Exercises to develop willpower and concentration. Willpower Exercises

Did you know that willpower can be trained in the same way that you train muscles in the gym? In Willpower, Stanford professor Kelly McGonigal talks about how to do this. We have chosen for several effective exercises. Shall we start?

Track your volitional decisions

Start by monitoring your behavior. Try throughout the day to mark decisions related to your willpower challenge. For example, do you go to the gym? Have you taken your sports uniform with you so that you don’t have to return home after work, and only then go to the gym? Are you distracted by a phone call, risking missing your workout?

Analyze the decisions you make throughout the day. Find out which actions were in line with your goals and which were contrary to them.

Breathe in self-control

Slow down your breathing to 4-6 breaths per minute. It's a lot slower than usual, but just practice a few times and you'll be fine.

By slowing down your breathing, you will activate your prefrontal cortex, which will help move your brain and body out of stress and into self-control mode.

In just a few minutes, you will calm down, master yourself and be able to make informed decisions.

Five Minute Green Willpower Refueling

If you want to quickly refuel with willpower, then go outside. Go to the nearest park or go for a walk with your dog. Call a friend and invite them for a walk or go for a run.

If you have a desire and a free minute, you can connect physical exercises to your walk. It is not necessary to wear yourself out, a short jog or a quick walk will be enough.

Forgive yourself when you're wrong

Everyone makes mistakes and mistakes. And often our perception of failure is more important than the failure itself. Therefore, do not get angry and blame yourself if something did not work out for you. Ask yourself the following questions:

What do you feel? What emotions are you experiencing? How difficult is it for you right now?

Have the people you look up to experienced something similar? If this has already happened to someone, then this will help soften the voice of self-criticism.

What would you say to a friend? If a similar situation happened to your friend, how would you cheer him up? Help yourself get back on track.

get enough sleep

As numerous studies show, sleep deprivation can be reversed. Of course, this is not the best practice and it will be more beneficial to distribute sleep evenly, but in some cases an exception can be made.

If you've been going to bed late and waking up early all week, getting enough sleep over the weekend will strengthen your willpower.
Also, never forget about daytime sleep. Literally 20-40 minutes of sleep after dinner will bring you back to life and restore your strength and will.

Look into the future

Make every decision and action you make align with your life purpose.

Think about how your behavior will affect your future.

In other words, instead of asking yourself, “Should I grab a cheeseburger and fries today?” - ask yourself: “Do I want to face the consequences of eating fast food every day for a whole year?” Do not think only about today and momentary pleasure!

Break for 10 minutes

10 minutes. It is this period that can change our views on pleasure. When the brain compares a delicious dessert that has to wait 10 minutes to a more distant reward, like weight loss, the immediate pleasure does not attract it so much.

Make it a rule to always wait 10 minutes before giving in to temptation. If possible, physically distance yourself from the temptation, or at least turn away.

If after 10 minutes you still want it - please, but before they expire, think about how your life will change if you refuse the temptation.

The power of pride

Take advantage of the basic human need for approval: imagine soaring when you win a test of will. To do this, when making an important decision, share it with your friends on social networks and in person. Recharge with the support of other people!

Willpower is very important, especially in self-improvement. In this article, you will learn about 10 useful exercises that will strengthen your willpower.

But before moving on to the description of willpower training, we need to talk in more detail about why it is necessary to master the methods of willpower training.

Many definitions of willpower can be found in dictionaries, only each of them is incomprehensible and often frightening. But first of all, willpower is wish. The desire to improve oneself, improve mental health, achieve a certain goal.

Will is always present in life and affects all spheres of life. Psychologists distinguish three aspects of influence:

Willpower - helps to direct human activity on the right path and does not allow to deviate from the intended path.
Willpower makes a person more active in all manifestations of life.
Willpower contributes to the development of the ability to overcome difficulties that arise on the way to the ultimate goal.

Willpower contributes to self-development and success. Trained willpower helps to develop the following qualities:

Purposefulness;
Independence;
Determination;
self-control;
Excerpt;
persistence;
Discipline
Courage;
Courage.

Each of us can possess these qualities to one degree or another, but in order to bring everyone together, you need to start training your willpower, learn to motivate yourself and develop your personality.

All over the world, psychologists are developing techniques aimed at training willpower. There are seminars and master classes where they show self-improvement skills. In this article, you will learn about 10 simple exercises that will help train and strengthen willpower.

10 Willpower Exercises

Say NO to bad habits. Analyze all your habits and make a list that will indicate those habits that you need to get rid of. And start getting rid of gradually, first from one, then from the other. To maximize the effect and make it easier for you, start with the lightest (for example, if you decide to give up caffeine, you can first drink chicory and gradually switch to tea). For efficiency, you can come up with a system of penalties that will significantly hit you if you break.
Test of temptation. This is a difficult exercise, but very effective. If you decide to give up chocolate, then always keep a small chocolate bar on hand. But it should not be eaten under any circumstances. This exercise is aimed at strengthening willpower.
Switching attention. The essence of the exercise is that as soon as you feel a craving for the forbidden, you need to switch your attention to another thing. For example, when you want chocolate, you can do a couple of physical exercises or read a book. Just turn your attention to other things.
New habits. When you give up old and bad habits, you must definitely develop new and good habits. Instead of a cup of coffee in the morning - exercise. Instead of junk food - vegetables and fish. And anything else that comes to mind. The main thing is to repeat these things until they become a habit. Scientists have proven that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit.
Charity. American scientists came to the conclusion that giving something of our own to charity - money, things, food, time - we train willpower. Good and kind deeds done for someone give an incentive for development and protect against erroneous actions.
Tense muscles. At the moment when you want to return to a bad habit, you need to tighten your muscles (clench your fists, tighten your abs, etc.). This helps to distract and find the strength to switch attention to something else. It has already been proven that muscle tension directly affects the activation of willpower.
Healthy lifestyle. We have already found out that willpower is aimed at self-improvement of the individual. Therefore, it is very important to start leading a healthy lifestyle, but it is not necessary to bring it to fanaticism. Just give up fatty foods and add vegetables to your diet. Go to the gym at least once a week. Start heating up. Hardening has a positive effect on the entire body and activates willpower.
Emotion control. To train willpower, you need to learn how to control your emotions, especially in dealing with others. You need to learn how to move from an emotional discussion almost instantly to a calm and measured one. This is a difficult exercise and you will need something or a note to remind you to be in control.
Say NO to laziness! It is very important to get rid of this quality. As soon as there is a desire to postpone something for later, then you need to immediately go and do it. If you don’t want to clean your house, you have to go and clean it, there is no desire to wash the dishes - go and wash it. And so in everything. This exercise is the most effective in training willpower. In addition, forcing yourself to do unpleasant things right away will save you a lot of time and increase your productivity.
Strict sleep schedule. Healthy and sound sleep strengthens the body, gives strength to fight bad habits and strengthen willpower. You should always go to bed and get up at the same time and sleep at least 7-8 hours.

By performing these exercises, you will train willpower and many things will begin to be given to you easily and naturally. The main thing on the way to your goal is NEVER give up. If something doesn't work out, immediately try to do it again. Only then will you become a person about whom they will say: "a person with an iron will."

What is will?

Will is the psychic energy of a person, which allows him to take actions in situations where he “does not want to, but needs to” to achieve his goals.

What is necessary for the education of the will?

First of all, it is the determination and desire to act. You must clearly understand why you need to train your will? What goals do you want to achieve with this?

Forcing yourself or another person to train the will without desire is a waste of time. People who stop drinking or smoking under the pressure of friends or relatives, in most cases, break down when this pressure disappears. But those people who do it out of their own desire are more likely to succeed in this business.

It also requires a willingness to fall. If you try a few willpower exercises once or twice and complete the training process there, you are most likely unlikely to ever get great results in your life. It takes effort to succeed in anything. Without training the will there is nowhere.

You have to set yourself up in such a way that there may be breakdowns, you may not succeed, you may want to quit more than once, but you must continue this process.

Will training.

Before we begin, I want to say that willpower training should be approached as sports training. That is, you need to do everything gradually, with a warm-up, constantly increasing the load. Moreover, you should not immediately take all the exercises from the list. It is best to take one of the simplest exercises and perform it. In the early stages, it is important to gain experience, what you get.

It is important to start doing the will exercise as soon as you read it. Why this is important is explained in the video below.

In the beginning, it will be difficult for you to develop the will, but over time, this process will begin to work for you. That is, if at first you will not have enough will to wake up at 6 in the morning, then with training, you will easily get up at this time.
Will exercises.
1) Constancy.
You need to give yourself a simple task that you will perform daily. For example, drink a glass of water every morning. Or light exercise in the morning. Then within 1-2 months you need to complete this task. The first few days will be easy for you, but then, even the most elementary exercise will start to make you angry and unwilling to do it.
At one time, I set myself the task of always cleaning my desktop at the end of the day. The first few days it was easy, but then the days began to appear when I didn’t feel like doing it at all. It became a good will exercise for me.
2) Hold back what you like.
Take any game you like. For example, Japanese crosswords, sapper, chess, any computer game. Determine the strict time that you can play this game (no more than 5 minutes). Further, your task within 60 days will be to start playing this game every day for exactly a certain time and then stop.
What will happen? As soon as you get into the taste, you will have to stop yourself. This will cause you strong psychological agony, which will educate your will.
If you do not like to play, then you can use nuts or seeds instead of games. Buy the nuts you love and challenge yourself to eat 3 nuts or 3 seeds every day at a certain time and stop there.
3) Regular breaks.
Set yourself the task of taking regular breaks during the working day using any of the techniques from the video

This exercise should be practiced for at least 3-4 months.
4) Gymnastics
Determine a set of physical exercises that you will regularly perform. For example, I study according to the method of Vladimir Vuksta (Goltis). I get 30-40 minutes of training a day. There is not always time and desire to fulfill them, so you have to educate yourself and your will.
5) Food
Food is a powerful mechanism that destroys the will of man. Watch yourself while eating. Do you always manage to control yourself. That is why it is useful to do the following to train the will:
- Limit the amount of food you eat at a time.
- Always perform a ritual before eating (for example, a prayer to yourself or aloud)
- Chew food thoroughly and slowly.
I have a funny story connected with the last principle. Even in my student years, I was very fond of buns. Usually my friends and I bought buns and while walking from the store to the hostel we ate 5-6 buns. At that time, I first learned about the fact that food must be thoroughly chewed. As a result, I took a bun and began to bite off small pieces and chew them carefully. While my friend ate his norm, I could not even cope with one roll. It felt like I was overeating. As a result, rolls instead of one day were eaten for a week.
This exercise must be practiced constantly.
6) Order.
You need to put everything in order and maintain this order constantly. This is explained in more detail in the video -

7) Planning.
Most people don't like to plan, although it has long been proven that a few minutes of daily planning can save hours. In this regard, start regularly planning your day.
8) Acceptance
In any situation, when something goes wrong and you start to get nervous. You should put your hand on your chest, start monitoring your breathing and calmly say to yourself: “If this is happening, then this is how it should be.” Repeat this process several times until you feel yourself calm down. This exercise should be practiced for at least 3 months.

Choose any of these exercises and start training your will.

If you want to learn more about willpower training, I recommend watching a special video on this topic.

Researchers have long been concerned about the question of whether the average person can, if desired, strengthen their own willpower. Modern possibilities of science allow to carry out numerous experiments in this area. And now scientists can confidently say that they have extensive knowledge on the issues of human self-improvement. After many trials and experiments, researchers have come to the conclusion that willpower can be trained like muscles, it can get tired from excessive exercise and, like the body, needs food.

If you are really concerned about the issue of personal development and self-improvement, the information provided in our next publication will be useful to you. As a result of several large-scale studies, scientists have deduced 10 principles that will help in mastering this difficult task.

Before you start mastering new heights, you need to realize that working on yourself is a laborious process, and not everything always works out the first time. In such a case, will training can be considered in the long term. If you do everything right, at the end of the path you will easily say “no” to temptations and temptations, voluntarily go to the gym, and working on yourself will become one of the good habits.

10 minutes for meditation

The very first step to conquering new heights is mastering the skills of meditation. Just 10 minutes a day will give you a quick and effective result in willpower training. By meditating, you will train your brain to focus on certain things. Thus, the mind will stop wandering from object to object, from thought to thought, and will cease to succumb to temptation. Meditation is able to give tangible results after 2-3 days, so very soon you will find that your brain will be better focused on the current tasks. In addition, the mind will save more energy for important tasks and be less stressed. To get started, look for a good beginner course and go for it.

Correct your posture

In many will training studies, scientists asked different groups of people to work on their posture for 2 weeks. The test subjects were instructed to straighten their backs every time they noticed an excessive stoop. This experiment gave tangible results. You can follow the example of people who have learned to watch their posture. Every time you feel your spine rounding, immediately straighten it. It requires some physical and mental effort, but it works well. Remember that such a simple practice will help to significantly train perseverance.

Keep a food diary

The same studies also showed the importance of food diary entries. Agree that most of us do not need such a volume of food that we eat in a day. We have no control over ourselves, so we overeat. Indeed, without monitoring the process, it is difficult to somehow influence it. Therefore, if you record information about the amount of food eaten, it will only work for the good. You can download a good application on your mobile device as a guide, and you will know everything about the quality of food, the calorie content of food, and in 2 weeks you will develop the ability to resist gastronomic temptations.

Develop an inactive hand

Once a day for a short period of time, use your non-dominant hand as your dominant hand. So, if you are right-handed, perform the usual simple manipulations with your left hand. The fact is that the brain is used to the information that the dominant hand provides it, so new information will be extremely useful for it. The only caveat: in this case, you can not overload the mind with new information, so conduct such experiments for no more than one hour a day. Otherwise, your willpower will be in the shoes of a driven horse.

Follow the speech

Undoubtedly, it will be useful to correct your own speech. Remove swear words, junk words, various abbreviations and jargon from the lexicon. Every time you feel like using a "strong word", mentally yell at yourself. Stop imitating other people and using newfangled abbreviations in your greetings. Make sure your speech is correct and clear. In this way, you will consciously turn your own will against your instincts. This path may seem especially long and thorny, but at the end of it you will be rewarded with new natural and pure speech habits.

If there are too many junk words in your vocabulary, work in stages. To do this, choose a short period of time during which you will change only certain words. When you, through repeated repetitions, get rid of the first batch of unnecessary words, you can move on to the next stage and so on.

On the importance of forming deadlines

Remember how in our student years, each of us managed to learn exam papers and write cheat sheets on the very last night? We were not in the mood to study tickets a month before the exam, but when the deadlines began to run out, the mood appeared. We can adopt the same principle in everyday life. To do this, it is necessary to keep a diary with clearly established voluntary deadlines for the delivery of important cases.

Swing right away at a previously unbearable task, exactly the one that you used to always put off “for tomorrow”. Set precise deadlines for the task and monitor progress. To do this, break the plan into stages and make notes in the diary. In fact, such a procedure greatly mobilizes the mind, and it ceases to be distracted by extraneous matters.

Keep track of your expenses

We began to monitor the amount of food consumed, now it will be useful to track our own expenses. Even if your goal is not to shrink or cut your budget, having a clear idea of where exactly your funds are being spent can be very helpful. If you learn to control your own finances, you will learn to control your own will. Money should not flow from your wallet like a river. Knowing where your funds are spent, next time, passing by the candy row in the supermarket, you will not succumb to the temptation and grab an unnecessary box.

Squeezing the handle of the simulator

If you really want to increase your perseverance, squeeze the handle of a hand expander to the point of exhaustion. To keep compression, it is necessary to apply titanic efforts of the will. Squeeze the expander on each hand until you feel that you have exhausted your own internal resources. If you go further and keep squeezing even when you are in unbearable pain, you will increase your own perseverance in overcoming difficult cases.

Use the word "no" more often

If you can say the word “no” more often, you will be able to resist many temptations. Additionally, as a workout, you can do small experiments on yourself. For example, carry water with you, but don't drink, it will make you feel really inexperienced. However, do not use this technique throughout the day.

Be mindful of decisions

Now that you have mastered almost all the tricks, we suggest that you become more attentive to your decisions during the day. We agree that we make other decisions, as if on autopilot, spontaneously and without hesitation. If you take the time to think about why you do things, you will increase your ability to focus and resist temptation. You can start early in the morning by asking why you eat an egg for breakfast and not porridge, and why you put two spoons of sugar in your coffee. Continue reviewing your own actions during the day.

Today we will talk about willpower - that part inside everyone that is responsible for the decisions we make: to be or not to be, to do or not. Whenever there is a need for action which is not part of our habits or contradicts our inner desires and beliefs, we use willpower.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato was the first to offer a description for man's internal struggle with himself, around 400 BC, by comparing the soul to a chariot. In the place of the charioteer, according to Plato, there was a reasonable beginning, endowed with some kind of willpower. The chariot itself is harnessed by a pair of horses, symbolizing the noble and sensual principles. Obeying the hand of the driver, they carry the chariot forward, but if he is tired or drives the horses too much, then he immediately loses control over them, speaking out against his conscious desires.

Our minds are structured the same way. In a tense struggle with our internal “I want”, he inevitably gets tired , willpower is weakening, and, as a result, we can no longer make some decisions that require certain efforts from us. By caring for personal productivity and controlling our inner desires, we want to make the “charioteer” stronger so that the “chariot” always goes in the desired direction. Simply put, we always want to see the result of our efforts. This can be achieved by training willpower.

Willpower is your ace up your sleeve

Willpower, at its core, is the ability to successfully complete tasks. It is she who determines how quickly you can get involved in work, give up unhealthy food, start going to the gym. Willpower is applicable to absolutely all aspects of life.

Consider that willpower is one of your muscles that, like all other muscles, needs regular stretching and exercise. Otherwise, they atrophy, like an astronaut returning from an orbital station.

The same opinion is shared by scientists Mark Muravin and Roy Baumeister. (Muraven and Baumeister).To confirm their hypothesis, they once conducted an experiment that went down in history as an experiment with radishes and cookies. Its essence was as follows: the hungry subjects were asked to divide into two groups, one of which could only eat radishes, and the other could only eat chocolate chip cookies. After some time, the participants were asked to solve a complex geometric problem. At the same time, not a single group of people knew that the solution simply did not exist.

During the experiment, it turned out that those who treated themselves to radishes, gave up a good 20 minutes faster than those who got the cookies. Why? The point is that the last didn't have to make an effort and eat less palatable food, which means using willpower. The experiment clearly showed that the will has achievable limits.

You might be thinking now, "Hmm, what willpower is there ... I could not stand it and pounced on cookies. I hasten to reassure you: meticulous servants of science have found out that willpower, like any muscle, can be successfully trained, like a tiger that fell into the hands of the Zapashny brothers. With proper training, willpower allows a person to do much more complex tricks. For example, to go completely without food for five days, which, you see, is a very serious test.

Two Ways to Strengthen Willpower

Cultivate will. To strengthen the muscles, we subject them to stress, and they get tired, and when they recover, they become stronger. Willpower is trained on the same principle: take care of your health, try to streamline your thoughts and become more collected.
Use power wisely. Willpower - especially. Sometimes it is better to go around the mountain than to climb it. So most everyday tasks actually require less effort than it seems at first glance.

So, if you are one of those who want to take self-control to the next level, we will continue to introduce you to a toolkit designed to make your willpower stronger than diamond claws. .

How to develop willpower

Let's face it - we're mostly weak-willed. Many have a real talent for living and vice: we sit all day on social networks, indulge in hamburgers, smoke, do something else harmful. Try going to lunch mobile phone to the side- It's not as easy as it might seem at first. Being in constant tension, you do not feel the need to train your will. But as soon as the thought comes to your mind to lose weight or open your own business or find a better job, then you have to find out about the disadvantages of her absence on the thorny path to success.

And yet there are chances to win in this unequal struggle with oneself. It's simple: pay attention to health, as physical as well as mental. Try to follow a few simple recommendations that we offer you below.

1. Eat healthy

The human brain is a mystery to this day. This body is arranged very difficult, and its significance is not subject to the slightest doubt. The weakening of a person's mental faculties leads to a disorder of habits and inclinations. The most obvious external sign of this is the so-called (BMI). If it is too high or tends to increase, then the level of sugar in the blood begins to “jump”, and you feel sluggish and “swing” for a long time.

However, body weight is not the only indicator of health status that affects a person's ability to self-control.

Deficiency of vitamins and trace elements in the body, such as vitamin D, may lead to cognitive impairment. That is why a healthy diet plays one of the decisive roles: a person’s weight is in order, and the necessary vitamins with trace elements, willpower is also present in the proper amount.

2. Exercise

Many of you have probably heard the saying “In healthy body - healthy mind. It really is. The more active a person is physically, the better he, as they say, thinks.

If we are without movement for a long time, and especially if we sit, then all the muscles gradually “fall asleep”, and with them our brain.

That's why it's so easy to doze off on a long-distance bus or at a lecture. Partly for the same reason, standing tables are gaining popularity today. The so-called desks can significantly increase productivity due to the fact that the muscles of the legs and back remain in motion, which means that the vessels are fully involved in blood circulation, supplying the brain with oxygen. If working standing up is not possible, take the time to get up and stretch a little. You don't have to be a marathon runner or a heavyweight in oats - just be more active. To do this, include a warm-up in the list of mandatory activities for every day. After all, we are ourselves, right?

Try to comply with the "Japanese" norm, which prescribes to do 10 thousand steps daily to maintain good health. It will also be useful to climb the stairs a couple of times. Do whatever you want, the main thing is to be on the move.

Sometimes it seems to us that the forces seem to leave us and continue to work is no longer possible. Don't fight this feeling. Get up and go for a walk! You will be surprised when you feel better in just five minutes.

3. sleep

To achieve the highest concentration of willpower, combine a healthy diet and exercise with quality sleep at night.

By lack of sleep, we mean sleep for less than seven to eight hours during the hours of darkness. A sleepy brain works at half strength, as if you “took it on your chest”, which can already be compared with a complete lack of willpower. Imagine, just an hour or two, which you need to “get” to the eight-hour norm, will make your willpower an order of magnitude stronger. But for a sleep deprived, albeit infrequently, strong-willed efforts will not be so easy.

4. Drink more water

This is the last item related to health care. Honestly.

All living things need water - an indisputable fact. It turns out that the ability to concentrate efforts is largely due to the water content in our body. Even mild dehydration can have a serious effect. on human mental activity.

It is believed that to maintain a normal life it is necessary to drink two liters or eight glasses of water daily. We recommend increasing this rate by one and a half to two times: beautiful skin and a healthy, moderate appetite will be pluses for good health.

Water also contains potassium, sodium and chlorine - the most important electrolytes for the human body.

5. Meditate

Kelly McGonigal, a psychologist, professor at Stanford University and author of a series of books on willpower, believes meditation is one of the best ways to train it.

The concept of "willpower" is associated with a person's ability to focus on the task being performed, controlling the scattered consciousness. Many of us have a problem with this, which is exacerbated by the constant stream of all kinds of information pouring on us from mobile phones, laptops and social networks.

With the help of meditation, you can train self-awareness, the ability to abstract or concentrate your attention on any internal process - the goals can be different. If you have mastered the basic techniques of breath control, then focusing on work will not be much of an effort, even if the environment is not conducive to work.

Moreover, meditation teaches us to "control ourselves among the crowd of confused", instead of losing your temper or getting upset for any reason - you must admit, the latter is unlikely to make you an employee of the month.

Concentrating on different sensations, we learn to get rid of emotions and their external manifestations that are unnecessary in a given situation.

If you want to try the wonderful effects of meditation on yourself today, check out the application, for example. which will help to master the science of relaxation.

6. More practice

Whatever you want to be good at, practice. When starting willpower training, start by checking yourself for “lice”. Let's do without wisdom, because with willpower, as in war or in love, all methods will be good.

Willpower alone is not enough to achieve your goals. Imagine that you have a Ferrari in your garage, under the hood of which a whole herd of horsepower lurks - a car, no doubt, very fast. However, if the fuel tank is dry, you won't go anywhere.

This is why it is important to apply good and proven control methods. Why run to where you can reach without haste? In the following paragraphs, we will learn about ways to use willpower sparingly so that there is “for later.”

1. Divide and Conquer

Sometimes, just looking at the front of the upcoming work, we already want to give up and admit: nothing will come of it. So it is with personal motivation. For example, if you say to yourself: “I have to lose 20 kilos,” then you need to understand that it may take more than one month to achieve this goal.

However, if you conditionally divide one big task into several smaller items, say “read one paragraph from a microbiology textbook” or “lose two kilograms”, then the goal will no longer seem so unattainable to you.

The more difficult the task, the more effort you will have to make over your will. Understanding this, first take on uniquely feasible items. This will “warm up” before doing all the rest.

2. Form habits

Lifehacker has already talked about Charles Duhigg(Charles Duhigg) and his book "", in which he claims: habits make up about 40% of our daily activities.

In general, this is good news. Imagine if every time you got into the car, you started the thought chain: “So, I take off the handbrake, press the clutch pedal, turn the key, look in the rearview mirror, look around, turn on the reverse gear.” Do you understand? If these actions were not a habit, we simply would not have time to think about anything!

But, whether we like it or not, bad habits, alas, have not been canceled. It is because of them that we delay the alarm signal several times a morning, twist the keys in our hands and (oh, horror!) Melancholy pick our nose. As soon as self-discipline weakens, they are already there.

On the contrary, good and healthy habits help keep willpower at its maximum tone and state of combat readiness. For example, if your regular schedule includes daily runs in the morning, then jumping out of bed and running to the park is unlikely to be a problem for you. If not, force yourself to start, and in a week your body will get used to the new morning “ritual”. Use this simple technique to gain truly valuable skills.

When you get started, try to spend half an hour of your time planning the most important tasks - in a few days it will become quite normal for you.

Think about what actions in everyday life require special moral efforts from you. Make a list of them and identify those that could become a habit. Service can be an additional source of motivation. , which will display the progress of your achievements graphically, identify lazy people and “punish” with a ruble for weakness of spirit. This is Sparta, brother.

3. Avoid bad news

The one who feels "a million" and thinks clearly, and the person is usually strong-willed. The absence of stress and all sorts of sorrows will have the best effect on the education of self-control. That is why the expression "You are what you eat" will be true for "mental" food - the information we consume.

Of course, our world is not perfect, and not every event can bring a smile to your face. Road accidents, wars, financial market crashes - in a word, everything that is continuously broadcast on TV screens and mobile devices, along with all other information, affects our mood and ... willpower. In fact, even vacation photos that your friend posted on his page on a social network can be a serious threat to willpower and reduce your fuse to nothing. As you know, an ax does not care what to chop. It is the same with our consciousness, which processes the signals coming from outside in the autopilot mode.

To avoid over-information, try to limit the consumption of information that is not directly related to the field of your activity. Of course, if you are a broker by profession, then it is your direct responsibility to be aware of stock market fluctuations. But reflections from the series “What will happen tomorrow if ...” will not be of practical use.

4. Create a positive work environment

With willpower - like with money: the less you spend, the more you have in the end. It would be logical to assume that you can make the environment work for you, that is, reduce the likelihood of situations where you might need willpower. So, you can calmly focus on the most important thing.

For example, you have a box of expensive chocolates on your table. From time to time, a desire arises in your head to open it and treat yourself, but you fight it with the help of willpower. A mobile phone is habitually located next to the box, on the screen of which notification icons appear from time to time. Trying not to be distracted, you continue to work. Know that willpower works with you.

The same applies to appetizing food photos in glossy magazines.

To be sure not to fall into the number of spineless losers that Jonathan talks about, try the service : it will not only allow you to take into account your working time, but also help you classify activities according to their degree of importance.

5. Prepare ahead of time

Psychologically, decisions are made easier, the need for which we know in advance. Knowing this, we can minimize the use of our volitional resources in achieving our goals.

Just think about what you need to do, and repeat to yourself, fixing the desired thought in your head, as if it were a mandatory rule. For example, “When I get to work, I will answer all emails immediately” or “As soon as I wake up, I will get dressed and go to the gym.”

Such rules greatly simplify the struggle of a person with himself, saving his internal resources. They also help keep promises. Sometimes doing it and forgetting is better than not doing it and being tormented by internal contradictions and remorse. Believe me, generated by cognitive dissonance, they will inevitably appear to spoil your mood. If you know that there is a long and hard work ahead of you, tune in to it in advance and do some easier tasks to “warm up”.

6. Listen to yourself

Many people know their natural “clock”. There is a feeling that the forces are about to leave, or, conversely, when productivity is at its highest level, it seems that there is no such problem that could not be dealt with.

This is due to circadian rhythms -cyclic fluctuations in the intensity of various biological processes associated with change of day and night. This is why most people feel tired around two in the morning and energized after two in half a day. If you're one of them, plan to get the most important things done before your activity levels drop.

Another type of biological rhythms is also known - ultradian rhythms. They are responsible for the concentration of attention, changes in pain sensitivity and a number of other processes that occur during the day and night in the human body.

In fact, every hour and a half, our brain goes through a cycle in which a high level of activity is replaced by a low one. If at the moment of peak activity you are busy with work, then work is argued and brings satisfaction.

On the contrary, acting contrary to your natural rhythms, you thoughtlessly spend a limited supply of willpower and, as a result, quickly “burn out”.

If the time of day is “not yours”, and there are still a lot of things to do, we advise you to work in sets for an hour and a half, interrupting for a 15–20-minute rest between each of these sets.

More will

So, if you already feel that the knowledge you have gained is eager to be put into practice, here are some tips for you to start immediately:

Think about what aspects of health you should pay attention to: overweight, sleep quality, physical education. Do not take on everything at once, start with one thing.
Evaluate the benefits of today's well-known helper services, such as and . They work, we checked.
Alternate simple and complex tasks throughout your workday to stay on your toes.
Critically analyze the organization of your workplace for things that steal your attention and time. And try the service .
Identify the peaks of your activity and the periods of decline observed during the day or evening. Remember these time periods and start planning with them in mind.
Think about what good habits you could pick up and what must-haves on your list you can plan ahead of time.

We hope you are finally convinced of the inevitable success of all the events you have planned. Even better, if a plan of action has already begun to emerge in your head. We will be glad to learn about other effective ways of self-control and read your "winner's story"!