Thursday 29 January 2009

Balance Your WILLPOWER Budget

Learn how to manage your self-discipline and you'll improve your chances of sticking to your New Year's resolutions. Balance Your WILLPOWER Budget.

Says Emily Baker

THIS IS THE year we give up smoking, maintain a budget, learn french and de-clutter our house once and for all. Or is it ? We all know how it feels to abandon our goals. We blame our lack of success on all sorts of different things but, in most cases, the crucial factor is our willpower, that mixture of discipline and determination that gets us to the finishing line - or disappers at the first hurdle.

Scientists still aren't sure why some people seem to have more willpower than others. "There is a genetic component to willpower," says Mark Muraven, a psychologist at the University at Albany in New York, but upbringing may also have an effect. Children raised in authoritarian environments are likely to have less practice at self-control, which translates to less willpower.

"Exerting willpower in one area weakens resolve in another"

Individual levels of resolve may vary, but studies suggest that our willpower is a finite resource, like money, and in order to make the best use of it we need to understand how to manage and invest it wisely. Because the brain has limited capacity for self-control, exerting willpower in one area weakens your resolve in another, whether you're trying to curb your alcohol intake or go to the gym.

"Our studies have found that people are more likely to drink more, eat more, and engage in socially inappropriate behaviour when their self-control resources have been used up by other activities," says Muraven. If you want to make effective changes to our lives, it helps to think of our willpower as a budget we can control. If it is a limited resource, we might be wise to "spend" sparingly and not to take on too many goals at once. "Tackle the goal that is most important to you first," says psychologist Thomas Webb of Sheffield University. "When you begin to feel happy with the changes in your behaviour, you can move on to another goal."

It's also important to pay attention to "outgoings", those external factors that threaten success. These can be as simple as fatigue, hunger, stress and temptation. If you don't want to snack on biscuits when you get home from work, don't walk home past the boutique full of the things you can't afford to buy.

"Boost willpower by setting specific goals"

Learning self-discipline

New findings suggest that willpower can be strengthened. Muraven recommends practising small self-control excercises, such as eliminating "um" from your speech, or brushing your teeth with your less dominant hand, to build up willpower reserves. The interuption of habit creates an awareness of self-control that can ultimately lead to to success at bigger tasks, such as drinking less or getting fit. "Self-control exercises train you to overcome the desire not to quit and promote a stronger sense of self-discipline," he says.

In addition to strengthening our will power reserves, we can buy ourselves extra insurance through considered planning, according to Webb. "You can strenrthen your willpower by setting specific goals and marrying them with the opportunity to practise," he say. For example, if you've decided this is the year you'll learn a new language, you're more likely to go to evening classes if you've prebooked and arranged to meet a friend there.

Making these simple changes to how we think and plan to achieve our goals can make a huge difference to our success.

Wake up your WILLPOWER TODAY.