Why Willpower Doesn't Work | Hacker News Reader

Why Willpower Doesn't Work

get.minimumviablefitness.com

5 pointsRedoubtable9 comments

Have you ever approached fitness resolutions with a “just do it” attitude? Were you disappointed that you summoned up all of the willpower that you could muster in January only to find yourself back to your old ways by March?

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Brief rant whenever I read this tripe, and reading it afterward reminds me of psychobabble, but I am ranting against psychobabble anyway...

I thought the notion of willpower being a finite resource was debunked (http://lifehacker.com/5967249/your-willpower-is-only-a-finit...). If you believe your willpower is finite, then it is finite; if you believe it is infinite and powerful, then it is infinite and powerful. This "finite resource" notion is a feel-good easy path out, a way to comfort yourself that it is okay that your will failed you because, after all, you only had so much.

I see this article confuses willpower with motivation. Willpower is what you use when your motivation has waned. Willpower is a tool to help you rekindle the fires of motivation or to press forward regardless because of an oath you made to yourself.

It comes down to what you believe, what mental constructs you have put into place, to inhibit or strengthen your willpower. You have the power to choose, every moment.

I'm not coming up with much when I search for cognitive overload being debunked or being a myth. Do you remember the name of the study?

I agree that willpower and motivation are separate issues but I'd be curious to see further references on the issue.

The study in question might be this one by Carol Dweck et al: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/16/1313475110.abst...

or http://pss.sagepub.com/content/21/11/1686.short

A theory I call demands theory is a little more nuanced. Willpower is a limited resource that gets exercised whenever we are overcoming psychological resistance to fulfill demands. What Carol Dweck demonstrated in my view is that its quite easy to frame context differently so that there is less psychological resistance toward doing a task. This means you won't have to exert your limited willpower resources.

To give an example, if you believe something will be fun, you will have less mental resistance toward the activities, so you will last longer. If you feel like something will be hard and unpleasurable, most people won't last as long as they use up more willpower to continue. The trick then is how can people adjust their mental orientation toward their day to day activities in such a way that their will power is maximized.

Or in 3 words: work as play.

Now that is fascinating. It explains a lot of the really depressing studies about how we perceive shows like The Biggest Loser and how it makes us both less sympathetic to overweight people as well as makes us perceive that exercise and health are not fun http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2013/01/2...

2010 Stanford study. I updated my post.

Thanks. Hmm. So you are saying that the Baumeister study doesn't apply because if we believe we power through we can? I feel awfully tinker bell about the issue now :-)

Quoting a comment found in the post you linked that led me to Wired : http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/mf-willpower/

"Some of his further studies have suggested that willpower is fueled by glucose—which helps explain why our determination crumbles when we try to lose weight. When we don’t eat, our glucose drops, and our willpower along with it. “We call it the dieter’s catch-22: In order to not eat, you need willpower. But in order to have willpower you need to eat,” says John Tierney, coauthor with Baumeister of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength."

Somewhat annoying article. First half is complete BS. For first timers it is about willpower. For most people who have never given a serious go at getting into shape it will be one of the hardest things they ever attempt. It's all about consistency. If they don't understand that and start to miss sessions after the first week and give up by March, well, sorry, but the fault is with them. People need to realize they're not going to magically drop 5 pounds after the first week by going to the gym 3 times and walking on the treadmill (which people could easily think after seeing the hordes of dieting supplement ads and other BS). What the author fails to mention about the "positive feedback look" is that one is not going to see any kind of reward unless they've been thoroughly consistent in their efforts and they are honest with themselves about said efforts. It's as simple as that.

However, the top skills they mention are spot-on. Verse yourself in them (especially self-compassion) and you will see results and feel better.

Dick asks if you ever approached fitness resolutions with a “just do it” attitude only to be disappointed that you summoned up all of the willpower that you could muster and still failed. A further discussion is happening on Lifehacker on the topic http://lifehacker.com/ask-an-expert-all-about-health-and-fit...

I am a believer in changing my environment to facilitate what willpower is powerless to accomplish. And one of the changes to my environment, which incidentally exhausted my limited reserve of willpower, was the removal of people from it who believe in willpower.

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