How to Finish What You’ve Started

“Why can’t I get myself to exercise after work? I know I need to…I just don’t do it.”

“I always do really well for two weeks, and then things fall apart.”

“Ugh, why can’t I resist when people bring in donuts?”

It’s pretty darn easy to get down on yourself in these situations.  Rather than feeling like you’re in control of your own destiny, you feel like you don’t really have any control at all.  No matter how badly you want to turn your life around, for whatever reason your brain can’t get your body to do what it needs.

Today, you’re going to learn that these issues are not due to a lack of motivation, but rather your willpower.  Like an old-school gamer, today you’re going to make changes to finally start following through.

I’ve turned my life into a video game, so I live and breathe this stuff. 

Today, you’re going to do the same.

Willpower Points

 Whenever you play a role-playing game, you have health points that represent your lifeline.

As you go exploring and hunting, you will encounter bad guys that deplete your health points.  The tougher the bad guy, the harder they hit, and the more hit points you’re going to lose.  If you happen to fight lots of bad guys all at once, your health will deplete faster than if you were just fighting one baddie.

Your goal is to stay alive, defeat the bad guys, and level up.

In order to succeed, you need to be selective in which types of bad guys you pick fights with.  Fight a guy that’s too powerful, or too many bad guys at once, and your character gets overwhelmed, your heath bar hits zero, and you have to start over.  Suck!

Your willpower works just like a character’s health points (HP) in a video game.

People tend to suck at actually following through with things for a few key reasons:

1) Attack a bad guy that’s too powerful.  When you haven’t exercised in a decade and you sign yourself up for 10 miles of running every day, you’re going to fail miserably after two days.  If you decide you’re going to go from eating 6,000 calories of fast food per day to a diet of only vegetables overnight, you will probably gnaw your arm off.  You’re upping the difficulty WAY too much. Start small.

2) Attack too many bad guys at once.  When playing an RPG, don’t run up to that group of goblins and attack all of them at once; you’re going to get overwhelmed and get your ass kicked (Right, Leeroy?).  Instead, pick them off one by one by one and your chance of survival will jump approximately 132.33% (repeating of course).  This is why most New Years Resolution makers fail miserably within two weeks – they try to make twenty changes at once and quickly get overwhelmed.

3) Attack without recovering!  Anytime you get into a battle, you’re probably going to lose some health, that’s just how games work.  If you take the time to recover, your health will be back by the next battle.  However, if you fight ten battles in a row without any rest, you run into some trouble. The next battle might be against some super easy baddie, but could easily result in a game over! After spending all day taxing your body with work and difficult decisions, coming home and forcing your body to make habit changes is going to be incredibly difficult. Give your willpower points a chance to recharge.

If you happen to suck for one of the reasons above, it’s okay.  What’s important is that starting TODAY, you learn how to NOT suck.

It all comes down to one universal truth:

Like our health points in a video game…

Willpower is a finite resource!

As we’ve learned from The Power of Habit, our bodies will do everything possible to be more efficient, opting in every situation to use less willpower and pick the path of least resistance.  Look at your habits now to see what happens when our bodies operate on auto-pilot: little to no brainpower or willpower required.

HOWEVER…

When you want to CHANGE a habit or replace an old habit with a new one, your brain has to start working again, requiring you to use some of your Willpower Points to get things done.  Don’t believe me?

Check out this study on chocolate and radishes: Subjects were split into two groups and presented with fresh baked cookies and radishes.  One group could eat cookies and the other group was ONLY allowed to eat radishes.  Afterward, both groups were given an impossible maze to solve.  The group that had to restrain themselves from eating cookies gave up more than TWICE as fast as the group that was allowed to eat cookies!  They wasted so much brainpower on keeping themselves from eating the cookies that they became frustrated faster when it came to solving a maze.

How about this study on number memorization? Students were split into two groups: One was tasked with memorizing a two digit number, and the other tasked with memorizing a seven digit number.  Afterward, both groups were encouraged to walk down the hall to grab a snack, either fruit or a piece of cake.  Those students tasked with memorizing seven digits were TWICE as likely to pick cake over fruit than the students who had to memorize only two numbers!

I know its weird to imagine, but our self control and will power points are finite resources!  This means a few things:

• The more willpower we use up on certain tasks, the less we’ll have to go around for other tasks.
• The more difficult the habit to change, the more willpower is used, and the less we’ll have to spend elsewhere.
• If we try to do too many changes at one, our willpower gets depleted faster and we’re more likely to give up sooner.

Now that you know your willpower isn’t unlimited, you can adjust your behavior to make sure you don’t run out:

1) Attack a lower level bad guy.  Yes, it’s fun to wake up and say, “I’m going to run a marathon tomorrow!” or, “I’m only going to eat healthy starting right NOW!”  However, because these changes are SO drastic, our bodies are going to fight us EVERY step of the way.  You don’t set out as a level 1 noob and try to slay a dragon. Instead, tackle level one bad guys and build up your experience, strength, and momentum.  So, PICK EASY TASKS.

• If you want to eat better, start by cutting back on just one less soda each day, or making one less trip to drive-thru, or one more meal cooked at home.  Small, tiny changes over a long period of time can create massive results.  Ask Optimus Prime.
• If you want to exercise more, start by only doing push ups every other day.  Again, the goal isn’t to get fit overnight (it doesn’t work that way), the goal is to build the habit of, “today I am going to exercise,” until it becomes automatic. THEN you can increase the difficulty or complexity.
• If you want to eventually run a half-marathon, commit to just five minutes of jogging every day.  The jogging isn’t the important part; the important part is following through with something on a daily basis until it becomes automatic.

2) Attack only one bad guy at once.  If you want to start building better habits, don’t pick ten different habits to change at once.  PICK ONE.  Do that one change repeatedly until it’s automatic, and then move onto the next habit change. Remember, your resources are limited, so pick an easy habit to change and be successful.  THEN, you can increase the difficulty or add something new, but keep it simple.  Please don’t suck at habit change!  This holds true for exercise, diet, and productivity.

3) Pick the order of your battles carefully.  If you struggle with being productive or making changes after work, try making your new habits BEFORE work.  Life tends to always get in the way, so why not get the important stuff out of the way before life has a chance?  Exercise FIRST thing in the morning, before you have a chance to use up any willpower on anything at work.  If you struggle with making healthy choices by the end of the day, lay out all of your meals BEFORE the day even starts.

4) Use less willpower!  I’ve already covered the topic of automation previously, but here it is in a nutshell: be more like a robot!  Remember, you need willpower when you are making new decisions and building new habits.  The more you can automate, the easier you can make it for your body to take the path of least resistance, the less willpower your brain will use, and the more likely you’ll be to succeed!

-Steve

PS – Big props to my buddy Matt Madeiro for taking on a monumental task.  He’s trying to raise enough money to buy a freakin school bus for the schoolchildren of Nepal by his 25th birthday.  He’s done a great job on his site.  Congrats Matt, hope you can pull it off man!

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photo sources: Kid and Giant, Secret of Mana, Dragon Quest Blue Slime, Ness Earthbound, Final Fantasy IX Lego