I am quite confused by the concept of willpower, which is, as you put it, “fuzzy”. On one side, I encounter a lot of advice like yours, where we are urged to preserve it, like a limited resource. On the other hand, there are other advice out there that supposedly help us increase our willpower, using the same concepts that we increase our physical fitness with. These usually involve doing uncomfortable tasks, like having cold showers or focusing on specific objects.
If I assume willpower works the same way as muscles, creating a very systematic life where one barely needs to use it would weaken it in the long term. Though, it is possible that we are actually overusing so much that using systems actually gives the same kind of rest our body needs after a workout before it could get stronger.
Is there a good reconciliation of the preserve vs. develop willpower debate?
I recently read this Psyche article related to your question. While not an academic paper, they do cite them throughout the article. Here’s the text most relevant to the preserve vs. develop willpower debate:
According to a 2017 meta-analysis of many relevant studies, self-control training seems to be effective at improving ‘self-control stamina’ – the ability to exert inhibitory self-control for longer periods.
So, is that the solution to greater self-discipline? Exercise your self-control muscle and get better at inhibitory self-control?
Unfortunately, it’s not so simple. You might have noticed how I switched back and forth between ‘inhibitory self-control’ and the broader concept of ‘self-control’, but the two are not synonymous. Though boosting your inhibitory self-control or ‘willpower’ might sound appealing – perhaps you imagined yourself using inhibitory self-control to force yourself not to eat the cookies, just like you would if you forced yourself to brush with the opposite hand – it’s not clear that inhibitory self-control actually works this way in everyday life.
Take the findings from a 2017 study that involved volunteers recording their daily experiences of temptation for a week. The individuals who experienced more temptation were less likely to achieve their long-term goals, even if they also reported using more inhibitory self-control. This suggests that using inhibitory self-control to resist those cookies might help you in the moment, but not in the long run. So even if you use inhibitory training (eg, the teeth-brushing challenge) to build a brawny self-control muscle, your heroic efforts are likely to leave you looking more like Sisyphus than Hercules.
Hmm, my intuition leans strongly towards preserving willpower over practicing, but that’s mostly an intuition formed from personal experience, rather than based in anything robust.
One of the reasons I find thinking in systems super useful is that my willpower is highly variable with time (as a function of mental health, general stress levels, sleep, health, etc). So if I don’t have systems then at those times a lot of things in my life break, and I lack the willpower to fix them. So systems don’t matter too much during high-willpower times when I could mostly do the right thing anyway, but are basically a way to smooth out that curve, and make low-willpower times much better. And I would be very surprised if practicing using willpower removed those low-willpower periods.
I imagine the case is less obvious if you don’t have periods of relatively low willpower?
Thanks for these great ideas.
I am quite confused by the concept of willpower, which is, as you put it, “fuzzy”. On one side, I encounter a lot of advice like yours, where we are urged to preserve it, like a limited resource. On the other hand, there are other advice out there that supposedly help us increase our willpower, using the same concepts that we increase our physical fitness with. These usually involve doing uncomfortable tasks, like having cold showers or focusing on specific objects.
If I assume willpower works the same way as muscles, creating a very systematic life where one barely needs to use it would weaken it in the long term. Though, it is possible that we are actually overusing so much that using systems actually gives the same kind of rest our body needs after a workout before it could get stronger.
Is there a good reconciliation of the preserve vs. develop willpower debate?
I recently read this Psyche article related to your question. While not an academic paper, they do cite them throughout the article. Here’s the text most relevant to the preserve vs. develop willpower debate:
Hmm, my intuition leans strongly towards preserving willpower over practicing, but that’s mostly an intuition formed from personal experience, rather than based in anything robust.
One of the reasons I find thinking in systems super useful is that my willpower is highly variable with time (as a function of mental health, general stress levels, sleep, health, etc). So if I don’t have systems then at those times a lot of things in my life break, and I lack the willpower to fix them. So systems don’t matter too much during high-willpower times when I could mostly do the right thing anyway, but are basically a way to smooth out that curve, and make low-willpower times much better. And I would be very surprised if practicing using willpower removed those low-willpower periods.
I imagine the case is less obvious if you don’t have periods of relatively low willpower?