5. Habit of Success - When willpower becomes automatic

Willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success. And the best way to strengthen willpower is to make it into a habit. Sometimes it looks like people with great self control aren't working hard - but that's because they have made it automatic. 

By the 1980's, a theory emerged that became generally accepted: Willpower is a learnable skill, something that can be taught the same way everything else. But there were still unanswered questions. A skill is something that remains constant from day-to-day. If you have the skill to make an omelet on Wednesday, you still know how to make it on Friday. But that is not the case with willpower. Some evenings you may come home from work and have no problem going to the gym. Other days, you can't do anything beside lie on the couch and watch television. If willpower is a skill, then why doesn't it remain constant from day to day? 

Later studies found that willpower isn't just a skill. Its a muscle and it gets tired as it works harder, so there is less power left over for other things. It helps clarify why otherwise successful people succumb to extramarital affairs (which are more likely to start late at night after a long day of using willpower at work) or why good physicians make dumb mistakes (which most often occur after a doctor has finished a long, complicated task that requires intense focus). If you want to do something that requires willpower - like going for a run after work - you have to conserve your willpower muscle during the day. If you use it up too early on tedious tasks, all strength will be gone by the time you get home.

But will exercising willpower muscles make them stronger the same way using dumbbells strengthen biceps? One study proved that : As people strengthened their willpower muscles in one part of their lives, that strength spilled over into everything. When you learn to force yourself to go to the gym or start your homework or eat a salad instead of a burger, you are changing how you think. You get better at regulating your impulses. You learn how to distract yourself from temptations. And once you have gotten into that willpower grove, your brain is practiced at helping you focus on a goal.

Willpower becomes a habit by choosing a certain behaviour ahead of time and then following that routine when an inflexion point arrives.

It looks like some people are able to create willpower habits relatively easily while others struggle no matter how much training and support they received. Why is this difference?

When people are asked to do something that takes self control, if they think they are doing it for personal reasons - if they feel like its a choice or something they enjoy because it helps someone else - its much less taxing. If they feel like they have no autonomy, if they are just following orders, their willpower muscles get tired much faster. For companies and organisations, this insight has enormous implications. Simply giving employees a sense of agency - a feeling that they are in control, that they have genuine decision making authority - can radically increase how much energy and focus they bring to their jobs.