CA099: Habits willpower and motivation

“Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts.” ― Mortimer J. Adler

Habits are an intrinsic part of who we are and how we function.  Habits are fundamental to how we think and behave, which makes them key to how we live our lives and make our decisions.

The achievement of our goals and success are more the product of our daily habits than any one off transformative situation or action on our part.

Habits are a key part of mind management because;

• your mind use habits like a shortcut or brain power saving device or mechanism
• if you manage your mind in a helpful way you can utilise the power of habits. Rather than viewing habits in a negative light as something we need to control and overcome, they become an empowering tool to enhance our lives, help us make changes and be happier.

To do this we need to know which habits are good for us and to continue and critically which habits are not supporting our goals. The first step therefore is to identify a habit you want to change for a helpful, empowering, positive, healthy or wealthy habit, or a new habit you want to cultivate. 

This an important step as the funny thing about habits (like limiting thoughts) is we’re not always aware of them. We have to take a deliberate step back to identify the habit or to acknowledge that thing we keep doing but would really love to change is indeed a habit – an habitual way of behaving in response to a situation or action.

Willpower

Now you know the habit you want to change, is it a matter of using your willpower to change it and your motivation to keep going?

Yes and no.  Yes because when it comes to habits willpower and motivation both have an important role to play but they’re not enough on there own as there are limitations to be aware of.

Willpower is the power to exercise your will.  To have control over what you do and self-discipline.

But the thing about will power is you only have so much of it and when it runs out – because we’re tired or hungry or sad – it’s hard to rely on. 

This is why you can wake up with good intentions and lots of willpower but by the evening it’s decidedly harder to exercise your will.

Although you can get better at exercising willpower the more we do it, your brain likes your habits so wants you to keep them.

So although willpower has a role to play in changing your habits, it can’t be relied on to do it alone.  The same goes for your motivation.

Motivation

Your motivation is the purpose or the ‘why’ behind what you do – in this case behind the new habit you want.

I think of motivation as having different levels or layers and each level or layer has a different strength.

Think of it as concentric circles –circles within circles like an onion.

The outer layer is your big ‘why’ or the purpose that motivates you.

Say you want to develop some health and fitness habits– the big outer layer motivation is to be healthier and fitter because it makes you feel better, gives you more energy, to get the most out of life, you look better which makes you feel better, and that makes you a better happier person in yourself and relationships.

In short the outer layer is you want to develop healthy habits because being fit and healthy feels good and makes me a happier person.  That’s all very well and good but it’s hard to keep that at the forefront of our mind in everything we do – and we know that willpower will only take us so far.  Especially as we move in onto the next layer.

The next layer or circle in is your situation. For example, you have a busy life, you’re looking after your house, maybe you have a family or a hectic social life or m