Willpower

Willpower is the amount of persistence and determination each of us have to complete a task or keep on going despite of unpleasant circumstances. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania have found that students with more willpower and self-discipline perform better at school and get higher grades than those students with higher IQ but with less willpower. They watch less TV, spend more hours doing homework and generally outperform their more impulsive peers.¹

However, willpower, just as Belief, crumbles in the face of adversity. No matter how much willpower a person has, at an inflection point–a highly stressful or provoking event–they freeze or loose their composure. A salesperson who studied and memorized the products he/she is selling, memorized the script, and trained to respond to certain cues, would freeze as soon as he/she encounter an angry customer. The solution to this, as the book, The Power of Habit suggests, is to envision yourself going through the inflection point and write down the specific details you would do come the event. Also, willpower is required when #changing a habit and to establish Keystone Habits.

A group of psychology PhD at Case Western conducted a study on willpower. They measured the capacity of willpower a person have after experiencing something unpleasant versus experiencing something pleasurable–eating cookies vs radishes. The result was, people who eat cookies exerted more willpower trying to solve an impossible puzzle and those who ate radishes gave up quicker that the other group. It goes to show that will power is a scarce resource that need to be spent wisely. A person who goes to the gym in the morning will have more determination to lift heavier than if he would go at night after a willpower-consuming work.