What fuels your ability to resist temptation and make good decisions? Why do some days leave you feeling completely drained of self-control?
In their book Willpower, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney reveal that willpower operates like a muscle—it can be strengthened, depleted, and restored through proper nourishment. Their findings show that understanding and managing willpower is crucial for achieving goals and maintaining self-control.
Continue reading to explore the science behind willpower and discover practical strategies to boost your mental strength.
Overview of Willpower by Roy Baumeister & John Tierney
In a world obsessed with quick fixes and life hacks, the book Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney makes a case for what might be our most underutilized mental resource. Drawing on decades of psychological research, the authors reveal that willpower functions much like a muscle: It can be strengthened through exercise, it fatigues with overuse, and it requires proper nourishment to perform optimally. This book challenges the common assumption that self-control is merely a matter of character. Instead, it demonstrates that willpower is a finite resource that depletes throughout the day as we make decisions and exercise self-control, so even the most disciplined among us might reach for that cookie after a particularly demanding day at work.
Baumeister, a social psychologist and professor at the University of Queensland, has spent decades researching self-control, self-esteem, and human motivation. His “ego depletion” studies revolutionized our understanding of how willpower works, and he is among the most cited social psychologists in the world. Tierney contributes his expertise as a veteran science journalist and former New York Times columnist.
This overview will begin by discussing what willpower is, what fuels it, and what it’s used for. We’ll then go over some exercises you can do to strengthen your willpower, helping you to reach your goals while avoiding distractions and temptations. We’ll conclude by exploring some ways you can create healthy and positive pressure to keep yourself on track, even during those inevitable times when your willpower is running low.
Willpower Is a Form of Energy
Baumeister and Tierney begin by saying that willpower isn’t merely an abstract idea but a real force like physical strength.
Just like you use your muscles to accomplish physically challenging tasks, you use willpower to accomplish mentally taxing tasks—for instance, resisting temptations and staying focused on challenging or tedious work. Willpower also helps you to maintain your self-control in difficult or upsetting situations, such as emergencies and arguments.
We’ll discuss the source of your willpower and how you can strengthen your mental “muscles” to boost your willpower.
Glucose Is Your (Will)Power Source
Baumeister and Tierney explain that willpower, just as everything else in your body, relies on glucose as its primary energy source. This means that your ability to exercise self-control is directly linked to your glucose levels. This fact has profound implications for how your physical health and your eating habits can impact your willpower.
According to the authors, research has shown that willpower-intensive tasks, like staying focused for extended periods of time at work, deplete your glucose reserves just like physical exercise does. That’s why, for instance, people tend to get more irritable and impulsive when they’re hungry: Their glucose levels are low, and therefore their self-control is impaired.
However, this connection also means that you can replenish your willpower by consuming food or drinks that boost your glucose levels. It might be tempting to go for sugary, processed foods like candy and soda, but the authors say that such foods only give you short bursts of energy, followed by crashes when your blood sugar drops again. Healthier choices such as fruits and whole grains will create a more stable and sustained release of glucose, providing reliable and long-lasting fuel for your willpower.
How You Use Willpower
You now know what willpower is and where it comes from, but what is willpower for?
Baumeister and Tierney say that you use 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.
We’ll explore how you can effectively set and pursue goals without exhausting your willpower. We’ll then discuss the phenomenon called “decision fatigue,” which is what happens when you do run out of willpower.
Setting and Reaching Goals
The authors say that the basis of self-control is setting clear goals and 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Strengthening Your Willpower
The good news is that, also like a muscle, you can strengthen your willpower through training and practice. We’ll explore each of those approaches in more detail.
Training Your Willpower With Exercises
Baumeister and Tierney say that willpower training can enhance both how strong your willpower is, and how long you can exert your willpower without running out (your “stamina,” so to speak).
Essentially, anything that disrupts your usual habits and makes you consciously think about what you’re doing could be a good willpower exercise. So, for instance, if you tend to eat quickly, one effective exercise would be to force yourself to take smaller bites and thoroughly chew every bite before swallowing it. Doing so will feel unnatural, uncomfortable, and tedious—and that’s exactly why it will help you build up your willpower.
Practicing With Your Willpower Through Self-Improvement
However, Baumeister and Tierney say it’s crucial to approach self-improvement strategically—attempting to make too many changes at once often leads to failure, as it places excessive demands on limited willpower resources. Therefore, focusing on one self-improvement goal at a time will make you more likely to reach that goal.
However, the authors add that—much like how making progress gives you motivation to make more progress—reaching one self-improvement goal will also make it easier to reach other goals in the future. This is because self-improvement is good practice for your willpower. So, if one of your goals seems daunting at the moment, try pursuing an easier one first; working toward that first goal will strengthen your willpower, and make you better able to reach more difficult goals later on.
The authors also say that the greatest challenge is maintaining your discipline over extended periods of time. While many people can muster willpower for short-term efforts, sustaining self-control over the long term requires a much greater level of commitment. Aligning your self-improvement goals with your personal values will help you maintain focus and self-control, leading to much better results.
For instance, someone who highly values physical fitness would most likely be highly motivated to quit drinking. On the other hand, someone for whom physical fitness isn’t a top priority would need much more willpower to reach the same goal—therefore, if they try it too early in their willpower practice, they’re likely to become discouraged and give up after a short time. Just like people have to build up their muscles to lift heavier weights at the gym, they have to build up their willpower with easier goals before pursuing goals that will be more difficult for them.
Amplify Your Willpower With Positive Pressure
Let’s examine some strategies for using your existing willpower to its fullest extent. Baumeister and Tierney say that you can do this by putting various kinds of pressure on yourself, which will drive you to do your best even when you may not feel like it.
A Positive Pressure Toolbox
The authors provide a number of strategies to bolster your self-control and keep yourself focused on your goals. These “tools” are especially helpful when you’re feeling exhausted or overwhelmed by difficult situations—those are the times when your willpower is the weakest and also when you’ll most need willpower to keep your self-control and avoid making impulsive decisions.
Tool #1: Commitment
One way to generate external pressure for yourself is to publicly commit to a particular goal.
Commitment means making public declarations or promises about what you’re going to do, thereby creating a psychological barrier against giving up. This is because if you do give up after such a declaration, you would disappoint not only yourself but also the people you made that promise to.
Tool #2: Routine
The authors say that routine will provide much-needed structure and guidance during challenging times. Even simple daily habits, like making coffee at the same time every morning, help to reinforce your willpower.
Routine is helpful for two key reasons. First, it creates a sense of normalcy and gives you a feeling of control over your environment. This will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed in difficult situations. Second—assuming your habits are productive ones—your routine will keep you on task even when you don’t feel like you have the energy to work toward your goals.
Tool #3: Purpose
Baumeister and Tierney say that finding a strong sense of purpose is, perhaps, the most important strategy for reinforcing your willpower. The purpose you devote yourself to could be a lofty ideal like “justice” or “freedom,” but it could also be something more mundane, such as keeping your family housed and fed—everyone is different, so find what motivates you.
A sense of purpose will help you maintain your self-control in extreme circumstances. Believing that you’re engaged in a deeply meaningful task will make you much more willing to endure hardship, and empower you to overcome challenges that might otherwise seem impossible. Furthermore, getting fully engaged in something like your job, volunteer work, or creative pursuits is an effective way to avoid dwelling on your personal problems. This will stop you from wasting mental energy on rumination, and instead keep you focused on what needs to be done.
For instance, say you’re struggling to quit smoking, and you’ve decided that your purpose is to take care of your family. Recognizing that smoking could lead to serious illness or death—thereby making you unable to support your loved ones—will be a powerful motivator to keep you on track when your willpower falters. Also, focusing on your family instead of yourself will help keep your mind off of how difficult and unpleasant it is to break a smoking habit.
Religion Is an Especially Effective Tool
In addition to the toolbox above, Baumeister and Tierney say that getting involved in a religious or spiritual practice is an especially helpful way to boost and preserve your willpower. This is because religion and religious communities provide guidance, support, and accountability by their very nature.
First of all, religious and spiritual practices reduce the need for willpower by providing their followers with clear moral codes, rules of behavior, and routines or rituals to guide their day-to-day actions. This greatly simplifies decision-making processes and provides guidance in challenging situations, allowing practitioners to conserve their willpower. For example, a religion might have rules about what to eat, what clothes to wear, how to treat others, or what to do with your money—all decisions that would otherwise require some amount of mental energy.
Religious practices also encourage self-monitoring, often reinforced by the fear of being shunned by the community and the sense that you’re being watched by a higher power. Furthermore, in some belief systems, that higher power will punish you if you don’t act appropriately. This heightened awareness of your actions and their potential consequences serves as a constant reminder to exercise self-control.
The authors add that, if you don’t hold any religious or spiritual beliefs, there are similar communities in the secular world that could help you in many of the same ways. For example, gyms and martial arts schools tend to value consistency, discipline, and self-improvement, so members still feel pressured to work hard and will be held accountable if they don’t.
