I read somewhere that it was a myth that willpower is a limited resource and that we imagine it is limited, but it's not. Does anyone else remember where this was mentioned?
Just skimmed it, but in this study 60 students were given tasks and those who believed that willpower is a limited resource made more mistakes after doing a "willpower-draining" activity.
But I wonder if people who were already willpower-drained before taking this test would be more likely to report that willpower can be drained than well-rested students.
It's definitely not a myth. Roy Baumeister mentioned in the article did most of the work in describing how willpower behaves, and a few years back somebody else pinned down the actual mechanism (something to do with glucose - drinking a glass of something sweet restores most of the will power back).
The first thing I thought after reading this was how unfortunate it is for people on diets that they have to drink a sugary beverage in order to regain the willpower to avoid sugary beverages.
Yeap, that's one of the lessons to draw from this. Another is that it's twice as hard to change two habits at the same time: i.e. maybe people who quit smoking and find themselves getting fatter to this because of a self-regulation issue.
For what's worth, I remember the "magic number" for creating a habit is 60 days - and there's also good research on the stages one goes through when creating a habit and what's most likely to sabotage him/her at each stage. We really really need more "science in plain English" books about modern psychology.
Sounds like a negative feedback loop, it should stabilize at some point. The thing is, it might not stabilize where the person on diet would wish it to. :).
I am sure it must be more complicated than "not eating a cookie depletes your willpower". So if I stare at 100 cookies in the morning, all my willpower for the rest of the day will instantly evaporate?
I was half expecting the advice to be: "the only way to achieve stuff is to give in to the less important cravings. That is, you get extremely fat eating cookies, but in exchange you finish your weekend project".
Willpower for me is the exact opposite of what you were expecting. Having willpower on the simple things leads to having it on bigger things and so on.
I also think willpower is learned just and takes time just like building muscles. It takes practice and doesn't follow a linear trajectory. There is also a personal aspect that each person must find on their own to help them keep going when the ability to maintain willpower becomes tough.
