Willpower is Freedom

“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.”

― Pietro Aretino

Are you truly the ruler of yourself? Or do you allow instant pleasures, easy tasks, and a “safe” life guide you and rule over you?

To truly be free we must first understand how to build and enhance our willpower. That little voice inside your head that tells you… “keep going” when you feel like quitting. That little push at the end when you’re about to finish a difficult task. The intangible drive to do and be better. How do we do this?

One of the most important and beneficial things I have ever learned thus far about increasing willpower, is to delay gratification.

What is willpower?

Willpower can be defined in many ways, however, one I found to be truly enlightening was in a paragraph written by Steven Kotler in his book The Art of Impossible, He defines willpower as such; “Willpower is self-control. It’s the ability to resist distraction, stay focused, and delay gratification…”

Today I am going to focus on, in my opinion and experience, the most important aspect of willpower. Delayed Gratification.

Our brains are hard-wired to operate on a system of rewards. Those rewards come by way of nuerochemicals. Pleasure “drugs”. Most namely, dopamine. When dopamine is released, or even when our brains anticipate dopamine release, the signaling in our brains deems that as a pleasurable experience that it wants again. Take cocaine for example, Cocaine releases a massive wave of dopamine and also blocks the reuptake at the same time. Thats why your brain continuously wants more. There is another substance that operates in the brain the same way… Sugar. Sugar lights the brain up in the same ways cocaine does when it comes to dopamine. Ever wonder why when you are in emotional distress you reach for that good ol pint of Ben and Jerrys?? Your brain is anticipating the release of dopamine. The same thing happens when you hear that little “ding” of a new notification on your phone. When you see that “like” count going up. These are all ways our brains are being overloaded with dopamine. All the time. Non-Stop.

Now, what does that have to do with delayed gratification and willpower? EVERYTHING!

The ability to stay focused on the task at hand (whatever that may be) and delay the gratification of completing that task without the premature release of dopamine is basically a super power. Think about how much more productive you would be if you turned your phone off when you are working on your daily tasks. Think about how much better your relationship with your spouse would be if you stopped sneaking off to the bathroom for that quick burst of dopamine and acrtually toiok the time to finish your daily tasks, or took the time to talk to your spouse and learn what they truly liked and delay the personal gratification of the “quickie” and instead used that energy to truly connect.

This system of gratification doesn’t only refer to sexual desires and your cell phone. It’s every small thing you do during the day that makes you feel good. And it is hackable.

One easy way to hack willpower and delay gratification is by doing the hard tasks first. Schedule your day around tackling whatever it is in your day that is the most difficult. What this does is rewire your brain to actually ENJOY the hard and difficult tasks because it knows that the massive release at the end is so much sweeter than the small, meaningless, bursts that we are all used to and accustomed to these days.

You can train yourself to delay gratification. At the end of the day you should feel so good about all the things you accomplished and thats when the wash of dopamine will be so much more meaningful.

There are plenty of things out there that build on this concept of willpower. And sometimes they seem a little cooky but they all have the same premise. DELAY GRATIFICATION. I’ll name a few.

• “No-Nut November”
• 72 hour phone fasts
• “sober October”
• “New year new me”

What do these have in common? Trying to induce willpower. Why do they most often fail to produce any lasting result? They don’t get to the root of the problem. Re-wiring our brains to not always anticipate instant gratification. For the guys doing “no-nut November” do you have any idea why? Or is it just something you saw on the internet? This one in particular is interesting because it has nothing to do with the actual sexual function of ejaculation… and goes into a deeper cause/effect of something like porn addiction and desensitization. Which is a perfect way to explain delayed gratification. We are constantly bombarded with sexual themes, half naked bodies on social media, ads promoting sexualization, etc. Now why do you think erectile dysfunction and sexual dysfuntion is on the rise? Our brains are constantly pumping out dopamine when we see something that we like. And when we see something we like, we become aroused. Now if you are constantly bombarded with these images and themes, it will take mnore and more in order to get the same effect. Guys did you know you can actually induce a female orgasm with sound alone? Ladies did YOU know that? What a world it would be if we all knew how to delay gratification, show some willpower, stay focused on the task at hand and truly grow?

Something to think about.

– Adam