Five simple exercises for improving your willpower

Five simple exercises for improving your willpower

Being successful is largely about gaining control over some aspects of the
external world. But it's difficult to do that until you've got control over
the internal world of yourself. In life, the strength of your
self-discipline very often determines the likelihood of your success.
Because of that, self-control is a skill worth developing.

And it is just another skill that can be practiced and improved upon - like
tennis, playing the piano or programming a computer.

You can see evidence of this simply by watching children. Most of them have
terrible self-control. They squirm, lose their tempers, and do the wrong
thing no matter how much you threaten or reward them not to. A cookie jar
and an adult with a turned-back is all it takes to shatter any child's
self-discipline.

Here are some simple exercises you can do if you need to build up your own
willpower.

1. Drop a small bad habit: I went to the dentist for a check-up a couple of
years ago and found I'd developed my first ever cavity. The dentist asked me
if I'd been eating anything sweet. The only thing I could think of was the
teaspoon of sugar I added to my twice-daily cup of tea. Apparently, doing
this coats the teeth in sugar and leads to cavities.

No problem, I simply stopped putting sugar in my tea. At first, it didn't
taste as nice, but now I actually prefer it that way.

This is an example of dropping a small bad habit. Other examples include
giving up a regular afternoon snack, pressing the snooze button on the alarm
clock, or having one too many coffees a day. Giving up something small but
significant is great self-discipline practice.

2. Learn something boring but useful: Most people skip learning important
skills simply because doing so is boooorrrrrriiiing. Consider skills like
grammar, punctuation, financial literacy, technical skills and the like. I'm
sure you can think of at least one such skill that you could do with
brushing up on.

Go down to the library or bookstore and pick up a book on the topic you
choose. Make sure it's something necessary that you have distaste for. Now
read that book all the way through within the next week.

3. Do something you know you should every day for a week: We all have things
we know we should be doing but aren't. Perhaps for you it's regular
exercise, household chores, or getting up earlier. Choose one such activity
and set a week where you'll do it for a set amount of time every day. Make a
rule with yourself that for every day you miss, you'll add two days to the
end of that week.

4. Set yourself an achievable, but difficult goal with a date for reaching
it: Build yourself a willpower game around a particular goal. Perhaps it
could be giving up smoking, losing a certain amount of weight, or reading a
particular number of books. Organized events such as fun-runs are also good.


Make sure it's something that's reachable with a high level of certainty
(such as quitting smoking) as long as your will holds. In other words, no
external events other than your own self-discipline should be able to have a
major impact.

Develop a single-minded focus on achieving that goal by the set date. Don't
let yourself pass the day without reaching it.

5. Have a month where you ban yourself from putting anything off: Every day
we get tasks, which can be done immediately, but usually, aren't. Good
examples are paying the bills, emptying the dishwasher, or starting a
college assignment. Put aside a month where you'll refuse to allow yourself
to put such things off. As soon as the task becomes known, force yourself
just to do it. Don't allow yourself to wait for even five minutes before