What’s Better Than Willpower?
Willpower is the ability to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether you feel like it or not.
Willpower allows you to follow through on plans, decisions, goals, and values. It’s what enables you to overcome procrastination, resist temptation, avoid distractions, and stay focused on what truly matters. It takes willpower to meet commitments, establish healthy habits, and consistently do what is good for you while avoiding what is not.
The benefits of strong willpower are exactly what most people want:
Greater happiness
Improved health
Better relationships
Career success
Increased wealth
Lower stress
A longer, healthier life
The good news is that willpower is learnable. It is not something you either have or do not have. Like any skill, it improves with deliberate practice. By strengthening your willpower, you gain greater control over the direction of your life.
Strategies to Strengthen Willpower
Exercise regularly. Exercise improves mood, energy, focus, and self-control.
Meditate daily. Meditation strengthens attention and emotional regulation.
Go to bed early. Late nights both expose you to temptation when willpower is lowest and reduce sleep, which weakens self-control.
Declutter your surroundings. Clutter creates cognitive stress that drains willpower.
Review your Vision and Values daily. This reinforces motivation and long-term perspective.
Follow through on small daily commitments. Consistency builds your identity as a disciplined person.
Design your environment. Remove temptations and distractions before they become a problem.
Use pre-commitment. Decide in advance what you will do, so that decisions are not made in moments of low willpower.
Install accountability. This may include an accountability partner, a coach, public accountability, or self-accountability tools such as our Ideal Day Checklist (more on this below).
Define your Rules for Life. Decide in advance what you will always do and never do.
Create simple behavior if/then rules. If X happens, then I will do Y.
Use affirmations and visualization to reinforce your desired self-identity, which drives your behavior.
Build routines and habits. Use your daily willpower – which is limited for everyone – to establish habits so that, over time, willpower is no longer required.
Techniques for When Temptation Strikes
Repeat an affirmation aligned with your identity. If I’m tempted by fries or dessert, I remind myself that “I eat only healthy food.” If I’m tempted to skip my workout, I remind myself that “I am a disciplined athlete in fantastic shape. I love to work out every day.”
Ask whether the choice moves you closer to or farther from your ideal future life.
Treat the right choice as a gift to your future self.
Pretend that each decision has to be repeated every time for the rest of your life. So you’re not choosing fries over a salad just this once, but committing to eating fries instead of a salad every time in the future. This should guide you to the right decision.
Imagine your life as a documentary being filmed right now. How do you want to be seen?
So What’s Even Better Than Willpower? Checklists!
Checklists are the simple, proven tool used whenever it's important to take certain actions. Happiful’s Ideal Day Checklist is the easiest and most effective way to make sure you actually take all your desired actions each day. For many years, I’ve used my Ideal Day Checklist every day, periodically changing what actions I have on it and in what order. Until now, it’s been a spreadsheet I printed out each week, and then physically check off each item as I do it each day.
Recently, we created the free Ideal Day App, which is a big improvement over the old spreadsheet. The app guides you to create your own personal Ideal Day Protocol broken down into your Morning Routine, Daily Activities,and Daily Shutdown. It has default activities, which you can include or toggle off, and a “library” of suggested activities you can choose to add in each section, each with an explanation of the activity and its benefits. And of course you can add your own desired activities to each section. You can designate specific days of the week for each activity, set a weekly goal, and designate any of them as “Non-Negotiable” so that you know which you will still do even on your busiest days.
And you can use the Ideal Day App on your phone or laptop, or print the checklist out each week.
Knowledge, intentions, and plans are meaningless without execution. The Ideal Day App is what turns intention into action. It’s free, so why not give it a try?
