#108 🧠 How to Build Willpower - Definitive Deep Dive

What's up and welcome back to the Talk Nutrition Podcast. Today I'm gonna break all your beliefs around willpower. I'm gonna help you build it. Also gonna show you how to not rely on it too much. We're gonna get into a little bit of research. We're gonna discuss whether it really gets depleted or not, your willpower reserves, let's call it. We'll even get into a little bit of stress management, neuroscience, but most importantly, we're gonna keep it actionable for you to walk away from this podcast knowing what to do about it. Because first of all, you do have enough willpower. You can train it. Second, you don't need to rely on willpower all the time. I'm gonna show you how. Here's the thing, here's why this is important. I know you want to lose the body fat. I know you want to build the muscle and gain confidence and just feel better. Maybe you want to perform or improve your health. And I know that you've already heard that you should be eating your proteins and your fruits and vegetables a hundred times, if not more. You almost know exactly what needs doing, yet you just can't seem to collect enough willpower to actually do those things required for you to be successful longterm. or to even stick to the process long enough for you to actually see results. At first it's the Christmas cookies, right? They keep calling your name from the kitchen table and you kind of, you know, you feel more comfortable on the couch, even though you know the chores around the house still needs doing. And when it's bedtime, you kind of know, Hey, I should go to bed. Like I've been tired. I'm exhausted from work or school, whatever it is. Yet you kind of stay awake, you know, you scroll your phone and watch Netflix. I'm not judging by the way, I also fall into those kind of things, right? We all have temptations that we need to resist. But that stuff sounds familiar, right? Like I know it does, but like think about that. The things I just mentioned, like do you ever get that idea where you just don't have enough willpower? Do you feel like you don't have what it takes? Like maybe you look up to someone and you think to yourself, like, Oh, that person has so much willpower. I wish I had that. Does it ever feel difficult to practice self-control, to resist temptations or to delay gratification, which really means like doing something now to ultimately long-term, right, see the outcome, which is a difficult thing to learn. Today I'm gonna teach you exactly what sets our most successful clients apart so that you can do the same. And honestly, I think you're gonna be surprised by some of the solutions we're gonna get into. Now, before we jump in. We are currently accepting new clients into our online nutrition coaching program. So if you are looking to take your journey to the next level and you want individualized help, we can help you. And I want to offer you a free call. All you got to do is go to the link in our show notes. It'll say free consultation call. It's non-biting. It's a hundred percent on the house. And you know what it is like, I just want to make sure like, first we connect. This should not be something where you go on a website and it's like real quick. Oh, you know, It's like an impulse buy or whatever. Like, no, this is a commitment. And we take our time with you very seriously. And that's why I personally want to get on the phone with you. I'm going to give you a free half hour of my time to dive into your goals, what you need help with. And then maybe we'll decide. You know what I mean? So this is not a like, hey, buy my shit. Like, no, like, I just want to see if we click. You know what I mean? And if you're a good fit for our program, and maybe if we're a good fit for you, and maybe we're what you're looking for. which I'm pretty sure we are because we've helped people just like you. It's just going to come down to like, Hey, are you doing the work? Are you willing to do the work I should say required? If so, we can get you the results. But that being said, let's do that call. Go to the show notes, free consultation call. It's on the house and I'll personally get back to you. First of all, I want to discuss if your willpower can actually be depleted, because there's a little bit of discussion going on within the science space. I'm just going to pour myself a little bit of tea if you hear that in the background. But before we even get into the tools and tactics, I just want to dive into you understanding willpower. Like how does it work? Does it get depleted? Because there's a little bit of, again, like there's a discussion going on about whether... it actually depletes over time throughout the day as you make certain decisions. So think about it this way, right? And this concept is actually called ego depletion. For a long time, scientists have believed that willpower is a resource that depletes through the day where you, let's call it, you have a glass full of willpower and then as you resist a temptation or you do something difficult or whatever it is, you kind of exert that, right? It depletes over time. And this was coined by Roy. Baumeister in 1998, so it's pretty, you know, old, I guess, theory. Excuse me. Now, according to that theory, knowing that your brain runs mostly on glucose, right? Because that's your primary fuel source. You expend actual energy as you use your willpower throughout the day. And then in 2007, they actually did a study by the same person that supported this claim because here's what they did. There was two groups where they were doing difficult tasks and then in between they would get a drink, a lemonade. where one was actually a sugary drink and the other was a artificially sweetened drink. And the idea was, like, hey, okay, if I'm actually exerting or expending, sorry, energy, that should actually show up in terms of like our brain glucose levels, because your brain burns, you know, fuel also. So that must mean then that if you drink a sugary drink and you get more glucose in the system, you should have more willpower again. And this was actually, you know, in quotes, proven in that study. So they were all like excited and stuff, you know. Later though, and this is five years later, in 2013, and we're not going to list study after study by the way, like, but for now like this will be the last one, but in 2013 there was a study by Carol Dweck. who also wrote a really cool book called Mindset. If you haven't yet, check it out. Not a failure to do it or anything, but it's definitely one of the better books I've read over the last couple of years. But she did a study where they actually found that it wasn't even the actual drinking of the sugar and the lemonade. Because they compared that, the sugar and the lemonade, to the artificially sweetened drink. But then they also looked at... what people believed. And they were basically like, they were shown, you know, certain videos around mindset and you know, they were taught like, hey, you know, your mindset, you know, sorry, your willpower gets depleted throughout the day. And then other people were taught that it actually isn't the case, that you have infinite amounts. And based on people's beliefs and mindsets around willpower, they had more or less willpower. So you see? It actually turns out that how much willpower you have and whether it depletes or not is way more about your mindset and beliefs. If you believe you have a lot of willpower, if you believe you have a lot of self-control, you will have a lot of willpower and self-control. On the other hand, if you think that willpower gets depleted throughout the day, it will run out. You see? Now, again, I'm not going to keep listing studies because there's honestly hundreds of studies by now around this concept of ego depletion. And over the years there's been studies going back and forth from studies like not being able to replicate older studies and find the same outcomes. Right? So right now there's a bunch of different studies that found, first of all, unpublished data to where in the beginning, like early on, They were just publishing stuff that was actually supporting ego depletion, but they left out data that actually went against it. But again, in the meantime, there's been multiple studies, sometimes proving the theory, and then other times debunking it or being almost neutral. So I don't even think, because this is getting confusing already, I don't even... I think we should really worry about this too much. I think we should leave the discussion to the scientists. I think that's up to them to figure out. And apparently over decades they have not yet figured it out. Which in a way is also the beauty of research. But don't worry, I'm going to help you figure the shit out. Maybe with time they'll figure it out as well. When it comes to ego depletion, is it real? Do you actually deplete etc. For now... Let's put that aside. I did want to give you a little bit of a background story here because you might actually go online and see those claims still to where someone says, your willpower depletes there today. And then for that reason, you now have the mindset of, hey, okay, so it does deplete, which means that you're going to believe that it depletes leading to it depleting over time. Make sense? Again, remember your mindset is super important here. Super important. Now. Let's dive in to a little bit of neuroscience. I'm gonna keep it like plain English for the most part, but I need you to have a good understanding of the relationship between fatigue and stress and self-control. So, okay, a couple of big words coming up, but we're gonna keep it actionable, like I said. So self-control kind of lives in what's called the prefrontal cortex, which is the very front part area of your brain. And the main functions... include like of the prefrontal cortex, include a social interaction, personality expression, memory, here we go, inhibition of inappropriate behaviors, self-control, attention, and decision making. So let's call that like front area of the brain, the like the in control part. Now then there's also the midbrain, which is a little bit more related to like the fight or parts of your brain at once, but I'm sharing this to kind of show you like, hey, these two different areas of the brain relate more, right, to either the stress response or the more calm, kind of like in, in control mood, let's call it. Because when you are stressed and or fatigued, more mental resources kind of go to that midbrain to where, right, fewer resources are in the prefrontal cortex. That makes sense. and think about this. When that is the case, this can lead to being forgetful, having a hard time concentrating, being disorganized, reduced insight, judgment, and moral conscience. Here we go. Decreased empathy and compassion, but also decreased optimism, persistence, self-regulation, and inhibitory control. So now you're starting to connect the dots, right? So, When we are stressed, when we are tired, this comes from like lack of sleep, right? Could be work-related stress or anything like that. When we are stressed and or fatigued, you are gonna be less persistent, less optimistic. You're gonna not be as good at self-regulation. You're gonna be more disorganized, right? Your inhibition control kinda goes at the door, you see? These are all things that play a massive role. on your journey towards your goals, your Odyssey. You see? Now here's the cool thing. So because when we're stressed, it becomes very difficult to actually do the things required for you to reach your goals. We now also know that, hey, if we are in that calm state, remember that the self-control area more, like of the brain, which is also called rest and digest, or pause and plan, so we have fight or flight. or rest and digest, aka pause or plan or pause and plan. When we are there, it's way easier to be in control and to make the right decisions. So that is where you make your good plans. That's where you make the better decisions. That's where you feel, you know, you're able to reach your goals. You know how to move forward. You're more optimistic, more persistent, right? You're in control. Like that's where you want to be. Guess why we talk about sleep and stress? so much on this podcast. And guess why I did a full deep dive on both sleep as well as stress on our blog, which by the way, I can link in the show notes as well. I'll make sure that happens. So below the free consultation call, you can go into stress management as well as the sleep deep dive together with this week's article, which is obviously the willpower deep dive as well. So a lot to read basically. Now that being said, We talk about this stuff a lot for a reason. Both stress and sleep, like it's not just feeling calm and doing a bit of meditation and journaling and just taking things off your checklist. Like no, it's not even just to feel more rested, it's so much more. Because both stress and sleep can dramatically impact every aspect of your health fitness journey, including willpower and self-control, you see? And whether that's a... positive or negative, sorry, impact, massively depends on what you do and how well you manage your stress and how well you practice good sleep hygiene. And I know these kinds of things are easier said than done, but if you want to, you can go to the stress management and sleep article deep dives to kind of get into that more. So now we understand, like, hey, your mindset matters most when it comes to ego depletion and just in general, like your willpower and self-control. So your mindset matters most. We now also know that stress and fatigue directly plays into which areas of your brain are more active, which has an impact on self-control, decision-making, those kinds of things that we talked about, being able to resist temptations. Now let's talk about training your willpower. Because here's the cool thing, you can train your willpower just like any muscle, through resistance, discomfort and consistent action, you can train your willpower. It's just like training your biceps, you lift that weight, you lift the dumbbell over time, right? Let's be honest, like we gotta challenge yourself. So basically, like let's use the bicep analogy. Let's stick with that one. We gotta pick up the dumbbell. At some point, it becomes too easy. You gotta challenge yourself. Again, we go with a heavier dumbbell. It's an uncomfortable feeling, obviously, right? Sometimes we gotta resist the temptations of, hey, you know what, I'm gonna stay home. I'm going to skip the workout today. You know what? The time it is recording, I got to go to the gym right after this. I'm not feeling it, but I'm still going to do it. Make sense? That couch is very tempting. I'm going to have to resist because I have my goals. I'm going to build the muscle. I'm going to have to do my workout. Make sense? So just like that, you can train your willpower muscle as well. You can challenge yourself. You can set action-based goals. which of course should be like in favor of your main goal, that push you. And you can think of anything that you know will benefit you, like following like a workout routine, for example. And I do really like that. It's something that's gonna allow you to, again, push yourself, but then also, right, playing into the next part, getting uncomfortable. Getting uncomfortable is something we inherently don't wanna do. However, that is what's gonna build a strong mind. We always talk about building muscle, building a strong body, but why shouldn't we also build a strong mind? Build that strong willpower muscle. What can you think of that pushes you outside of your comfort zone? What is something you absolutely do not want to do? And I'm actually going to make a statement for ice bath here, or for cold showers. Because here's the thing, there's actually time and place for that stuff. It's just... that there's a lot of hype around the ice baths and the cold showers for the kind of like the wrong reasons and incorrect claims, you know? And people make it sound like, the category deficit is unnecessary as long as you get into cold water, like no, that's actual bullshit. However, getting in a cold water inherently is something that is gonna be super uncomfortable. But the benefit here is going to be that you will get into that cold water and you're gonna sit with it and you're gonna deal with it mentally. is going to build mental resilience. And that's why I do really like cold water exposure. At least if this is something that's going to help us build that strong mindset, that strong willpower muscle. Now, of course you can do anything else, but this is kind of like an easy one to do. Next, Resistant Temptations. I will say this already because we're going to get into this after, but you do not always have to resist, right? You do not always have to practice or exert willpower because we can set up your environment for success. But guess what? You will be met with temptations. You can set up your environment all you want. And we'll talk about that in the next section, but here's what's going to happen. Like at some point, like you're going to be met with temptations. So you want to also practice being able, to resist temperance, right? The practice of moderation and self-restraint is a skill that you have to gain. There's, right, so much into this long-term like health and fitness journey, when it comes to things like the eating habits and the training and all those kinds of things. But being able to do everything in moderation is going to be so key. Like that's probably like the biggest skill that you're gonna have to train. So you want to expose yourself to the things you know you struggle with. Things that you maybe have a hard time like, you know, moderate. Like, is it, you know, social media? Yeah. Can you practice like putting your phone away and not scrolling? Can you stop yourself from grabbing 10 cookies instead of that first, you know, the one that you said you were going to have? You know how it goes usually. You say you're going to have one, but you get 10. Can we practice this? Can we purposely look for those temptations, but then also kind of train ourselves to say no? It's going to require work. You're going to fall off sometimes, and that's OK. But can you do that? Can you, for example, go to bed on time, even though that Netflix is, hey, you want to keep watching one more episode? We've all been there. Let's be honest. We've all been there. We knew. It was probably the better move to go to bed because we are already tired and sleep deprived. Yet we still watch another episode and you know what? Two, three more. We've all been there again. I'm not judging but again, can we practice resisting those temptations? This is all easier said than done, but it's 100% within your control to do and you can get better at it. And I think after listening to this podcast, I want you to ask yourself too. Like what will you do to train that willpower muscle? You now know how to do it. but don't fall into what's called a wheel power trap. Because you can reach your goals without relying on willpower too. Which maybe now is kind of going against what we've been talking about today so far. But as you already know, I want to give you a full like overview of how things work and keeping it applicable. And you already see like, hey, there's different ways to kind of go about it. We just need to figure this out for you. So we talked about the brain, we talked about stress and sleep, we talked about how to train your willpower muscle. We talked about ego depletion. What about just not relying on willpower? Do you really think that just willpower is gonna allow you to just push through anything? You can only get so far really if you think about it because here's what happens. Just relying on willpower can help you create change, but it can become a problem if you do not address the root cause of your issues. So what do you want to think about too? failure, right? Doesn't automatically mean that you do not care enough about your goals or that you're not willing to fully commit or that you just not, you know, that you don't have enough willpower. There's also the skills that you may need to gain. And then there's the people around you who may or may not be supporting you. There's accountability, your environment. Like think about it this way. Like I have tea in front of me right now, but what if there's a jar of cookies like right there? Right, environment, like how's that set up? These things are massive. So picture this. Maybe you haven't learned how to eat healthy and include. flexible foods in moderation. Maybe you don't know how to track you out through those kinds of things. And if you do not have any support from the people around you, or no guidance from maybe a coach or someone who can hold you accountable, right? Or if you're constantly tempted, like I just said, with a cookie, you know, buy that cookie jar, run a run of you, or maybe the sugary drinks or the, the candy that's all around the house. Do we really think it's a willpower issue? Or do we need to create a better environment for you that's in line with your goals and actually set you up for success? Do we need to have a little bit of a look at your social circle? And should we address kind of like our relationships there? To where, hey, like what kind of people do you surround yourself with? Do you need to have a couple of conversations here? At least to get them on board, at least to get them updated on what you want to do. Because there's a whole lot you can do, right? And I think also there, guys, I think a lot of people will use this as an excuse. Because you think I, you know, I'm just not someone who can do this. I don't know how to do this, right? That's okay. Remember, you can... There's just one word you want to add. One word. It's called yet. I'm not able to do this yet. I do not have the skill yet. Make sense? That's the only word you want to add. And then you'll see that, hey, we can actually just work on those things because you can go and blame your environment. You can blame the people around you because my friends are not eating healthy or my friends always want to go drinking. And guess what? You're still the person with that drinking your hand is maybe confronting, but you know, it's true. We can complain about the cookies and the candy, whatever around the house, but we can also make work of moving things and putting a thing of apples on a kitchen table. and maybe putting the cookies like in a pantry somewhere where it's a little bit less obvious to get it, right? Maybe you've read the book, Atomic Habits. One of the main things he says, it's like, hey, if you wanna create a new habit, like make it obvious, make it easy. If you wanna, you know, remove a habit, like make it more difficult, make it less obvious. Same type of deal here, you see? So you see, maybe it's not willpower. Maybe you just need to work on your weaknesses and... Also just address what that is for you. Because that is going to be different per person. And that's really like the people you think who have the willpower, right? That person you think, oh, they're so good. They can just do the work or whatever it is. They can stick to it. They have so much willpower. Guess what? A lot of times those people actually create a life, an environment that sets them up so they don't have to rely on willpower. and they are aware of their weaknesses and their more difficult moments and they work to increase their chances of success by actually diving into that stuff. And I want you to be the scientist here, not the subject. What I mean by that is that you are not a victim in your life, right? You are in control. You are the person doing the thing, taking control, or hopefully, right, you should be taking control. Because here's the thing, we talked about the research and how even the scientists, I don't agree. You've learned that your mindset at the end of the day is more important, your beliefs around willpower. We learned about the stress response and how you can now impact that because by managing stress, by improving your sleep, and by the way, by working on your mindset, you can now influence how much self-control you really have. We've also talked about training your willpower muscle through pushing your limits, getting uncomfortable, resisting temptations. And now finally, you learned how successful people create the environment and set up their life to be successful so they don't have to rely on willpower. Now you start to know how these kind of things work, right? It's time to put it into action though. I call our coaching approach action-based coaching for a reason. And this is not a pitch for coaching, by the way. This is me explaining action is so important, right? Action is the only thing that's going to get you there. So let's put what you've learned today in the action right now, right? Not tomorrow, next week, whatever. Do something with this today. if you want to grow at least. So what you want to do is start off by doing inventory of your life. Think about this stuff, what needs most work? Is it your skills? Is it your environment? Do you need to talk to the people around you? What's usually the moment where it goes wrong for you? Let's start there. And then think about that and think about the actions that you need to take to improve on those things. work on things like your social circle, your skills, your knowledge, your environment. How do you set up your house? Like what foods are available? Will you maybe do something like a meal prep so that, hey, in the afternoon, you don't go for that, you know, the snack, whatever from the convenience store. Like, you know, you have a healthy meal prepped, for example. Makes sense. But I want you to reflect on a weekly basis here, maybe even daily. But you can use the bad days. and turn them into good data. By addressing how you're gonna move forward, right? Because that's one thing, we've talked about this so much, but you gotta keep reflecting on this stuff. You're not gonna get it right away and that's okay. You're not gonna nail everything just next week. It's gonna be a process over, I don't know, multiple months for some people even years and that is okay. It's gonna take time. You've struggled enough with your fitness journey, your... your willpower or lack of willpower. Right? Let's do something about it, but also reflect and learn from the process or address where you're at, turn bad days into good data and move forward. And promise yourself to do something with this stuff, right? Take control, become the scientist, don't be the subject and be proactive, not reactive. Remember that no matter where you're currently at, you can still take the same actions as someone you think has more willpower than you, because nothing is physically holding you back. It's actually all in your head. Make sense? And you can influence that through action, which again, it means that you are 100% in control. Thanks again for listening to Talk Nutrition. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a massive favor, share this with a friend or family member who you think could do with a little willpower maybe. Maybe they got to train it, maybe they got to create a better environment, but do me a favor, share it with your friends. And if you haven't yet, drop us a quick five star rating on Spotify or Apple. We will be back with a mini episode on Thursday. I'll talk to you soon.