New beginnings and resolutions are meant to improve the individual’s health. However, along the way, some people give up and slide back to poor health choices. Once the vision and the mission of maintaining a healthy life become hazy, the individual deteriorates and gets to a worse state than ever before.
Who is to Blame- Willpower?
The desire to become a better individual is in everyone. But only a few people get to their desired objectives. This resilience to withstand the forces of nature and marshal one’s way to the top can only be sensibly explained by willpower. The potential is there but so is the temptation. Breaking bad habits becomes a subject of mastering the willpower and dealing adequately with the accompanying temptations.
The Weight Loss Example
The commonest recent ambition across all groups of people is to lose weight. In fact, some people who are of good weight still feel convicted to shed some more calories. The health benefits of reducing excess weight are tremendous. Walking the talk is the only problem that faces most of the weight loss enthusiasts. It is indeed a challenging moment when all of a sudden, the individual is expected to stop some norms cold turkey. That is why there are many programs to help the candidates wean off safely from one habit and adopt an alternative.
Expert Opinion
Studying people closely, Roy Baumeister who is a social psychologist gives answers to many questions regarding habits. When faced with the difficult task of cutting weight, one of the options is to go on some form of dieting. But the sense of hunger overrides the desire to stay healthy in most cases. The end result is a reduced willpower. Expert advice suggests that we should approach such matters with wisdom. For instance, you are not supposed to make many resolutions at the same time. They will overwhelm your willpower. Moreover, find something that you will enjoy and it will be easy to stick to it.
Why other People Seem to Have Better Willpower
Sometimes we may assume that willpower is an inborn aspect in successful individuals. The truth of the matter is that the people who make it in life have the ability to utilize their willpower. It is a cultivatable aspect and is influenced by factors such as discipline and repetition. Since the willpower is a limited resource, the individual should not only foster it but also use it to their advantage. This may mean forgoing another less important activity to conserve the willpower.
Habits and Willpower
Habits help your willpower by conserving it. Habit formation is a process that happens in the cognitive centers of the brain. You decide to undertake a certain action at the expense of all other alternatives. If you make it a habit to only eat when hungry, you will end up cutting your weight. The efforts that would have been used in fending for food can be channeled elsewhere. What time does Walmart pharmacy close can be a question asked by somebody who wants to pick medicine from the local store and still hit the gym on time. This need for convenience comes with habits that are geared towards conserving the willpower.