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Comment by danschumann | Hacker News Reader

According to marines, will power depletion is bs. This is anecdotal, sure, but I believe in momentum. If you have momentum, at some point, you don't want to fail at any will power task, because you are on a winning streak.

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I agree with momentum. I've been using the anology for years.

There are only so many points in life where it changes direction. Most of the time is doing what you did the past months/years, whatever is staying home getting drunk or working non-stop. Sure you can change direction, but it's not easy to fight inertia. You gotta apply some force to change direction!

Interesting. There is actually a concept from behavior analysis called "behavioral momentum." [1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_momentum

Reminds me of how the hardest part of many tasks is simply getting started.

Here's the anecdotal video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyakvZgU_gk NVM it was former navy seals who said it

Indeed.

Also, if you transform what you want, you reduce need for will power.

More likely you will hit physical exhaustion at some point before being "will depleted"

So perhaps the real metric is "motivational momentum"?

I think the real metric is "it's complicated" and that we shouldn't be hasty to draw over-generalized, innaccurate analogies.

I can agree with that.

You are confusing the [in]ability to take more and more decisions with momentum/inertia.

Often momentum is kept by NOT taking more difficult decisions.

Also, if you don't trust psychologists you should trust the marines even less.

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