Willpower is something that most people would like to increase.
Willpower is what keeps us going, our drive, our dedication to achieve a goal or finish a task.
But often enough, we find ourselves struggling with it, fighting against our weaker inner self and ultimately giving up.
So why is that? Have you ever heard of the term Ego Depletion?
Ego Depletion basically means that we only have a certain amount of willpower and when that's used up, we turn into couch potatoes.
Sounds like an interesting theory, but let's look at the scientific proof:
In 1998, a study called "Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a limited resource?" tested exactly this.
Two different groups of participants were advised to skip a meal and don't eat 3 hours before the experiment (so they were hungry at the time).
Then, all the participants were sat in a room that was filled with the smell of freshly baked cookies, and on each table, they prepared a plate with radishes and a plate filled with chocolate.
One group of participants only ate radishes, while having to resist the tempting smell and sight of chocolate. So their willpower was tested in 2 factors - having to eat something they didn't particularly enjoy, and resisting to eat something else.
The other group only ate the chocolate.
After that, both groups were asked to finish an unsolvable riddle.
The ones that had to eat the radish and already depleted their willpower gave up twice as fast!
After the experiments, the participants filled out some questionnaires.
And these were the results:
- The ones that ate the radish felt more tired after the experiment than the other group
- When the chocolate eaters felt like quitting the puzzle, they pushed themselves to keep going a little longer.
- When the radish eaters felt like quitting the puzzle, they quit almost immediately.
These results provide initial support for the hypothesis of ego depletion.
Resisting temptation seems to have produced a psychic cost, in the sense that afterward participants were more inclined to give up easily in the face of frustration.
It was not that eating chocolate improved performance. Rather, wanting chocolate but eating radishes instead, especially under circumstances in which it would seemingly be easy and safe to snitch some chocolates, seems to have consumed some resource and therefore left people less able to persist at the puzzles.
- Quote from the research study paper
Now if we would apply the results of this study to real life, the result would be to evolve and complete your tasks in baby steps.
It would mean that it would be counter-productive for you try changing several bad habits at the same time.
But there's also a controversy about this theory.
There have also been studies that did not have any proof of Ego Depletion in their results.
It's a highly controverse topic, and there are lots of different opinions about it.
One thing is for sure - You are always tricked by your brain.
Someone who believes their willpower is limited will use that as an excuse to slack off or take a break sometimes, while someone who believes their willpower is unlimited might just keep going - and will end up achieving more in the end.
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