Boost Your Willpower By Building Small, Unrelated Habits

If you’d like to create a new, better you, but you’re struggling with poor willpower, try this incredibly simple trick: develop a seemingly unrelated, small habit such as emptying the dishwasher every night before bed.

Picture: JohnKwan/Shutterstock

The Explore blog quotes psychologist Roy Baumeister in his book Willpower explaining:

One of these strategies [for increasing self-control] is to develop a seemingly unrelated habit, such as improving your posture or saying “yes” instead of “yeah” or flossing your teeth every night before bed. This can strengthen your willpower in other areas of your life. Additionally, once the new habit is ingrained and can be completed without much effort or thought, that energy can then be turned to other activities requiring more self-control. Tasks done on autopilot don’t use up our stockpile of energy like tasks that have to be consciously completed.

Of course, you shouldn’t create “decoy/” habits as an excuse to not work on your goals, but this baby steps strategy can help you strengthen your willpower muscles.

Baumeister suggests many strategies for increasing self-control. [Explore]