PNTV: Willpower by Roy Baumeister & John Tierney (#149​)

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney. I do not have the book because I read it on Kindle, but I do have a Philosopher's note here. And this is one of my favorite books, one of my favorite subjects. Roy Baumeister is one of the world's leading social psychologists, one of the most cited research scientists on the planet, and this is literally the bible on willpower. We also have, and we featured recently, the Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. We'll have a video coming up on that soon. But here's what Roy and John Tierney tell us. They say improving willpower, the surest way to a better life. Improving willpower is the surest way to a better life. Conservative research scientists who say things like that inspire me and they make me pay attention. So let's look at our my favorite five big ideas from this great book, which is packed with great ideas. Number one Way to Boost Willpower I'm going to focus on the practical here. The number one way to boost willpower is to eat glucose. Glucose. Glucose depletion is one of the best ways to annihilate your willpower. If you haven't eaten well, whether it's in the morning or in the evening, you're going to be a different human being than when you're well fed. You might have noticed that well fed, well rested equals different version of you. Then end of the day, getting hungry, your willpower collapses. It's amazing. But one of the best ways to boost your willpower is to eat. Notice when you start doing things you aren't particularly proud of. Willpower breakdowns and see if it comes right around the time when your glucose is dropping. Boost it. I have the plus and the dot dot, dot here to represent two other things that are big that we talk about in other places. So we're not going to go into a ton of detail now, but two other huge ways to boost your willpower. Use your willpower wisely to create a good night of sleep. I'm sure you've noticed when you're more rested, you have more willpower. Rest is big meditation. They talk about it, everybody talks about it. It's like anaerobic conditioning for your brain, right? You're just sitting there. Strength workout Getting your brain strong. Literally rewiring your brain and your Ability to step in between stimulus and response, Control your impulses, focus your attention. All the things we want to do. First big idea, Second big idea, pre commit. So one of the focuses that we're going to get to in the end here, I'll just skip there a little bit. Right now we want to make this all a game, and we want to play on offense, not defense. So our willpower is finite. We talked about this in the one thing. Gary Keller had a great metaphor. He basically said our willpower is like our cell phone. You start with a full charge in the morning and then it goes down. Your willpower is finite. You only have so much of it. So you need to use it wisely. And you don't want to constantly be using it to put out fires and to deal with crises. What these guys, Roy and John Tierney tell us, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney tell us is use your willpower offensively and wisely such that you're creating a life where you don't have fires. Right? And one of the ways to do that is to pre commit. So the best way to describe pre commitment is to think of the Odyssey. You have Odysseus on his ship sailing past the sirens. Now, he knows it's going to be unbelievably tempting. So what does he do? He has his men tie him to the master so he can't respond to their temptations. What do the men do? That's pre commitment. What if his men do? They plug their ears. They pre commit to a course of action. They will not be distracted. That's what pre commitment is. You can do pre commitment by deciding in advance what's okay and what's not okay. And creating your life such that you've pre committed your future self to a certain course of action. If you decide you're going to eat more healthfully, for example, then you can throw away all the junk and you can no longer buy it. That's a form of pre commitment. If you have a problem with overspending and you're going out with friends to a mall or whatever, leave your credit card at home. That's a pre commitment. So you want to find ways to use your willpower wisely. Be on the offensive. Pre commitment is a huge, huge practice. This next idea is a funny one. Tidy up. So get this. They've done experiments where they bring people in and they show them a messy desk or even a messy website versus a clean desk and website. And would you believe that the individuals who saw the messy desk and the messy Website had diminished willpower. Simply tidying up. Being in a clean environment increases your willpower. That's crazy. So look around you right now. Are you tidy or are you messy? This is a really cool way to be on the offense. Use some willpower to clean up your work environment. Keep it clean. Everything has a place. Doesn't need to be a big deal. But then return your desk to a ready state at the end of the day and you know you're going to start it with a clean environment. Might get a little messy, but you're going to bring it back. Tidying up is a surprisingly cool way and effective way and subtle way to boost your willpower. So, so do that tidy up. Next. Big idea. Bright lines. So I'm a proud law school dropout. There we go. Bolt, class of 2000. But I did take a little bit of contract law for that part of a semester. I was there. And attorneys have something called bright lines. Bright lines, you want to make a contract really, really straightforward bright lines. There's no ambiguity about what everyone's agreeing to. Well, we want to do the same thing with ourselves. You want to create these really, really bright lines. So if you want to reduce your smoking or drinking, for example, you can say, well, I want to drink more moderately. More moderately. Where does that fall? Does that fall here or does that fall there? Or here? Or there? I'm not sure. Right. That's not a very bright line. A bright line would be, I am never going to smoke or drink again. I have total abstinence. That is an extraordinarily bright line. And paradoxically, it makes it unbelievably easier for you to honor that. You don't need to negotiate with yourself every single time and then fall down a slippery slope into a habit or behavior that you're not proud of. Bright lines get really clear on that example. For me, I used to waste way more time than I like on ESPN or Google News or or in my email. I have a zero policy on espn. I don't go there. That's a lot easier for me. Then I'm going to do it less. What does that mean? That doesn't mean anything. And then when I'm stressed and tired and I need to eat or rest, I'm most likely to say, oh, that's cool. Now's the time to go five times in the last 10 minutes or whatever. I got to make sure I get that story, too. But when I have a bright line of zero, it's unbelievably easy to do. So get clear on the habits that you want to create and see if you're creating fuzzy lines or bright lines. Really big idea. Then we're back to our fifth idea here of making it a game. Again, this is all supposed to be fun. A and B, you want to play this game offensively. Use your finite willpower wisely to create great habits like this. And then know that as you optimize one part of your life and you exercise willpower in one part of your life, it extends across your entire life. Super cool. So individuals who came in and were asked to do something small, whether it's squeeze a little hand grip or quit using curse words or to balance their checkbooks, what they found was that other aspects of their life had increases in willpower as well, outside of what they were asked to focus on. So when you focus on things that really inspire you to change, know that you're building an overall willpower muscle, if you will, which will extend into other parts of your life, which is very cool. So again, remember, boosting your willpower is the surest way to a better life. This is worth investing your energy into and I hope that you enjoyed this. We're going to do a class, by the way, in very short period of time, a week or so from the time that this video is being recorded and shared on habits101. Using willpower to boost our habits and the subconscious practices that we engage in that drive our lives. I'll put a link so you can learn more about that. But for now, five big ideas. Remember, eat. Depleted glucose is the best way to deplete your willpower. And rest and meditate. These are good things for willpower. Pre commit. Like Odysseus tied to the mast. Or his friends, his sailors, with their ears plugged to avoid the sirens. How can you pre commit in your life? Throw away the junk, don't bring your credit card out, whatever. Tidy up. Messy websites, messy desks equals decreased willpower. Not good. We want to boost it. So tidy up. Bright lines, be clear. Moderate isn't bright, that's fuzzy. Abstinence zero is very, very bright. And there we go. It's all game. Hope you enjoyed. What was the big idea that landed the most for you? That resonated, that reminded you of something you already knew and aha. Perhaps, how can you integrate that into your life more starting today? Get on that, have fun and I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another great day. See you.

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