life of you, you've not been able to get yourself to stick with the actions that you know you

need to take to actually make it happen. Now, for some people, this is sticking to the diet,

going to the gym. For others, it's starting a business and sticking with it through all

the inevitable difficult times. No matter what it is for you, everyone in their life

has something that they're working on that they've not been able to achieve, and the

common reason that we give ourselves for these repeatedly failed goals is that we just didn't

have enough willpower. And this is actually a really, really terrible misconception that

keeps us from achieving what we want because we don't understand, oftentimes, how willpower

works, and that's what I want to clarify in this video.

Appropriately, it comes inspired from a book that is called Willpower, and there's a couple

of main takeaways that are really worth knowing. The first is this, your willpower, my willpower,

everybody's willpower is a finite resource, and you can conceive it, kind of like a video

game, where you have a health bar above your head that says how much you have. Now, throughout

your day, it's being drained by all kinds of things. It's not just when you force yourself

to get up in the morning, or force yourself to go to the gym. It's when you exert emotional

control. Say you watch a movie, and you try not to cry, that drains your willpower life

bar. Or say that you're out with a group of friends, and you're trying to be happy, when

you kind of feel glum, that drains it even more. And one of the biggest things that we

do not realize that is draining our willpower in a day-to-day basis is decision-making.

Every single time you deliberate, go back and forth, the more time you spend in that

decision-making process, the more and more that willpower goes down. Now, the good news

is there's ways to replenish it.

Eating and sleeping are chief among them, and you can also strengthen your willpower,

so it's bigger and you have more reserves of it. And this is done, basically, just by

exerting willpower. The more that you get up in the morning, force yourself to go to

the gym when you don't want to, you're strengthening that willpower. This brings me to my second

point, which is, you might be thinking right now, "Okay, if I want to achieve all these

goals that I've been putting off, what I need is more willpower. I have to strengthen my

willpower." And that's actually, exactly wrong. The people that seemingly have mastery over

themselves and their willpower are not the ones with the deepest reserves. They're the

ones that have set up their lives in a way, such that they drain their willpower the least

throughout their day. Now, this is really important. If you want to get the things you

want in your life, it's not about fighting inner struggles, and conquering them day after

day after day. It's about setting up an environment, a system, and a lifestyle that makes it, so

you don't have to fight all these battles. You can conserve your willpower for where

it really matters. And I want to touch on six things that you can do now to stop draining

that willpower, so that you will have more of it for when it counts.

Number one: Make decisions more quickly, because to your brain, it doesn't matter whether or

not you're trying to figure out whether or not to eat Chinese or Italian tonight, or

whether or not you're trying to figure out what to do with some giant business decision.

Just the process of being stuck in the decision is costing you willpower. So, a general rule

of thumb is to stop saying I don't care. And, certainly, do not get involved in those back

and forths "I don't care what you want to do," that go forever and ever. That just drains

your willpower. You want to identify when decisions either don't matter or when you're

not getting enough information to make a good decision, and just pick a path. That is going

to save you in the long run.

Number two: Set up hard and fast rules in your life; rules that cannot be violated,

because from a willpower perspective, it is very draining, again, to go back and forth

in your head. So it's much easier to say, "Okay, I will not drink soda and I'll only

eat foods off of this list," than it is for you to go, "Okay, I ate really good yesterday,

and I worked out extra hard. Now I'm at dinner, and they just gave me a free dessert. Is it

okay for me to have a small portion?" Because that takes a lot of mental energy to process.

When you set up hard and fast rules, as draconian as this might feel and sound at first, it

actually creates a tremendous amount of freedom in your own life to spend your brain power

on the things that matter the most. So, set up rules. You must work between these hours.

You need to go to the gym five days a week. For me, I set up a rule I have to release

one YouTube video every single Monday and that's why I am here, right now. So set up

rules.

Number three: Change your environment so that it supports you. Now, you've probably heard

this before, but if the easiest way to not eat junk food is to not have junk food in

the house. If you're like me, I wanted to stop checking emails so much, I've tried it

for weeks, and I was like "Okay, I'm only going to do it once a day," and I was constantly

on it. I finally just deleted the Gmail app from my phone, and that made it, so I couldn't

go even when I was tempted to. So, think how can you transform your environment so that

it actually supports you in what you're trying to do. And a big thing to think about here

is your friend group, and, particularly, the people that you live with. If your list is

coming up and you have an opportunity, try to pick people who have the same goals as

you, who are not going to have the junk food, who are not going to be smoking or drinking;

people who are going to the gym, starting a business, doing the kinds of things that

you want to do, because that is the kind of environment that is going to be supportive

of your aims, which brings us to number five: Prep for the hard situations beforehand. Again,

this goes back to one of the classic tenets of willpower, which is that the more time

you spend deciding, deliberating, the more you're draining that willpower.

Now, I set up a video several weeks back. That was "What to Do When You Don't Want to

Drink and People are Pressuring You?" That is very helpful because you have a game plan

beforehand, so whatever it is in your life, think through the common things that are likely

to happen. They're going to blow you off course, and what you will do to respond? That can

be as simple as, Okay, I know I'm trying to lose weight. I know that they give free dessert

at this restaurant. When that is offered to me, as soon as the waiter comes, I will say,

"No, thank you, I'm on a diet," or whatever, or, I know that I'm trying to start a business.

I know that my buddies are going to call me up Thursday night so that we can go out to

the bar. I'm going to tell them, "Hey, guys, I cannot come out until 11 o'clock after I've

worked for my business for two hours." Think through the things that have taken you off

course in the past. Set up a plan to follow through in the future, and that is going to

eliminate the amount of time that you spend deliberating and really help to preserve your

willpower, which brings me to number six.

Perhaps, the hardest to implement, but, also, the strongest thing to stop draining your

willpower, which is identity. If your identity says, "I'm the type of person who goes to

the gym. I'm the type of person who works on their business every single day." It will

not take you any willpower to do it because that is who you are. Now, changing your identity

can be difficult. The one tip I would give you here, because it's a much bigger topic,

is to get a really strong "why" that resonates in you today. So, if you feel like you're

the type of person who never settles; maybe, you're the type of person who is dedicated

to growth, connect that to the activity that you want to be doing. So, maybe, you see yourself

as a person who never settles, in business you're getting ahead, but your body is just

not the way it needs to be. If you can connect that pre-existing identity to the action that

you want to take, you'll find, that you oftentimes, one, you're disgusted with your past actions,

but, two, complacency, apathy, not following through doesn't become an option anymore.

I'll do more on this topic because it's a big one, but identity is number six. It's

a really, really strong way to stop draining your own willpower.

So, that's willpower. And if you're interested in reading the book yourself, even though

I've just gone over what I think are the most important points, you can go ahead and click

the link in the descriptions to check it out. If there's other books that you would like

to see me do, and in fact, there's plenty that I already have in mind. So if you like

this just let me know. Go ahead and write them in the comments or just write that you'd

like to see more of this book series. If you've enjoyed this and you're not already subscribed

to the channel, we do lots of different things--Charisma Breakdowns, How To Be More Confident--that's

really what we focus on, but there's, also, this edge that I'm interested in, which is

Personal Development. So I'll be doing a lot more of this.

In any event, I hope that you've enjoyed this. I hope that you've gotten a lot out of it,

and I will see you in the next video.