Here's Why Willpower Never Works!

For many of us, we get stuck in this cycle of stop-start, stop-start, stop-start in relation to trying to get to our health goals and of course reach our fat loss goals and aspirations too. And the thing that we find for many of us when we're, when we're stuck in this cycle of stopping and starting is that we're trying to get the job done simply using willpower. There's this idea in our mind, it's like, well, if I just force myself to do it, if I just hold myself accountable, and if I just be disciplined then I will be able to follow through to the point of getting results. The problem is that we find, of course, is 9 times out of 10, we'll start on a Monday, and by Wednesday or Thursday, we've already given up. And then the following week, or maybe 2 weeks pass, and then we start again, and we're like, right, okay, cool, I think I'm ready. From Monday, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to start eating better, I'm going to start exercising each and every other day, and I'm going to get my rest and recovery on point, and blah blah. And we make up all these statements that we're gonna do this thing, and this time I'm going to follow through because I must and I should, and so on. And what we find over time is that willpower doesn't really work. So then we start to then believe that, well, I guess I don't have willpower, I guess I'm not very disciplined. And the catch is, that's not the case at all. It's just the fact that willpower is a conscious act. So what that means is it's something you have to think about. It's like, all right, well, leading a healthy lifestyle is not my current norm. It's not my current M.O., my modus operandi. It's not the normal thing for me to do, to eat well and to, to train regularly and to sleep well and so on, because I'm stuck in this pattern and this rhythm of doing the opposite, eating not so well, tending to often go for convenience foods and packaged and processed foods, which of course don't serve the goals. And then of course, we often are avoiding exercise or not doing anywhere near enough of it to get the goals that we want. And quite often we're sacrificing our sleep and recovery because we like to stay up late binge-watching Netflix and things like that, because we feel like we deserve it after our hard day at work. Now, The catch with that, of course, is all of those things happen automatically. Those are subconscious behaviors because you're now in that routine. You've done it probably for multiple years, and therefore it doesn't really require any effort for those things to take place. They just happen. They're just the norm now. But yet when we try to act differently in order to get a new outcome— oh, I want to lose weight now— then of course we have to consciously choose to eat better. We have to consciously choose to prepare and to cook healthier foods, or, and even to buy them when we go to the supermarket, rather than buying the things that we have been buying that led us to where we are. Same goes for exercise. We now have to consciously choose to go to the gym and so on. So using willpower, which is a conscious thing, is what we try to do. It's like, okay, well, I'm going to will myself to do this thing. I'm going to make myself do it. So the problem is it becomes and often feels like there's just too much resistance, like it's, it's always a struggle. It's always something you have to force yourself to do because it's not yet an unconscious behavior. It's not just part of who you are. Now, of course, if we do that for a long enough period of time, if we were actually able to follow through with this willpower, sooner or later it would get to a point where, of course, it feels much easier and we could find a rhythm that works. But what we often have to do in order to speed up that process is actually get to know self. Now, this sounds like a bit of an airy-fairy thing. What do you mean, get to know self? But the catch is many of us have no idea who we really are. We think we do. Oh, well, I'm, I'm Tyrone and I'm a health coach and so on. But what I mean is who we really are at the level of our core. Like, who are we? How do we show up and operate? What are the things that trigger us? What are the things that trip us up and slow us down or make me act in ways that aren't in alignment with the goals that I want? Because if I want to lose weight, but yet I keep showing up as this guy that appears to not want to lose weight, well, he keeps eating junk food, he keeps binging, he keeps avoiding the gym and training and so on. Like I say, I want one thing, but yet I'm acting in a totally different way. So we have this idea that says, oh, well, I'm this particular person that wants these things. But yet we're showing up as a totally different individual, and we keep serving that individual that we say we no longer want to be. So what we need to do over time is learn who this guy is and how he's operating so that we can consciously choose to act differently. Now, there is a simple process that we use. Now, these— it's just a 4-question process that we ask ourselves at the end of each day. Now, it can be real short, or of course you can go into depth, and some days you'll get lots of insight come up for you. And different things you need to write about or type about if you prefer to do it in a digital format. But either way, it's just learning to peel back some of the layers. And this is a very simple way to get started before going in depth with like full-on journaling or stacking and things like that, like we use here in my coaching program. But what we do is we would go about our day regardless of what it is, whether it's just a normal day or a day where we're striving to achieve and do something more. When we get to the end of the day, we simply sit with ourselves for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and we ask ourselves the following 4 questions. Now, I learned this process from one of my coaches, and I find it very effective, especially if you are in the middle of a project or something like, I'm trying to get to my body transformation goals, I'm going to do this 6-week or this 12-week plan, here's what I need to do to keep focused. So what we do, we get to the end of the day, and as I say, we ask ourselves these simple 4 questions. Question number 1: What did I do well today? Or you could reframe it and say, well, what went well today? So basically we're looking for the positives. What were the good things that happened during the day today in relation to you trying to get this particular outcome? Losing weight, getting out of pain, improving your health, reversing diabetes, whatever your health challenge might be. We're looking to say, okay, well, what did I do well? Now the next question is, What did I not do so well, or what went badly? So we need to identify that because we're looking for a contrast. We're trying to open up a gap between the things that went well and the things that didn't go so well for us, so that we can obviously continue doing those things that did go well and then address those things that didn't go so well, and of course change them tomorrow and the next day and so on. So they're the first two questions: what went well, what didn't go so well? The third question is, well, what can I do differently tomorrow in order to improve on what happened today? So that's our third question. What can I do tomorrow, or what can I improve on tomorrow in order to get better outcomes as I move forward? So that's question number 3. And then our final question, which ultimately is the most important one, but often we need the answers from those first 3 first. The final question, the fourth one, is what did I learn about myself? Because what we might have found is that we've had some negatives and some triggers and things that pissed us off or things that made us sabotage ourselves. And here is our opportunity to learn about that and learn about how and why we got triggered and why we reacted and responded the way that we did. Now, of course, the first couple of times you might be quite high level in your answers. You might not be able to dig down in the layers and you may not be able to easily identify what was going on for you, how you were feeling in the moment, how you responded, and so on. But what you will find over a few days, and particularly if you've carried this forward over multiple weeks and months, what you will find is you will, you will see yourself at a deeper and deeper level. What will happen over time is you will almost learn to observe yourself in the moment. So you become this external observer of you as the individual going about your day. And anytime you're about to do something that really you probably shouldn't be doing in order to get your goals, or, or they're going to sort of take you off track, you'll notice it and you'll be given this opportunity. Um, sorry, you'll be given this opportunity just prior to you making this mistake or taking this action you maybe shouldn't, to change your mind. Now, you may choose not to. You might be like, ah, fuck it, I want this thing. And that's fine, as long as you take responsibility for that and you accept those particular consequences. Oh well, I did this thing, so therefore I might not get results. But as I say, because we learn how to observe ourselves and see these behaviors before they take place, so we will see ourselves approaching a situation that is likely to trigger these emotional responses or, or triggered responses we've had in the past that cause us to sabotage ourselves. And as I say, we will then have the opportunity because we've observed it in advance to choose a new action. And obviously, if we do that, if we choose a new action, we're then going to get a new outcome. But it takes a little bit of time. So those are the 4 questions: What went well for me today? What didn't go so well? What can I do better tomorrow? And what did I learn about myself? Those are the 4 questions. I highly recommend you sit with yourself for at least 5 minutes at the end of each day, review your day, review your actions, and review whether you were actually moving forward towards your goals or not. And each day you just make slight tweaks. And this allows us to actually make proactive choices about what we're going to do tomorrow that's going to be different to what I did today in order to move me towards my goals so that tomorrow I don't just have to rely on forcing myself through with this willpower. Oh, I will just make myself do it. Because often what we find is within a few days that trying to force ourselves just becomes exhausting, and then we end up falling off the bandwagon within 2, 3, 4 days, and we just get stuck back on that cycle we spoke about at the beginning where we stop, start, stop, start, stop, start. So if you guys have any questions on this, drop them in the comments below. If you want to know more about what we do, check us out at strongerthanlife.com. And if not, I look forward to seeing you all in my next video. Take it easy, people, and I shall chat to you soon.