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What To Expect

In today’s article, 5 ways to manage your willpower battery for success will go into more depth about where willpower comes from and how to make willpower work to benefit us rather than let it deplete where we give in into temptation we may later regret.

What Is Willpower?

According to most psychological scientists, willpower can be defined as the ability to delay gratification, resisting short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals. The capacity to override an unwanted thought, feeling, or impulse.

Where Does Willpower Come From?

Kelly McGonigal, PhD and author of The Willpower Instinct says willpower is a response that comes from both the brain and the body. The willpower response is a reaction to an internal conflict. You want to do one thing, such as smoke a cigarette or supersize your lunch, but know you shouldn’t.

5 Ways To Manage Your Willpower Battery For Success

1. What Should We Automate

Automating is an amazing concept that can help with our willpower battery. We can now automate our finances to prevent us from going into debt and also building our retirement fund. By automating our bills and Index funds.

Not only that but we can automate a lot of things that drain our willpower battery so we can focus on what’s most important to us in our life. This could be using a laundry app that can clean and iron all your clothes for you or hiring an assistant for the generic tasks you don’t want to put energy into.

Look at your life and see what drains your willpower and whether you could fix it by automating it.

2 .Get Rid Of Anything Unimportant That Depletes Willpower

There are so many things around us that deplete our willpower battery. Imagine waking up feeling good, ready to win your day. Then you open your email box, put the news on, go on social media and then bit by bit your willpower and your mood slowly changes. The feeling of win your day can still be there but it’s taken a big chunk already and by noon you could be fully drained.

That’s why it’s important to manage what you read, listen to and watch because the draining of the negatives in our life will cause willpower depletion.

Why is it that some people are motivated full of energy throughout the day and others are not? It’s because some people are conserving their willpower and others are depleting it before they get out the front door.

3. Be One With Your Feelings

What can deplete your willpower battery fast is losing control of your emotions or letting them control us. When there is stress in your life what do you turn to? Is it chocolate, smoking or an ex?

When willpower depletes we are more susceptible to things in our life we don’t really want to do and will later regret. In kelly Mcdonigual book Willpower Instinct. Studies have shown that when you feel any kind of feeling be conscious of it and don’t hold it back but let it quickly flow through you. You then say to yourself this feeling will soon pass and I choose not to do it today.

When we hold off negative emotions it quickly saps all our willpower strength but letting it pass through and dealing with it. Our willpower can be sustained.

4. Be Well Rested

When you’re tired at night have you ever been susceptible to temptation? I know I have with the lure of chocolate.

The same goes for when we wake up after a lack of sleep too. You might not see at first but sooner or later you will become tired quicker and temptations will come towards you thick and fast. That’s why it’s important for your willpower battery to well-rested between 6 and 8 hours following your 90-minute rhythmic cycles.

Within the Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal also cites that “Sleep deprivation (even just getting less than six hours a night) is a kind of chronic stress that impairs how the body and brain use energy. The prefrontal cortex is especially hard hit and it loses control over the regions of the brain that create cravings and the stress response.”

So sleep is an important part of your willpower battery throughout the day.

There is a simple experiment to find out. Just focus on yourself or people around you and notice the difference between getting 4 hours of sleep compared to 8 hours. Watch out for changes in cravings and breaking of habits. You will be surprised at what you see.

5. Be prepared

Similar to automating.

Being prepared each day with your intention, to-do list and schedule.

Helps the brain order the priority of the day.

It allows your brain not to get overloaded with what to do. But allows the brain to focus on the productivity part of the day.

I do this myself. What really helps when writing for a blog post is planning everything in advance. So when I sit down to write I have my title, keywords, headings and research already prepared. So when I’m writing my mind feels a lot more focused and less drained. Whereas it would be drained if I had to do it all at the same time.

We have all heard the stories about Mark Zuckerberg who wore the same style of clothes every day. So he doesn’t have to think and drain his willpower thinking about unproductive energy depletion. Prepare your day, your week even your year to free up space for being more productive. This will keep your willpower battery full for longer.

Over To You

I hope you enjoyed today’s article, 5 ways to manage your willpower battery for success

We all have a willpower battery and when we manage it well with the strategies stated above. Our productivity levels go up as well as sticking to habits more easily too.

If you have any other strategies that work well for you please comment below!

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Hi, I’m Adam

I’ve spent over 10 years coaching and mentoring people within sport and business. I have many life skills that I have developed and I want to pass these skills on so people can find their best self. I believe it all starts in the mind and I write about valuable tools and strategies to help people grow in this area.

What To Expect

Within today’s article, what’s imposter syndrome and 8 ways to overcome it. We will discuss everything about imposter syndrome what it is and how to overcome it within your daily life.

My own experience with imposter syndrome has held me back in certain areas of my life. I find that most people are struck by imposter syndrome and it affects us all in different ways. Remember if you’re dealing with this you are not alone and there is a way out. Let’s overcome this together.

What Is Imposter Syndrome

What's Imposter Syndrome and 8 Ways To Overcome it

Imposter syndrome is a psychological condition where your mind makes you doubt your ability’s, accomplishments and overall self-worth. It’s not based on facts but a feeling we make our mind feel when we compare the lives of others around us.

This can lead to a host of mental health issues like depression, anxiety and a lack of self-worth. It mostly occurs when having a lack of confidence which opens the door to self-doubt and our own perceived incompetence or fraudulent appearance, which are all fabricated in our own mind. Whereas in reality you could be perceived as being successful and amazing and deserving at what you do.

There is a way to prevent and overcome imposter syndrome. Below is a detailed list of 8 ways to overcome imposter syndrome within your daily life. I hope it helps!

8 Ways To Overcome Imposter Syndrome

8 ways to overcome it — Photo by Michael Rosner-Hyman on Unsplash

1. The Victory List

I first heard about a victory list when I read Jack Canfield book, The Success Principles. When people are suffering from imposter syndrome they forget about all their past success to only have a narrow view of focussing on their circumstances now.

What really helps to prevent and overcome imposter syndrome is creating your own victory list of all your accomplishment in your life and I mean everything you can think of.

The reason why it’s important to do this. Is because when you won a cross country event or achieved top marks in an exam you can always look back and say I did it before why can’t I do it again.

I do this by separating my accomplishments into decades and then subheadings of years. I look at it every day and when I’m feeling a lack of self-doubt, I whip out my Evernote and reassure myself I am worth it.

It creates belief in what I have to do.

2. Separate Feelings From Fact

Imposter syndrome is always from the negative way we feel. This is always subjective and can provide us with a reality that’s not true.

My own experience of seeing students who have done well in education their whole life. To then be resorted to imposter syndrome where they believe that they’re not going to pass their exams or they’re not smart enough. To then get top marks they were expected in their exams. I witnessed this at school and university and was always surprised they felt that way.

As powerful and useful feelings are. When it comes to preventing imposter syndrome it’s important to recognise the facts.

For instance, the student should look at past results, how much effort has gone into studying and what’s their expected grade. This should provide them with the confidence to know they can and will achieve their intended target. This will diminish stress and anxiety in the lead up to their results.

You can do this strategy with anything by looking for what’s real and what’s not. By looking for the facts you can help keep imposter syndrome in the dark.

3. Remember We Are All Human

Always reminding yourself that you’re human like everyone else, helps to keep you from doubting yourself of your ability and status.

By realising you have the same potential as everyone else to succeed and that everyone else around is going through the same mental challenges each day. Helps you feel you’re not alone in what whatever you’re going through.

Also listening to and reading stories of people you admire who doubt themselves will also help you to overcome imposter syndrome. Especially when it’s from people you perceive to be untouchable when it comes to imposter syndrome.

Most famously you have the best tennis player the women’s game has ever seen in Serena Williams and Arianna Huffington who created The Huffington Post which is valued at around a billion dollars.

This just goes to show that no matter how successful the outside world deems you to be. On the inside, you are just as fragile and human as the rest of us.

4. Find Ways To Be positive

By setting out your day with the intention to be positive can go along way to preventing imposter syndrome.

What imposter syndrome thrives off is the negativity of all kinds to create a negative world around you.

But with a purpose to try your best to see the good in everything without being naïve can show you that life can be a lot easier and fulfilling with a positive mindset than a negative one.

It will not come naturally, It has to be acted upon every day for the rest of your life.

When it becomes a habit it will run seamlessly throughout your life.

5. Develop A Healthy Response To Failure And Mistake Making

Understanding that failure and mistakes are a normal and good thing in life. Will go a long way to preventing imposter syndrome from taking over your life.

It’s a normal human reaction to be disappointed by failure and when we make a mistake it never feels great.

But we can change the way we think about failure and mistake-making as a good thing when it comes to progressing.

When you look back at childhood, what we learn from learning to walk, ride a bike and swimming. We learned this through failure and mistakes. They are part of the process for developing skills we take the granted every day.

If we have that same mentality as a child to adulthood nothing will ever stop us from trying and pursuing new skills to learn.

6. When Comparing Understand Their Journey

What creates imposter syndrome is when we compare ourselves to others to where they are now.

How many time do we look at sports stars, actor and actresses and only see their life now when they’re successful. They have the income we want, the house we want, the car we want. When we compare ourselves to this, it only brings misery.

Any kind of comparison where someone is living the life we wished for will always make us feel bad.

Instead, we should not compare our own life to there’s but we should look at their journey of how they got there.

Here you will see the hard work, the setbacks and the mindset they had to get there. This is where you can learn and relate to and feel good knowing we are the same but you just took action or dealt with setbacks better.

Understanding this can help prevent you from feeling imposter syndrome making you feel worthless.

7. Develop A New Script

What contributes to imposter syndrome is a negative and mostly false narrative we tell ourselves. The best remedy to this is when you notice any self-doubt forming create a new script to how you want it to work out.

For example, when you say you’re not good enough to succeed in life, change it to I am going to succeed in life.

Another example is if you say I’m not a good enough writer to be a journalist, blogger or to write a book, Instead say I’m going to learn to be the best writer I can be to become a journalist or author.

This change in narrative is vital for stopping imposter syndrome from taking form and it also creates the pathway to success and you will be happier for it.

8. Visualize Success

Visualising your future self is a great way to prevent imposter syndrome from forming. By picturing yourself in a positive light you can show your mind and yourself that you are worth everything you want to do and be.

Similar to creating a new narrative from your speech. Visualising is a pre-emptive measure that constructs a reality that benefits you. Rather than you unknowingly constructing negative outcomes for yourself.

Once you control what you want your life to be, only then can go into any situation knowing you are meant to do anything you desire and be the person you want to be.

Over To You

I hope you gained great insight in today’s article what’s imposter syndrome and 8 ways to overcome it.

By strengthening and taking control of your mind. It will allow you to prevent and overcome imposter syndrome.

If you have any other strategies please share in the comments below!

IF YOU LOVED THE ARTICLE PLEASE SHARE BELOW!

Hi, I’m Adam