If I had to put my finger on one thing that's made the most difference to my life in terms of results, it would be consciously changing from being a chronic quitter to someone who sees things through.Here's how important it is to me:-Every day, I fire up Evernote and spend five minutes answering the same three questions:-What kind of person are you?Why are you doing what you do?Where do you want to be by...?In response to ...
Signs of Willpower Fatigue: How To Tell When You’re Burnt Out
If we know that willpower is a finite resource that we should treat sparingly, how do we know when we're pushing our limits and facing burnout?Apparently there isn't just a single tell-tale sign that can tell us whether we're suffering from willpower depletion or not. However, there are a few traits that seem to affect us all in this state:-Stronger emotional reactions - while depleted people don't show any single emotion, they do seem to react ...
The Surprising Little Known Facts about The Real Cost of Decisions
In a suburban mall, shoppers were randomly stopped and asked a series of questions about their shopping habits. The questions were designed to understand how many buying decisions the shoppers had made that day...They were then asked to attempt to solve a series of simple arithmetic puzzles and were told that they could quit whenever they wanted.Those shoppers that had made the most buying decisions that day quit sooner. They didn't have the same level of ...
How to Preserve Our Most Valuable Habit Building Asset – Willpower
In previous posts, I've described the strength model for willpower depletion (otherwise known as ego depletion). In short:-Our willpower is like a muscle: Using it comes at a cost by temporarily lowering our willpower reserves. If we rely too heavily on it, we'll burn out and lose self-controlWillpower can be built up over time if the right amount of stress is applied (do things that use willpower, without overdoing it)We have a limited global supply of it (no ...
How To Know if A Behavior is Habitual? Measuring Habits
All this talk about habits, but what actually is a habit?In simple terms, we can define a habit as an automatic behavior...Delving deeper, a habit has these main characteristics:-Bottom up - meaning that habits are automatic with no conscious thought or attention requiredImpulsive - does not require intentionDirectly cueued - triggered by some kind of external stimulusEffortless initiation - once cueued, they are pretty much automaticBrushing your teeth or having a shower each morning probably satisfies ...
How Long Does it Really Take to Form a New Habit?
I get a bit frustrated when the so common, but false, idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit is regurgitated.There are two main reasons for my hostility towards spreading this false notion:-It sets false expectations - "I'll just commit to this new positive ritual for three weeks and then it'll become automatic and I won't have to try so hard"... The harsh reality is that it'll take at least 3 times this long for ...
How to Be Prolific: A Look into the Mindsets of Prolific Creators
The one thing that really impresses me about someone is if they are continually shipping stuff. A writer that is continually pushing out novels, an artist that relentlessly produces music, a blogger that's been publishing videos for years... and so on. In a word, these people are prolific, and they generally have one thing in common. Prolific people make results happen.I'd hire someone prolific over someone who is smart and currently has a great skill set any ...
Why Trying Harder is a Terrible Strategy – The Strength Model for Ego Depletion
This time you're not going to quit...It's new year's eve and you've decided that this is the year. This is the year that you're going to finally get your body back into shape...3 times a week at the gym, without fail.And your strategy for doing this? "I'm just going to try really hard and make sure I follow through".Really? That's your strategy?You've tried this before, haven't you? And what happened last time? Herein lies the problem. ...
Showing Up Consistently and Using Brute Force
As I sit here and write this post, I'm experiencing resistance. I don't really want to write at the moment....and my brain is masterful at providing me with seemingly justifiable reasons and rationalizations as to why I can just put this off until tomorrow."You have nothing good to say, do some more reading and you can just write tomorrow"..."One day won't matter, take it easy... you've had a hard week""You've been writing every day for the past ...
How to Build Habits for Good – The Warrior Habits System
By taking the time to grasp a basic understanding of how our brains operate we can learn to use it more effectively and become a more prolific results-getter.Without this understanding is like owning a Ferrari without taking the time to understand and learn how to drive it properly. You can't get it to perform to its potential and you're simply not making the most out of the incredible machine.In this post I want to talk about ...