Warning: Extremely Long Post
Do you want to achieve things but can’t force yourself to do it? Do you tell yourself you’ll change but never do? I’m going to let you in on the biggest secret your self-help guru doesn’t want you to know. I’m going to teach you how to get anything and everything you’ve ever wanted. How will I do this? I’m going to teach you how to have unlimited willpower, you heard me correctly you “willpower depletion” advocates, unlimited. The (actual) Secret. I’m a strong believer that almost everybody’s problems in life could be fixed with more willpower and self-discipline. These are the root to everything in life and in the next few minutes you will gain a complete understanding of how they really work.
Even though I’ve always wanted to succeed in life, I’ve always been a lazy procrastinator. I would try to wake up early and somehow sleep in until noon. I would write out a to do list/goals and then never do them. I would start exercising but quit after a couple weeks. I would want straight A’s but only start studying for an exam the night before. I could go on and on, you name it I did it. If this is you then you are aware that this is a major problem. You want to succeed but are unable to force yourself to do things. It’s super frustrating.
I’ve been searching for years now on how to become self-disciplined. How to have so much willpower I could achieve anything I set my mind to. Everyone says motivation is fleeting so I set off to become disciplined. I read book after book, post after post, and watched video after video (big jocko fan) and I still didn’t grasp it. Something was missing. Years went by and I was no more disciplined even after all of my research and learning. What was wrong? What was I missing?
Years of confusion and struggling went by until I finally figured it out. I stumbled across a book I wasn’t looking for and it changed my life. Once I read this book it all made sense.
On a side note, MJ’s TMF book connected all the dots for me. It was like I knew about some of the ideas already, but they weren’t all connected and once he explained everything it all clicked. Likewise, I believe everyone understands various ideas about willpower and self-discipline but don’t quite understand everything involved. I hope this post connects all the dots for you.
The credit goes mainly to Henry Hazlitt who wrote the book “The Way to Willpower.” He is an economist most famous for his book, “Economics in One Lesson” and wrote the willpower book when he was a 28-year-old nobody. It was written 100 years ago and few know about it. This book is in the public domain and can be read for free on Google (no excuses). But I’m going to summarize his thoughts below using my own experience and interpretations (definitely no excuses). If my posts aren’t clicking for you maybe his book will, or vice versa.
This post is long and thought-provoking. You may have to think about these concepts as you move throughout your days/months to really grasp the ideas.
Let’s Begin:
First, we need to define willpower, self-discipline, and habits. My definitions are:
Willpower is forcing yourself to do something in the moment right now.
Self-discipline is consistent willpower throughout time; days, months, etc.
Habits are actions that, because of self-discipline, become easier and easier through time requiring less thought and energy to complete. Almost becoming automatic, routine.
This is the logical order of how your actions work. Willpower first then Self-Discipline then Habits. You could argue these definitions are wrong but it’s immaterial what words you use to describe these ideas. Call them whatever you’d like. The following will still apply.
Based on these definitions we will realize the key to success is understanding willpower. Once you get willpower everything else will follow, without willpower you have nothing.
My definition of willpower above isn’t enough. We have to go deeper.
What exactly is willpower?
To figure that out we must realize that our brain doesn’t know what willpower is. Because of this, we are going to temporarily throw this word away and replace it with words your brain does understand. The 2 words are: desire and intellect.
Desire is what you want. Pizza, sleep, money, drugs, you name it.
Intellect is your brain coming up with ways to get what you desire. If you want pizza your intellect figures out how to get you one.
If this were a GPS your Desire would be the location and your Intellect would find the best route.
Your intellect also weighs your desires. Since you have so many desires it figures out which ones are the strongest. You may know you want pizza but do you want Papa John's or Pizza Hut? Delivery or carryout? Sausage or pepperoni? Your intellect will figure it out.
How does your intellect choose? It selects the desire that is the strongest. The strongest desire will always win.
When people say they need willpower they are really saying they have 2 desires (or more) that directly conflict with each other.
For example. I personally have no desire to smoke. If anything, I have a desire not to smoke. If anybody were to ask me, “Want a cigarette?” It would be an easy, “No.” No “willpower” needed. But for someone who’s trying to quit smoking they have 2 desires: The desire to quit and the desire to smoke. These 2 desires conflict with each other and cause the smoker to need “willpower” to make the right decision. But he doesn’t need willpower, he needs a stronger desire not to smoke and/or a weaker desire to smoke. This explanation breaks the willpower depletion theory.
Usually, your conflicting desires are long-term vs short-term. In the long run I want six-pack abs but right now I want to eat a whole pizza. These are directly opposing each other and I want both. Your intellect will choose the strongest desire in the moment. This is the time you start hearing that voice in your head, “A couple slices of pizza won’t hurt, but I really want abs, people with abs eat pizza sometimes too. I do want to look hot for summer, but I have been good all week…” This is your intellect trying to figure out which desire is stronger.
We have a countless number of desires and they are constantly changing throughout the day. This is the problem. At 10pm you have the desire to wake up early and get things done. At 5am your only desire in the world is to sleep. Remember, the strongest desire in the moment always wins. So how does the early riser get himself out of bed? He remembers what willpower really is.
This brings us to the true definition of willpower:
“The ability to keep a remote desire so vividly in mind that immediate desires which interfere with it are not gratified.”
Your long-term desires need to stay stronger than your short-term desires in the moment. A lot of people forget about their long-term desires when their short-term desires take over. You can’t let your long-term desire of waking up earlier be forgotten when it’s 5am and all you want is sleep. Do not forget your long-term desires, you must always keep them in mind. Muhammad Ali has a quote that fits perfectly with this definition of willpower, “I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” He kept the long-term in mind. This is also the same as when people say, “What’s your why?” Muhammad Ali’s was to be a champion and he kept it in mind during the times he wanted to quit. Reminding himself of his long-term desire made him strong enough to push through his short-term pain in his moments of weakness.
Now you might be thinking that this makes no sense. How could thinking about your long-term desire at 5am stop you from wanting to go back to sleep? After all, you will still be insanely tired.
Yes, you will still be tired. But this is the point where you must Pay the Price. This explanation of willpower isn’t a trick to make life easy. All I’m doing is making you aware of what’s really going on inside your head. Yes, you will still want to sleep. But in order to get your long-term desire of waking up early you must pay the price. Your short-term desire for more sleep is the price to pay. You will be tired, cold, groggy, annoyed, and maybe more but that is the price you pay for your long-term desire. Nothing is free. If you decided to sleep in instead, you will still be paying a price but in reverse. You will not accomplish your desire to get things done in the morning and will pay the price of regret, sadness, and being unsuccessful in doing your morning work.
However, there is one trick, and that trick is creating a habit. Once you are in the habit of waking up at 5am every day the price you pay gets smaller and smaller. Some things will become so automatic you will forget you even struggled to do them in the first place. This is the ultimate end goal and can be applied to almost anything.
Now that we know what willpower is we must learn how to use it.
Rule #1: Never Break A Resolution.
When you start looking at your desires you will want to make a resolution. A resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something. You might make many resolutions all the time to do one thing or the other and may not even realize it. If you make a resolution and don’t follow through you will hurt your ego. Do not resolve to do something that you won’t do. This is demoralizing and if you fail resolution after resolution eventually you will stop making resolutions to improve yourself because you will remember all of your past failures. Because of this you must make fewer resolutions and keep more. If this means you have to start super small, like flossing your teeth, then that’s where you start. Once that becomes easy (aka habit) you become more confident and can shoot bigger. Make sure that before you are about to make a resolution you weigh all your desires and their pros and cons in their entirety. Look at all the pros and cons of each desire without bias and then you must choose one. When you make a resolution you are saying, “Ok I see how reading a book will be better than watching TV. The pros of reading are increased knowledge and the cons are it’s boring and work. The pros of TV are it’s fun and entertaining and cons are its mindless and short term. I’m going to make a resolution to read instead of watch TV.” (This was a very simple and short example to show the process). Then, when the time comes, and it is time to read instead of watch TV you must read. And if you have only a desire to watch TV then you must bring the reading desire back to the front of your mind. (What’s your why?) Then you pay the price and sacrifice your TV watching and read that book.
The only time you can make an exception and break a resolution is when you have completely formed a habit. You will go back to your resolution with ease because it is now routine.
Rule #2. Only Look On The Bright Side.
Once you have your resolution in place you must not look at what you are giving up. Don’t mourn the loss of drinking if you resolved to not drink. There is no point in thinking of things you are missing out on since you should have already thought of these before making the resolution. This thinking will make you more susceptible to breaking your resolution. Instead, only think of the positives that being sober will give you. Keep in mind the reasons you decided to not drink in the first place and it will be easier to accomplish your goal.
Rule #3. Your Resolution Is Final.
When your resolution is made it’s final. No if’s and’s or but’s. You should have already thought it through in its entirety and came up with the best decision. If you give yourself leeway to change it you will find yourself changing it whenever convenient. There is no turning back once it’s made.
Rule #4. Don’t Make Your Resolution Too Big Or Too Small.
If you make your resolution too difficult you won’t be able to do it. If you make it too easy you may not feel challenged or that it is worthwhile. If you’re used to waking up at noon every day then setting a resolution to wake up at 4am is almost impossible. However, making a resolution to wake up at 11:45am might be too easy. Make a resolve that is challenging yet doable in your situation at this time. You cannot become your ideal person overnight, you must build up to it.
This is the general process to have ultimate willpower.
The Steps are:
Extra Side Points:
Changing Your Desires
You can use your intellect to weaken or strengthen your desires. If you want to start exercising maybe look up why it would benefit you and make you feel so good. And look up how not exercising will ruin you and make you feel horrible. I’m literally telling you to brainwash yourself.
Allen Carr’s stop smoking and drinking books have helped so many people. He doesn’t tell you any secret tips or tricks. He just takes away your desire to smoke and drink.
If you are convinced that eating a candy bar will kill you on the spot, you will never eat candy ever again because your desire to live is too great. It doesn’t matter how many people ask you to eat it or how tasty it is or if Halloween was every day of the year, you would never eat candy again.
Before I knew about how willpower worked there was a time when I was running a mile a day. When I was on the phone with a buddy we were talking about it and he said, “Whoa how long have you been running a mile a day?” I said, “For a couple months now.” He said, “Wow you must have a lot of willpower!” And the ego stroke felt good. And I believed him at the time. But looking back on it I realize that I didn’t have “willpower”. I had an insane desire to run a mile a day. I literally convinced myself that if I didn’t run the mile every day I would be a fat, lazy, loser, single, nobody for the rest of my life and I reminded myself of this fact, yes I believed it was a fact, every day before my run. The desire to not run paled in comparison. It was an easy decision.
This is why I believe a lot of super successful people are seen as crazy. Their desires are extreme and overbearing. Michael Jordan will compete all day and all night to beat you even if it’s ping pong. His desire to win beats all other desires. Source because I think it’s funny (skip if you want):
External Forces
External forces can have immediate effects on your desires. This is why if you want to lose weight they say don’t buy cookies and put them in your kitchen. If you see cookies your desire to eat them will skyrocket and you will find yourself with a face full of them. If the cookies were at the store your desire might not appear and if it does it probably won’t be stronger than your desire not to drive 15 minutes to and from the store at 8pm.
Have you ever seen a Taco Bell ad and immediately wanted to eat a dozen soft tacos? The external triggers that go against your long-term desires must be avoided. If you want to quit alcohol you must avoid bars. If you want to quit video games then sell your Xbox.
Remember to avoid any desire triggers you can think of.
An Umbrella Desire
One “trick” you can use is having the desire to be a certain type of person. This one desire can encompass a ton of other desires. For example, the desire to be an entrepreneur or fastlaner will affect numerous things throughout your daily life. You may now desire to learn a new skill, file for an LLC, please customers, take control of your finances, or read books on famous entrepreneurs. You have no desire to do these individually but because you really want to be an entrepreneur you will do them. If you desire to be a bodybuilder you will end up lifting weights and measuring your food because that's what a bodybuilder does not necessarily because you desire to lift weights or measure every ounce of food.
Have you ever met someone that was a textbook vegan, Christian, slowlaner, (insert any group here)? When you have an umbrella desire all the accompanying actions will fall underneath.
Caving
Do you ever notice that when you cave on your diet and cheat a little you end up wanting to cheat a lot? This is because you made a resolution to get a long-term desire and broke it. Your short-term desires have won and now you feel like you have lost the battle and might as well enjoy yourself short-term. Don’t break your resolutions, this applies to more than just dieting.
Accountability Buddies
Having an accountability buddy can be a great way to shape your desires. People have an innate desire to not look bad in front of others. If you tell your buddy you’re going to the gym or your wife that you’re going to start a business you will feel more desire to accomplish these things so you don’t look like a fool. A lot of people have accountability buddies and don’t even realize it.
Closing Statement:
I’m going to end this by quoting page 60 of Hazlitt’s book:
“Oh, the pathos of telling yourself, when each new temptation arises: “I will begin to reform the next time. I will yield this time, and this will be the last.” Oh, the tragedy of that excuse! Self-deception could not possibly be more complete. If you can only tell yourself, when temptation arises, not that this time will be the last, but that the last time was the last! If you can only repeat that to yourself, if you can force your attention to rivet on that fact, if you can only realize that the whole force of your will and moral effort must be summoned now and not at some vague time in the future, if you can burn into your mind that this battle, this inward struggle against temptation, is the only real and crucial one, if you can forget about the moral struggles won or lost in the past or that you expect to win in the future, and concentrate only upon the present battle, then truly you will be on the way to willpower. And it is the only way. Moral sentiments, fine ideals, excellent mottoes, splendid resolutions, are all mere preparation for the struggle. They are all very well in their place, but if they do not express themselves in action, and express themselves at the moment when temptation has come, they are worse than useless.”
I hope you found this informative and will start using this knowledge to your advantage today! Now go out there, make a resolution and pay the price!
Do you want to achieve things but can’t force yourself to do it? Do you tell yourself you’ll change but never do? I’m going to let you in on the biggest secret your self-help guru doesn’t want you to know. I’m going to teach you how to get anything and everything you’ve ever wanted. How will I do this? I’m going to teach you how to have unlimited willpower, you heard me correctly you “willpower depletion” advocates, unlimited. The (actual) Secret. I’m a strong believer that almost everybody’s problems in life could be fixed with more willpower and self-discipline. These are the root to everything in life and in the next few minutes you will gain a complete understanding of how they really work.
Even though I’ve always wanted to succeed in life, I’ve always been a lazy procrastinator. I would try to wake up early and somehow sleep in until noon. I would write out a to do list/goals and then never do them. I would start exercising but quit after a couple weeks. I would want straight A’s but only start studying for an exam the night before. I could go on and on, you name it I did it. If this is you then you are aware that this is a major problem. You want to succeed but are unable to force yourself to do things. It’s super frustrating.
I’ve been searching for years now on how to become self-disciplined. How to have so much willpower I could achieve anything I set my mind to. Everyone says motivation is fleeting so I set off to become disciplined. I read book after book, post after post, and watched video after video (big jocko fan) and I still didn’t grasp it. Something was missing. Years went by and I was no more disciplined even after all of my research and learning. What was wrong? What was I missing?
Years of confusion and struggling went by until I finally figured it out. I stumbled across a book I wasn’t looking for and it changed my life. Once I read this book it all made sense.
On a side note, MJ’s TMF book connected all the dots for me. It was like I knew about some of the ideas already, but they weren’t all connected and once he explained everything it all clicked. Likewise, I believe everyone understands various ideas about willpower and self-discipline but don’t quite understand everything involved. I hope this post connects all the dots for you.
The credit goes mainly to Henry Hazlitt who wrote the book “The Way to Willpower.” He is an economist most famous for his book, “Economics in One Lesson” and wrote the willpower book when he was a 28-year-old nobody. It was written 100 years ago and few know about it. This book is in the public domain and can be read for free on Google (no excuses). But I’m going to summarize his thoughts below using my own experience and interpretations (definitely no excuses). If my posts aren’t clicking for you maybe his book will, or vice versa.
This post is long and thought-provoking. You may have to think about these concepts as you move throughout your days/months to really grasp the ideas.
Let’s Begin:
First, we need to define willpower, self-discipline, and habits. My definitions are:
Willpower is forcing yourself to do something in the moment right now.
Self-discipline is consistent willpower throughout time; days, months, etc.
Habits are actions that, because of self-discipline, become easier and easier through time requiring less thought and energy to complete. Almost becoming automatic, routine.
This is the logical order of how your actions work. Willpower first then Self-Discipline then Habits. You could argue these definitions are wrong but it’s immaterial what words you use to describe these ideas. Call them whatever you’d like. The following will still apply.
Based on these definitions we will realize the key to success is understanding willpower. Once you get willpower everything else will follow, without willpower you have nothing.
My definition of willpower above isn’t enough. We have to go deeper.
What exactly is willpower?
To figure that out we must realize that our brain doesn’t know what willpower is. Because of this, we are going to temporarily throw this word away and replace it with words your brain does understand. The 2 words are: desire and intellect.
Desire is what you want. Pizza, sleep, money, drugs, you name it.
Intellect is your brain coming up with ways to get what you desire. If you want pizza your intellect figures out how to get you one.
If this were a GPS your Desire would be the location and your Intellect would find the best route.
Your intellect also weighs your desires. Since you have so many desires it figures out which ones are the strongest. You may know you want pizza but do you want Papa John's or Pizza Hut? Delivery or carryout? Sausage or pepperoni? Your intellect will figure it out.
How does your intellect choose? It selects the desire that is the strongest. The strongest desire will always win.
When people say they need willpower they are really saying they have 2 desires (or more) that directly conflict with each other.
For example. I personally have no desire to smoke. If anything, I have a desire not to smoke. If anybody were to ask me, “Want a cigarette?” It would be an easy, “No.” No “willpower” needed. But for someone who’s trying to quit smoking they have 2 desires: The desire to quit and the desire to smoke. These 2 desires conflict with each other and cause the smoker to need “willpower” to make the right decision. But he doesn’t need willpower, he needs a stronger desire not to smoke and/or a weaker desire to smoke. This explanation breaks the willpower depletion theory.
Usually, your conflicting desires are long-term vs short-term. In the long run I want six-pack abs but right now I want to eat a whole pizza. These are directly opposing each other and I want both. Your intellect will choose the strongest desire in the moment. This is the time you start hearing that voice in your head, “A couple slices of pizza won’t hurt, but I really want abs, people with abs eat pizza sometimes too. I do want to look hot for summer, but I have been good all week…” This is your intellect trying to figure out which desire is stronger.
We have a countless number of desires and they are constantly changing throughout the day. This is the problem. At 10pm you have the desire to wake up early and get things done. At 5am your only desire in the world is to sleep. Remember, the strongest desire in the moment always wins. So how does the early riser get himself out of bed? He remembers what willpower really is.
This brings us to the true definition of willpower:
“The ability to keep a remote desire so vividly in mind that immediate desires which interfere with it are not gratified.”
Your long-term desires need to stay stronger than your short-term desires in the moment. A lot of people forget about their long-term desires when their short-term desires take over. You can’t let your long-term desire of waking up earlier be forgotten when it’s 5am and all you want is sleep. Do not forget your long-term desires, you must always keep them in mind. Muhammad Ali has a quote that fits perfectly with this definition of willpower, “I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” He kept the long-term in mind. This is also the same as when people say, “What’s your why?” Muhammad Ali’s was to be a champion and he kept it in mind during the times he wanted to quit. Reminding himself of his long-term desire made him strong enough to push through his short-term pain in his moments of weakness.
Now you might be thinking that this makes no sense. How could thinking about your long-term desire at 5am stop you from wanting to go back to sleep? After all, you will still be insanely tired.
Yes, you will still be tired. But this is the point where you must Pay the Price. This explanation of willpower isn’t a trick to make life easy. All I’m doing is making you aware of what’s really going on inside your head. Yes, you will still want to sleep. But in order to get your long-term desire of waking up early you must pay the price. Your short-term desire for more sleep is the price to pay. You will be tired, cold, groggy, annoyed, and maybe more but that is the price you pay for your long-term desire. Nothing is free. If you decided to sleep in instead, you will still be paying a price but in reverse. You will not accomplish your desire to get things done in the morning and will pay the price of regret, sadness, and being unsuccessful in doing your morning work.
However, there is one trick, and that trick is creating a habit. Once you are in the habit of waking up at 5am every day the price you pay gets smaller and smaller. Some things will become so automatic you will forget you even struggled to do them in the first place. This is the ultimate end goal and can be applied to almost anything.
Now that we know what willpower is we must learn how to use it.
Rule #1: Never Break A Resolution.
When you start looking at your desires you will want to make a resolution. A resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something. You might make many resolutions all the time to do one thing or the other and may not even realize it. If you make a resolution and don’t follow through you will hurt your ego. Do not resolve to do something that you won’t do. This is demoralizing and if you fail resolution after resolution eventually you will stop making resolutions to improve yourself because you will remember all of your past failures. Because of this you must make fewer resolutions and keep more. If this means you have to start super small, like flossing your teeth, then that’s where you start. Once that becomes easy (aka habit) you become more confident and can shoot bigger. Make sure that before you are about to make a resolution you weigh all your desires and their pros and cons in their entirety. Look at all the pros and cons of each desire without bias and then you must choose one. When you make a resolution you are saying, “Ok I see how reading a book will be better than watching TV. The pros of reading are increased knowledge and the cons are it’s boring and work. The pros of TV are it’s fun and entertaining and cons are its mindless and short term. I’m going to make a resolution to read instead of watch TV.” (This was a very simple and short example to show the process). Then, when the time comes, and it is time to read instead of watch TV you must read. And if you have only a desire to watch TV then you must bring the reading desire back to the front of your mind. (What’s your why?) Then you pay the price and sacrifice your TV watching and read that book.
The only time you can make an exception and break a resolution is when you have completely formed a habit. You will go back to your resolution with ease because it is now routine.
Rule #2. Only Look On The Bright Side.
Once you have your resolution in place you must not look at what you are giving up. Don’t mourn the loss of drinking if you resolved to not drink. There is no point in thinking of things you are missing out on since you should have already thought of these before making the resolution. This thinking will make you more susceptible to breaking your resolution. Instead, only think of the positives that being sober will give you. Keep in mind the reasons you decided to not drink in the first place and it will be easier to accomplish your goal.
Rule #3. Your Resolution Is Final.
When your resolution is made it’s final. No if’s and’s or but’s. You should have already thought it through in its entirety and came up with the best decision. If you give yourself leeway to change it you will find yourself changing it whenever convenient. There is no turning back once it’s made.
Rule #4. Don’t Make Your Resolution Too Big Or Too Small.
If you make your resolution too difficult you won’t be able to do it. If you make it too easy you may not feel challenged or that it is worthwhile. If you’re used to waking up at noon every day then setting a resolution to wake up at 4am is almost impossible. However, making a resolution to wake up at 11:45am might be too easy. Make a resolve that is challenging yet doable in your situation at this time. You cannot become your ideal person overnight, you must build up to it.
This is the general process to have ultimate willpower.
The Steps are:
- Weigh your desires in their entirety. No bias.
- Make a resolution to get the desire you want. (Preferably a specific time, place, and action.)
- Keep this desire in mind when other desires try to take over.
- Pay the price for it.
- Follow the rules above.
- Repeat task until it becomes habitual.
- Repeat the entire process.
Extra Side Points:
Changing Your Desires
You can use your intellect to weaken or strengthen your desires. If you want to start exercising maybe look up why it would benefit you and make you feel so good. And look up how not exercising will ruin you and make you feel horrible. I’m literally telling you to brainwash yourself.
Allen Carr’s stop smoking and drinking books have helped so many people. He doesn’t tell you any secret tips or tricks. He just takes away your desire to smoke and drink.
If you are convinced that eating a candy bar will kill you on the spot, you will never eat candy ever again because your desire to live is too great. It doesn’t matter how many people ask you to eat it or how tasty it is or if Halloween was every day of the year, you would never eat candy again.
Before I knew about how willpower worked there was a time when I was running a mile a day. When I was on the phone with a buddy we were talking about it and he said, “Whoa how long have you been running a mile a day?” I said, “For a couple months now.” He said, “Wow you must have a lot of willpower!” And the ego stroke felt good. And I believed him at the time. But looking back on it I realize that I didn’t have “willpower”. I had an insane desire to run a mile a day. I literally convinced myself that if I didn’t run the mile every day I would be a fat, lazy, loser, single, nobody for the rest of my life and I reminded myself of this fact, yes I believed it was a fact, every day before my run. The desire to not run paled in comparison. It was an easy decision.
This is why I believe a lot of super successful people are seen as crazy. Their desires are extreme and overbearing. Michael Jordan will compete all day and all night to beat you even if it’s ping pong. His desire to win beats all other desires. Source because I think it’s funny (skip if you want):
During the 1992 Summer Olympics, the Dream Team’s stars spent plenty of time on the basketball court, playing intense scrimmages and cruising to the gold medal. Michael Jordan and his peers, however, still found time to take part in another competition.
During their downtime in the hotel, the Dream Team started playing ping pong; before long, a bracket was created, and elimination play began. Eventually, Jordan and Christian Laettner met in the finals; MJ may have been a star, but the Duke forward had plenty of ping pong experience.
“So, Laettner and Jordan in the finals,” NBA photographer Nat Butler recounted on SLAM’s “Respect the Game podcast,” according to The Big Lead. “Like, there was some side action going on, we’ll leave it at that. Michael is playing ping pong, sweating, like fourth-quarter-at-the-free-throw-line kind of sweat. For some reason, Laettner beat him.”
While he was in Barcelona to win a gold medal, not compete in a ping pong tournament, Michael Jordan couldn’t tolerate losing in any competition. So how did he respond to falling to Christian Laettner in the finals?
“[Jordan] threw the paddle,” Butler continued. “He didn’t talk for two days to anyone. Come to find out, he had a ping-pong table delivered up to his room. No one knew about it. and he was practicing for the rematch.”
Eventually, that rematch took place; if you know anything about Michael Jordan, you already know the reported result. “They had a rematch two days later, three days later,” Butler concluded. “It was [something like] 21-4. He destroyed him.”
External Forces
External forces can have immediate effects on your desires. This is why if you want to lose weight they say don’t buy cookies and put them in your kitchen. If you see cookies your desire to eat them will skyrocket and you will find yourself with a face full of them. If the cookies were at the store your desire might not appear and if it does it probably won’t be stronger than your desire not to drive 15 minutes to and from the store at 8pm.
Have you ever seen a Taco Bell ad and immediately wanted to eat a dozen soft tacos? The external triggers that go against your long-term desires must be avoided. If you want to quit alcohol you must avoid bars. If you want to quit video games then sell your Xbox.
Remember to avoid any desire triggers you can think of.
An Umbrella Desire
One “trick” you can use is having the desire to be a certain type of person. This one desire can encompass a ton of other desires. For example, the desire to be an entrepreneur or fastlaner will affect numerous things throughout your daily life. You may now desire to learn a new skill, file for an LLC, please customers, take control of your finances, or read books on famous entrepreneurs. You have no desire to do these individually but because you really want to be an entrepreneur you will do them. If you desire to be a bodybuilder you will end up lifting weights and measuring your food because that's what a bodybuilder does not necessarily because you desire to lift weights or measure every ounce of food.
Have you ever met someone that was a textbook vegan, Christian, slowlaner, (insert any group here)? When you have an umbrella desire all the accompanying actions will fall underneath.
Caving
Do you ever notice that when you cave on your diet and cheat a little you end up wanting to cheat a lot? This is because you made a resolution to get a long-term desire and broke it. Your short-term desires have won and now you feel like you have lost the battle and might as well enjoy yourself short-term. Don’t break your resolutions, this applies to more than just dieting.
Accountability Buddies
Having an accountability buddy can be a great way to shape your desires. People have an innate desire to not look bad in front of others. If you tell your buddy you’re going to the gym or your wife that you’re going to start a business you will feel more desire to accomplish these things so you don’t look like a fool. A lot of people have accountability buddies and don’t even realize it.
Closing Statement:
I’m going to end this by quoting page 60 of Hazlitt’s book:
“Oh, the pathos of telling yourself, when each new temptation arises: “I will begin to reform the next time. I will yield this time, and this will be the last.” Oh, the tragedy of that excuse! Self-deception could not possibly be more complete. If you can only tell yourself, when temptation arises, not that this time will be the last, but that the last time was the last! If you can only repeat that to yourself, if you can force your attention to rivet on that fact, if you can only realize that the whole force of your will and moral effort must be summoned now and not at some vague time in the future, if you can burn into your mind that this battle, this inward struggle against temptation, is the only real and crucial one, if you can forget about the moral struggles won or lost in the past or that you expect to win in the future, and concentrate only upon the present battle, then truly you will be on the way to willpower. And it is the only way. Moral sentiments, fine ideals, excellent mottoes, splendid resolutions, are all mere preparation for the struggle. They are all very well in their place, but if they do not express themselves in action, and express themselves at the moment when temptation has come, they are worse than useless.”
I hope you found this informative and will start using this knowledge to your advantage today! Now go out there, make a resolution and pay the price!
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