allowing you to coast down much more easily.
| Neurodivergence Affects Willpower Use Baumeister and Tierney’s tips for minimizing willpower use won’t work for everyone. For instance, people with ADHD are likely to struggle with making plans and following through on them, and they’re liable to lose interest in tasks no matter what motivations they have. As doctors Edward Hallowell and John Ratey explain in ADHD 2.0, people with ADHD often struggle with planning and following through on plans due to differences in their ability to organize, prioritize, and carry out tasks. Therefore, making plans is often a frustrating ordeal; such people tend to overlook important steps, pursue too many goals at once, and under- or overestimate how long certain tasks will take. Furthermore, the brain’s natural reward system also functions differently in the ADHD brain, being oriented toward immediate gratification rather than long-term goals. As a result, following a plan—which is meant to reduce willpower use—often requires a great deal of willpower. For example, someone with ADHD might have a set gym schedule, but find that the immediate pleasure of playing video games is more compelling than the long-term benefits of regular exercise, so they can only stick to that plan through sheer willpower. Hallowell and Ratey say that the best way for people with ADHD to stay focused and motivated (in other words, the way for them to spend the least willpower) is to seek out challenges that play into their natural interests. For instance, someone who has trouble sticking to an exercise plan might find that they really enjoy doing martial arts and will go to classes eagerly instead of trying to force themselves to go to the gym. |
Making Plans to Reach Your Goals
The authors say that, in addition to helping you stay on task, planning is helpful due to the psychological phenomenon known as the Zeigarnik effect. This effect states that people tend to remember unfinished tasks more clearly than finished ones, which explains why unfinished tasks tend to persistently occupy your thoughts and drain your mental energy.
However, making a plan to complete those tasks can greatly reduce how much time you spend dwelling on them and how much they worry you. Therefore, having a clear plan will largely undo the Zeigarnik effect, even before you’ve finished everything that you’re worried about.
(Shortform note: Contrary to what Baumeister and Tierney write here, many psychologists frame the Zeigarnik Effect as a positive thing, noting that it has the potential to boost memory and motivation. In the original study, psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik found that people who didn’t finish certain tasks remembered specific details about those tasks much more clearly than those who were able to complete them. Subsequent studies have shown that unfinished tasks motivate people to go back to them. This suggests that you can use the Zeigarnik Effect to your advantage by intentionally stopping mid-task—for instance, if you’re writing a report, stop in the middle of a section to take a break rather than finishing that section and starting a new one when you get back.)
When it comes to making those plans, Baumeister and Tierney recommend making monthly schedules for yourself, rather than daily, weekly, or yearly ones. They say this approach provides you with a beneficial balance between structure and flexibility, allowing you to adapt to unforeseen circumstances while maintaining a clear direction toward your goals. In contrast, planning more than a month in advance can leave you scrambling to update your plans as unforeseen circumstances arise, while only planning a day or a week at a time can cause you to lose sight of your long-term goals.
(Shortform note: The rule of thumb to schedule one month at a time may not be the best approach for everyone. In Limitless, learning coach Jim Kwik explains that experts have identified four kinds of genius, each of whom excels at different skills and different ways of thinking. If you’re extremely good with details (what Kwik calls a steel genius), you might find it more natural and more effective to plan out individual weeks in great detail. Conversely, if you’re an excellent long-term planner (a tempo genius) you’d likely find that the opposite is true: You get the best results when you plan far more than a month in advance, and your plans are designed well enough to allow for flexibility if something you didn’t foresee comes up.)
Finally, Baumeister and Tierney warn that having too many different objectives can lead you to a state of mental paralysis characterized by endlessly cycling thoughts, unhappiness, and a lack of motivation. Therefore, it’s crucial to prioritize your goals in a way that aligns with your values. That way, if you find that you don’t have the time or energy to achieve all of your goals, you can still be certain you’re working toward the goals that are most important to you.
For example, if you value your family more than anything else, it’s likely that working so you can support them will be one of your top priorities. Since you’d devote a lot of time and mental energy to that goal of earning money for your family, other goals—such as, say, losing weight—would have to move farther down your list of priorities.
(Shortform note: In addition to aligning your goals with your values, it’s important to make sure your goals are aligned with one another. In Goals!, Brian Tracy writes that you may unintentionally sabotage yourself by setting conflicting goals, meaning goals that are impossible to pursue at the same time. For instance, if you wanted to have children and write a book in your spare time, you’d be setting yourself up for failure; caring for a young child all but guarantees that you won’t have enough free time to get a book written. Therefore, you’d have to decide which goal is more important to you—you could either wait to have children until your book is finished, or wait to write the book until your children are older and don’t need constant attention.)
The Cycle of Motivation
The other way to minimize your willpower use is to keep yourself motivated. On this subject, Baumeister and Tierney say that the real secret isn’t getting motivated, but rather staying motivated over the long term. Fortunately, you can use motivation and work to create a loop, each feeding into the other to form a largely self-perpetuating cycle.
To begin this cycle, consider the reason behind whatever goals you set: Perhaps you want to improve your health or self-image, make a positive change in the world, or simply have some fun. Whatever it is, that reason can give you the initial motivation to take action. Unfortunately, that motivation doesn’t last forever, which is why it’s so common for people to start new projects and then lose steam after a short time.
(Shortform note: If you’re having trouble finding the motivation to start (or restart) something you need to do, another option is to start small. As Mark Manson says in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, doing something—anything—to make progress will help you overcome your urge to procrastinate and will make the rest of that task seem easier. For example, if you have to write a long report or essay, you might start by setting a goal to write just the first sentence. Once you’ve broken through your procrastination by taking that first step, continuing to work on it won’t seem so daunting.)
To help you stay on task over the long term, Baumeister and Tierney point out that when you notice that you’ve made tangible progress toward a goal, it boosts your motivation to keep working. This increased motivation then drives you to put forth more effort, leading to further progress, and so on. Therefore, the secret to staying motivated is to come up with highly visible ways to track your progress toward your goals, and to celebrate small milestones.
For example, if you’re trying to lose a large amount of weight, you might weigh yourself every day and use a simple spreadsheet to track the dates and your weight. You could then treat yourself to a small gift for, say, every five or 10 pounds you lose.
(Shortform note: This motivation loop is the result of a chemical in your brain called dopamine. In The Molecule of More, the authors explain that making progress toward something you want causes your brain to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that creates feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. This natural reward system encourages you to repeat those goal-directed actions in the future. In short, because of dopamine, progress leads to pleasure, which in turn motivates further progress, creating the motivation loop that Baumeister and Tierney describe.)
Decision Fatigue
Baumeister and Tierney say that you should minimize your willpower expenditures because you only have a limited amount of willpower, and it’s possible to run out—a condition known as decision fatigue. When suffering from decision fatigue, you become more susceptible to impulsive behavior, poor decision-making, and diminished performance on tasks requiring self-control.
(Shortform note: Not only is it possible to run out of willpower, but you may also be in a near-constant state of decision fatigue without even knowing it. As psychologist Benjamin Hardy writes in Willpower Doesn’t Work, simply living in modern society constantly drains your willpower. This is because you always have countless options to choose from (what to watch, what to eat, what to wear, and so on), as well as countless temptations like addictive social media feeds and easy access to alcohol or other drugs.)
Decision fatigue leads people to minimize the effort they put into making decisions, much like how they’d try to avoid using a muscle that’s already tired and sore. In fact, people who have exhausted their willpower tend to avoid decision-making altogether: They’ll default to “standard” or pre-set options, or else impulsively agree to the first option they’re presented with. For example, someone who goes shopping for a car while in a state of decision fatigue might simply buy the first car they’re offered at the sticker price, instead of looking for a car that more closely matches their needs and haggling for a better deal.
In less extreme cases of decision fatigue, people often simplify their decision-making criteria by focusing on just one factor, rather than thoroughly comparing their options. Someone in this state might go to a restaurant and just order the cheapest thing on the menu, rather than comparing their options to find the best combination of cost and enjoyment.
| Counterpoint: Decision Fatigue Is Still Being Studied and Debated The concept of decision fatigue is not universally accepted. Critics argue that studies of decision fatigue have been fundamentally flawed, leading to inconsistent findings. This seems to weaken the case that decision fatigue is the result of a real and finite resource (willpower) being depleted, or at least indicates there are also other factors at work in people’s decision-making processes. Furthermore, recent research suggests that people’s beliefs about willpower strongly influence how susceptible they are to decision fatigue. That is to say, people who think willpower is limited are likely to make the kinds of impulsive decisions that Baumeister and Tierney describe. Conversely, those who believe that willpower is infinite are better able to maintain their self-control even after making numerous decisions. |
Learn More About Using Willpower
If you want more context about how to exercise your willpower, you can check out our full guide to Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney.
