[Post 2.1] Debunking the myth of willpower
In my recent researches regarding procrastination, I’ve found an interesting concept that I would like to share: an individual has a limited amount of willpower before he or she gets drained. Contrary to popular belief that discipline is something unilateral and universal that you either have a lot of or not so much of, an experiment conducted at Case Western University is here to uncover the myth regarding the ‘stamina’ of our wills.
Below is the link to the YouTube video I’ve watched that explains this concept with vivid visuals for those of you that are interested:
The experiment, otherwise known as the Roy Baumeister experiment, goes like this.
- The students arrived in the laboratory in a nutrition-depleted state as the 67 participants were all asked to skip their previous meal. (They are likely very hungry)
- The psychologists invited them into a room with the aroma of freshly baked cookies. The students sat down around a table that had two plates on it. One was the plate of the warm, delicious cookies. The other was a plate of cold, raw radishes.
- Half of the students were invited to eat as many of the freshly baked cookies as they’d like. The unlucky other students were invited to…“indulge” in the radishes. The researchers then left the students alone in the room.
- Clearly, the radish eaters were tempted. A lot of them stared at the cookies, some even held up to smell the aroma, but they did not give in.
- Upon finishing with their food, the students were taken into another room to work on a geometry puzzle (Note: This puzzle was impossible to solve)
The result?
The cookie eaters worked on the puzzle for 20 minutes on average — trying to tackle it from multiple angles before finally admitting defeat. The radish eaters, though, didn’t even last half as long! After just 8 minutes, they lost their energy and gave up! — Psychology Today
What appeared to be a challenge on willpower between cookies and radishes is actually a sneaky test in disguise, with the real test being how long the students would persevere before giving up.
This made me immediately connect to my daily life and those around me — lives full of choices. From the wake of the eye, a lot of us go straight for our phones and start scrolling; this not only increases our difficulty of waking up but it starts to drain our willpower as notifications start to pour in. Followed by picking out an outfit from a very large selection to what we are going to eat for the day, our mind is going through serious obstacles just in the first hour upon waking. I believe that by being given many choices, we are not more susceptible than ever to strenuous moments and constant drainage. Little by little, we are deprived of our energy as we go through trivial things like “what emoji should I respond with that will make me more likeable” or “Should I exercise today? If not, should I order a salad instead for lunch?”. Then, we complain about not having a sharp focus when we need to start productive, unknowing of the decision fatigue that took place.
The concept of mental energy is no new subject to us.
If we look at Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, something they have in common is the possession of many plain coloured Tees. These highly successful people decided to reduce the number of decisions they make throughout the day by doing things such as choosing to adopt a monotonous wardrobe. They understand that less time spent on making decisions meant more brainpower and time for everything else (a.k.a less decision fatigue to start the day).
For the majority of his time, Mark Zuckerberg will typically wear a grey t-shirt with jeans. When asked why he does this, he said,
“I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community.”
As we can see, willpower can perhaps be compared to a muscle, with limitations and recovery periods. I am not suggesting for people to start adding chocolate chip cookies into their diet or get rid of our wardrobes, but we should certainly tap into our mental energy and be aware of the decision fatigue that may rob us of our willpower.
