Healthier Habits Made Simple -Willpower Alone Won’t Cut It

One of the biggest mistakes people make every year when it comes to forming healthier habits is relying on will power alone to stay consistent with their new behaviours. If you think back to all the times you tried to start something healthier only to realise after a few weeks in that you just don’t have the “willpower” to stick at it you can probably list more than one where it didn’t quiet work out the way you thought it would.
The problem is that there is isn’t a button you can press that instantly turns willpower on. It simply isn’t on-demand, and there isn’t an endless supply at any given time.

The human brain is literally wired to seek out the highest amount of reward for the least amount of effort. The caveman and women got really clever at setting traps so that they could feast for days off animal meat as opposed to wasting tons of energy running after it hoping it would tire itself out and die.

The brain had to get really clever at choosing when you use willpower and when to reserve it. The issue with humans today is that we are often get distracted with the cognitive loads that work, family and everything in between throws at us and willpower inevitably depletes in quick time.

If you’ve ever had healthy intentions at the start of the day (or night before) but as soon as you arrived home from work sat on the couch and ordered a takeaway, you now understand that you couldn’t just press the willpower button to power you up.
Therefore, willpower needs to be treated with caution, being careful how you use your time, energy and decisions during the day is a real conversation you should start having with yourself now. It’s best not rely on willpower as you sole strategy and there isn’t enough to go around. At least now you know focusing on the more practical steps in setting up habits instead offers much more opportunity.