How Does Willpower Relate to Your Fitness Goals?
Have you heard the one about willpower?
That it’s an endless well you can dig out of?
Well it would be absolutely fantastic if that was the case. But unfortunately, it’s not.
Think of your willpower as a finite number; like starting the day with an allocated number of ‘will-points’. Let’s say you start the day with 100 will-points. Each decision you make subtracts from those points. The bigger the decision, the more points, the smaller, the fewer. The problem many folks run into is that they keep making the same decision over, using up their will-point daily on little things.
For example, decide what you’re going to eat for breakfast in advance. Maybe, at most, you have two options: this one or that one. Decide what you are going to wear to work each day. These are small decisions that use up will-points if you don’t set a routine.
Think of it a bit like your smartphone. At the start of the day, provided you charged your phone and had a good night’s rest, both your will-points and phone battery are at 100% maximum. But as you mindlessly use it to watch videos, surf social media and waste time on your phone, you use up the battery until it dangerously nears zero. When it comes time to when you actually need your phone for something important like to make an urgent call or to direct you to your destination, it’s out of juice.
How does this relate to diet and fitness?
If you go through your day letting choices be dictated by what they feel like in the moment, it’s likely, if not eventually, you give in to that sugar craving or skip that gym workout. Our diet and dietary habits affect us and our lives, either positively or negatively, depending on what we choose to eat.
How do we turn this around?
Use your willpower in advance to make decisions. Prepare in advance and have a plan, then stick to it. Here are some ideas:
- Know what you are going to eat before you eat it.
- Plan for the week.
- Set a routine breakfast, lunch and dinner.
- Limit options. it makes decisions easier and quicker. This saves you from grabbing that doughnut or buying those burgers at the end of your day when you’re depleted of both energy and willpower.
- Follow a training program.
- Have a coach. It’s easier to be told what to do than to think, especially when you have other important decisions to make.
The less decisions you have to make throughout the day on small things, the more attention you’ll have to focus on the things that really matter. Want us to help you set a plan and help make some of your fitness and nutrition decisions? Reach out to us today.
