Exercise Your Will Power | Motivational | Fitness motivation | Life Motivation

Willpower & Motivation

When you know the habit you want to change, is it a matter of using your willpower to change it and your motivation to keep going?  

Yes and no.

Yes because when it comes to habits willpower and motivation both have an important role to play but they’re not enough on their own as there are limitations to be aware of. 

Willpower is the power to exercise your will. 

To have control over what you do and self-discipline.  But the thing about will power is you only have so much of it and when it runs out – because we’re tired or hungry or sad – it’s hard to rely on.  This is why you can wake up with good intentions and lots of willpower but by the evening it’s decidedly harder to exercise your will.  Although you can get better at exercising willpower the more we do it, your brain likes your habits so wants you to keep them.  So although willpower has a role to play in changing your habits, it can’t be relied on to do it alone. 

The same goes for your motivation.  

Your motivation is the purpose or the ‘why’ behind what you do – in this case behind the new habit you want.  I think of motivation as having different levels or layers and each level or layer has a different strength.

Think of it as concentric circles –circles within circles like an onion.  The outer layer is your big ‘why’ or the purpose that motivates you. 

Say you want to develop some health and fitness habits– the big outer layer motivation is to be healthier and fitter because it makes you feel better, gives you more energy, to get the most out of life, you look better which makes you feel better, and that makes you a better happier person in yourself and relationships. 

In short, the outer layer is you want to develop healthy habits because being fit and healthy feels good and makes me a happier person. That’s all very well and good but it’s hard to keep that at the forefront of our mind in everything we do – and we know that willpower will only take us so far. Especially as we move in onto the next layer.  The next layer or circle in is your situation. 

For example, you have a busy life, you’re looking after your house, maybe you have a family or a hectic social life or many commitments, and you’re always rushing around from one thing to the next.  Then we get to the next layer in which is your career or job that maybe demands a lot from you in terms of energy and time. 

Next comes the final layer because right in the middle (like the bullseye on a dartboard) is a circle that represents you. It has the word ‘you’ of ‘me’ written in it.  This is you at this very moment or in the present moment when you’re thinking about it.  That’s the model but it’s not static, because the thickness of these layers changes over the day and the week, they may be different at the weekend to a Monday morning,  The point is your motivation which starts with the best of intentions can get hijacked or watered down as you move through the layers. 

So first thing in the morning you start with good intentions about changing your habits but then you get busy getting the breakfast done, getting to work, your energy dips and then you in the middle circle – i.e. you at that precise moment – isn’t so worried about the bigger picture because the needs of the moment are nearer to you than the big circle on the outside. And the needs of the moment are that you’re hungry, you’re busy and need something quick to boost your energy but more importantly at that moment to overcome the hunger and to do it quickly and easily in a satisfying way.  

That’s when you don’t want to just be relying on willpower and motivation and can do with something else to help you.