Why Willpower Doesn’t Work (And What Does Instead)

We are joined by  Positive Psychologist & Creator of Psychosomatic Intelligence Max Weigand.  He helps us to break down the science of decision fatigue and the deeper truth behind self-control. In this episode, we unpack some of the biggest misconceptions around stress, motivation, and willpower—and why pushing harder isn’t always the answer. We explore Psychosomatic Intelligence™ (PSQ) and what it really means to work with your nervous system instead of against it.

We talk about how your emotional state shapes your focus, decisions, and performance, and why even high achievers can still find themselves stuck in cycles of anxiety, self-doubt, and self-sabotage. You’ll also hear a simple breakdown of the core principles behind PSQ, what “psychosomatic coherence” actually means in real life, and how to start applying it in a practical way.

If you’re looking to feel more in control, think more clearly, and perform at your best without burning out, this episode is packed with insights—and a simple daily practice you can start using right away.

Max's website: https://www.psychosomaticintelligence.com/

If this helped you rethink motivation, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s stuck in the willpower loop, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one habit you want to make easier this week?

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Transcript

Willpower And The Sweet Tooth

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Hello everybody, I'm your host, the Gentle Yog Warrior, and today's show is covering a subject matter which I'm certain we can all relate to willpower. And my journey with willpower is I I like to see myself as being fairly healthy, eating a fairly healthy diet and having fairly healthy habits. But my guilty pleasure is I do have a bit of a sweet tooth, not excessively, but a little bit of sugar isn't so good for my system. And I know that, and yet I I can't resist dark chocolate or perceived healthier cakes. And I managed to not have anything sweet for months and months, and then Christmas came, and I lovely received some lovely sweet gifts, and also it was Christmas time, and there was lots of nice sweet things around. And though I have cut back, I would like to say that my willpower isn't as good as I would like it to be, and I feel like today's show and bear with me while I share the title, is called Why Willpower Doesn't Work and What Does Instead. So I feel that today's show is gonna help all my dear listeners and myself understand willpower and why it doesn't work and what works instead. So, dear listeners, without further ado, please welcome Max Wigand to the show. Max, did I pronounce your name right or did I get it wrong?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

That is perfect. There's many ways to pronounce it, but you're great.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Oh, perfect. Thank you. And and you're joining us today from Italy, I understand.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yes, exactly. Lago di Garda, beautiful lake in a north surrounded by mountains. So it's paradise for running and anything outdoorcy.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Oh, it's a beautiful part of the world that got Lago and Garda, as you say. It's wonderful. Oh, fantastic. So, Max, we got you on the show today because we're gonna talk about willpower and why it doesn't work and what works instead. And that was a breath of fresh air when I saw that because I thought, oh yes, willpower is something that I have struggled with. And if you wouldn't mind sharing a bit about your your journey so far.

Willpower As A Depleting Resource

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Absolutely. So the this idea of willpower is really a modern idea that says if you don't achieve your goals or if you you know fail at whatever it is that you want, it's because you haven't tried hard enough. And what you should do is you should go at it again, you should start that diet again, you should start that workout program again, and just try a little harder and just don't give up, basically. But what it forgets is 60 years of research that we've now had on this idea of self-control and willpower, which show very clearly that willpower is actually a limited resource that depletes with use. So as you wake up in the morning, you have the maximum amount of willpower available. It's kind of like a video, you know, bar or life bar in a video game. And then every choice that we make about do I hit the snooze button or get up? Do I have the healthy breakfast or the chocolate chip cookies? Do I work out or not? Do I work or procrastinate? Every single one of those choices takes away some amount of willpower until at the end of the day, we're left without any more power inside to control our decision making. And that's why I believe you know, most of or really the worst of humanity, addictions and crimes and bad habits all happen in the evening or at night because we've spent all day long fighting ourselves, and now we have nothing more to give. And usually end up on a junk on a you know, couch eating junk food. And so what's happening here really is that willpower and self-control are really just dressed up words for self-conflict. There's a part of you that wants to achieve a goal, and another part of you that wants to stay safe or comfortable or sedated and numb. And so the two parts start fighting ourselves, fighting themselves. And so what we have to figure out is why is there a conflict in the first place? What is that unconscious pattern? Whether that is a belief that says, I'm not worthy, or I can't do this, or I don't deserve to be in great shape or have that body or that partner, or whether it is an emotion. Maybe you're stuck in anxiety or frustration and anger, and that emotion keeps triggering your old wound-induced, you know, patterns.

Chasing Success To Feel Better

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah, that I love the way that you frame that because it it does it does feel like a conflict sometimes. It's like, do I have the healthy cake or not have the cake? And uh and things like that. So I know you you've lived a very interesting life. I when I was doing some research on you, I I found it fascinating that you had did, I think it was a marathon in the snow about your shoes, and you were a professional runner, etc. And we're gonna talk about your wonderful system that you you've come up with as well. But would you mind sharing a bit about what you did before you came up with this?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Absolutely. So my journey into this field really started when I was 17. At the time, I was miserable. I struggled with depression, with anxiety, with loneliness. And just like any other kid or teenager, you know, I wanted to be happy. And I didn't really know how. And so in my youthful ignorance, I came up with this idea. I said, if I can become a professional runner, if I can win races and you know, stadiums filled with visitors clapping at me, if I could set records, then maybe I can find some self-love. Then maybe I can find some peace within. And so I gave up everything else friendships, school grades, and everything, in order to pursue that. And when I was 17, there was this one race in which it actually came true. And I qualified for the German national team. And it was like, in one moment, the dream I'd had for so many years suddenly came true. And I remember walking off the track with tears of joy in my eyes, you know, thinking this is finally it. I can finally be happy. And I woke up the next day and again those rose-colored glasses were on, right? I was like, wow, finally feel so good. And again, the next and the next. And then I wake up one day and I'm like, you know, where is it? Where's that happy feeling? And I realized that just as quickly as it had arrived, I had crashed back down again. And so I was very lucky because at a very early age, I understood on a real physiological level that you cannot run away from yourself. That no matter how much success you have, if you don't build a more beautiful relationship with yourself, you're going to suffer. And that really set me now on a on a now 13-year journey, traveling all over the world, studying psychology with a master's degree in positive psychology, but more importantly, studying, you know, beautiful people, studying the most fascinating people I could find, everyone from Olympic champions to monks in Himalayas, in order to figure out what they do differently and how I could learn from them to create a more beautiful life myself.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Oh, wonderful! And that what a journey and to bring you to come up with this wonderful system that's going to help people as well. So, the biggest misconception people have about stress, motivation, and willpower, what would you say that was?

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I would say it goes back to the idea we we discussed earlier, this willpower miss, and the idea that all it takes for me is to just try a little harder. When in fact, it is your state of consciousness, meaning the way in which you show up and I show up right now, the way of our thinking, as well as the way in which we use our body that dictates our life experience. Quick example. If you're in a frustrated or angry or anxious state of mind, do you act differently? Do you love differently? Do you talk to others differently? Do you treat them differently? Do you work differently than when you're in a peaceful or loving or abundant state? Of course we do. It's like we're two completely different people because emotions that you know throughout human evolution didn't just evolve to make us happy or sad, they evolved to drive our decision making. At the most extreme, we have the fight, flight, or freeze response that everyone knows, where on the one hand, we have fight or flight, an overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system, where essentially all the blood rushes into your hands, your arms, and your feet, so you can either fight or run away. And on the other hand, we have the freeze response, which is very funny, by the way, if your friends have that as the typical fear response, right? Because they will literally just drop to the ground. And animals have evolved that to pretend like they're dead so that hopefully the predator won't eat them. And so, what that is, is a complete deactivation where there's no more energy available. And that's where we find depression, guilt, shame, all these past-focused emotions that suck the energy and aliveness out of us. And so what happens is each one of these negative energy states has a very specific action attached to it. Fear says run, anger says fight, guilt and shame says go and hide. And so, in these states, what happens is the prefrontal cortex at the center of our brain, the center for logical thinking, for reasoning, for planning, for willpower and motivation, it actually shuts down, which means that we cannot make effective decisions anymore. We cannot treat others with love anymore, we cannot work productively and creatively anymore. And so that's what brings out the worst and humanity. And so, what we want to do, instead of trying to you know override ourselves from those negative energy states, we want to shift them towards positive energy states, towards love, joy, beauty, abundance, peace. Because what happens when you live in those states, both with your mind as well as your body, is all of a sudden it's like the blinders come off, and you can conceive of all these possibilities again in life.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

I like that. So it's like the doors of perception were cleansed with everyone was seeing it, was infinite. That's it. Yeah. And for those of you, for those of our dear listeners who are new to your psychosomatic intelligence system, why is March and this nervous system the most more important than anything else?

The Nervous System Runs The Show

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Such a great question. So the way I look at it, there's really these three interacting systems that drive our life experience and our decision making. We have the conscious mind that sets a goal and plans a strategy. We have the subconscious mind, and that's where your habits and beliefs are housed. The beliefs that say, I'm worthy of this, or I can't do this, or you know, I deserve this. And then lastly, we have as a third part the nervous system, which is our body, the neurochemistry inside of ourselves. And so we tend to think of ourselves as these logical and rational creatures. We tend to think that we're only operating on the conscious mind. But what research abundantly shows is that most of our decision making has nothing to do with logic and reason, and everything to do with how we feel inside. A quick and quite disturbing example. There was a 2011 study on Israeli parole hearings. So what they did was they brought people before a judge that had committed some kind of crime. And what you typically imagine is that, especially in a court of law, everything is driven by logic, reason, and well, the law ultimately, right? But what they found is that is actually not true. The great determinant of whether someone that had committed a crime received parole or not was actually the last time the judge had eaten. So what happened was in the morning, when the judge had just had their breakfast, they were feeling good, it was the start of the day. About 60% of people received parole, right? And were released prematurely. And then as the day went by, and again, that decision fatigue of making judgment call after judgment call hit in, that number decreased to almost zero. Well, come lunchtime, again, you have a nice break, you can recover, relax, willpower again replenishes partly through food. And so, again, that number jumps up to roughly 60%. And again, throughout the day, it keeps climbing back down again. And so, if this is the case with the law and it determines whether you, as someone that has previously committed a crime, were receive parole or not, it will also dictate every other decision of our lives. How we feel inside, and this is the key, right? Because we tend to think of ourselves as making this just making our decisions purely based on logic. But really, what it is, we're listening to the sensations in our body, and those act as a feedback mechanism that says, this guy is evil, or this guy is nice, or you know, I'm feeling really good right now, so now I'm gonna help out this guy and this guy and this guy, right? And so that's how we tend to make decisions based on, you know, the literally the butterflies in our stomach or the grumbling in our tummy. And so it's incredibly important to be mindful of our physiology and the state of our nervous system. Because when we're stuck in fight, flight or freeze, when we're anxious, when we're tense, right? When shoulders, the jaw, the neck are tight, when our breathing is shallow, we will experience anxiety and we will treat other people as if they cause that anxiety in us. And so if I meet you and I'm in a really lousy physiology and I'm thinking lousy thoughts, I will project that onto you. And I will say, you know, when I was with Jane, I was feeling really anxious, so she is now the cause of my anxiety, yeah, which is absolutely not the case, but that's how you know one of the funny ways in which the human brain works.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Oh wow. So is it to to get past that? Would it be that to be more present with ourselves? But then I guess I'm gonna is that something to do with the nervous system, how we regulate it that will allow us. Um if you wouldn't mind explaining how to kind of get beyond that form of quick judgment without without it being logical.

Awareness And Equanimity Training

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Absolutely. So, you know, the great psychologist Carl Jung he said that until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. And so if you find yourself stumbling into the same patterns, the same toxic relationship, the same failure, or the same inner emotional problem, it's because we haven't yet shown the light of awareness on that pattern. And so the first key, as you say, is awareness. It's bringing to mind, oh yeah, you know, I have this pattern. And every single time I'm in this situation, I react like this. And so we want to bring awareness to it. And then secondly, what we want to do is want to find a way to build equanimity towards the negative. You know, I think of this as there's three neuromuscles that we have to master if we want to take control of ourselves. First one being awareness, right? This is our ability to stay conscious and present throughout everyday life experience. The second one, equanimity, is your ability to stay with any sensation or any feeling, no matter how difficult it is. And so as you sit with your anger, as you sit with your anxiety, as you sit with your frustration, what you're gonna notice is a principle that goes all the way back to the Buddha, which is impermanence. You'll recognize that a thought arises and it passes away. A sensation, maybe a pain, arises and it passes away. A desire, oh, I'm so hungry, arises and it passes away. And if we sit long enough, we can see that all of our life experience is really just waves on the water. But we are not the waves, we are the stillness beneath all of that. And if we develop that ability to just stay still without reacting, without sedating, without immediately numbing ourselves by you know ripping out the phone or looking for food or a distraction, we can actually gain a sense of equanimity and inner freedom.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I like that. I like that not a lot, Max. As you were explaining that, I was feeling that, yeah, you know, sometimes when things have been a difficult day, and I think food is a big comfort for people, and it's easier, isn't it, to when you when you haven't got any bandwidth left, at the end of the day, it could be easier just to go and have something, eat something that wasn't so good for us to kind of numb that out. But what I'm understanding if we can learn to ride the waves of whatever discomfort we're in, then the real gems are kind of beyond that. But it's just allowing ourselves to do that first, I guess.

Stop Living Only In Your Head

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Absolutely. You know, I think one of the fundamental troubles is that we always try to hide from our negative feelings rather than allowing ourselves the ability to truly experience them. So what happens is when we suffer pain and trauma, oftentimes we start disconnecting from our body and we live from the head upwards, right? So we're living all in strategizing and planning and scheming and thinking about the future, remembering the past, and we completely disconnect from the body. Now, this is a peric victory because on the one hand, yeah, you suffer less for a while at least, but the downside is you also lose touch with your body, which means you cannot feel fully alive anymore. You know, happiness demands that you feel the vibration in your hands or the you know tingling in your face as the sunlight is shining in your face. Happiness demands that you feel the heart beating fast as you're falling in love and you're you know doing the honeymoon dance in the rain, right? Without the physiological sensation, you know, one way I look at it is like you know, imagine you're in the greatest state of your life, you know, the partner of your dreams, you know, at the end of the greatest, most fun, most blissful night of your life, finally leans over and touch your face and they come closer with the lips. And now they're beautiful, you know, honey, sweet lips touch yours. But all the while, all you're thinking about is like, oh my god, is my breath bad? Does she like me? You know, does he really mean this? And so, you know, you know, so instead of you know enjoying the the visceral physiological sensations of you know the wind and the and the hair and all of that, you're just you're just living in your head, you're just living in the tyranny of thinking and overthinking rather than the you know reality of this moment.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, and it made me smile as well. That was it's brilliant, brilliant. So I know that you help you you you specialize in helping high achievers who still struggle with anxiety and self-doubt and self-sabotage despite their success. And it makes me think back to the story you said when you reached that pinnacle point in your running career and then how you felt great and then you didn't. Why do you think that could you explain a bit more what the cause is of that and how your system can help people who who who feel like that as well?

Align Mind Beliefs And Body

Daily Ritual To Feel Great First

SPEAKER_01 22:10

The moment you're born, you enter into a global rat race where essentially you're taught that if you do really well at this level of your life, you get to upgrade. You're in kindergarten and you're told if you do really well, you know, you'll get to elementary school. If you do really well, you get to high school and to college, and you get your first grade job, and that house, that car, the family, the kids, retirement, or whatever it is. The trouble is that the goalpost always keeps moving. In terms of neurochemistry, the molecule responsible for desire and motivation is called dopamine. And the trouble with dopamine is it's responsible for striving and motivation, but it's not responsible for actually enjoying. This is why you know you can you know feel so motivated and driven towards that goal, and you get this big spike when you finally achieve it, just like I did. But then it comes crashing back down again. And you wonder, you look around, you're like, yeah, where's that excitement? Where's that happiness I thought was gonna stay? But the truth is it never stays, it always comes back crashing down. And until we cultivate the other neurochemicals like serotonin, which is the fulfillment molecule, your ability to sit in a here now and just enjoy the great dinner with friends or the sunrise in front of your eyes. If we don't cultivate that simultaneously, we're gonna live continuously hijacking of our dopamine system, going up and down, up and down, but never quite finding stable sense of fulfillment that we truly seek. And so this is even more true amongst high. Achievers, because we even more want to have that success and chase that next ladder. But you know, I can tell you, I've I've worked with so many, even Olympic champions, they're literally the best in the world. And there's nothing more to achieve. And oftentimes there's actually research on this, it's called the post-Olympic blues, which shows that you know, after the Olympics, many Olympians actually feel this kind of depression because they know that this was the highlight of their lives. You know, this is the greatest moment they're we're gonna have. Absolutely. So psychosomatic intelligence really is a system I've developed over the last decade now to align these three systems: the conscious mind that sets goals, the subconscious mind responsible for your sense of worthiness, as well as the nervous system. What happens usually is, and the way or the reason why most change efforts fail is because there's some misalignment there. You have a goal that says, you know, I want to achieve this, but your subconscious beliefs say, I can't do this, and your nervous system is stuck in anxiety or stress or frustration. And so what psychosomatic intelligence is really about is learning to align these three systems, learning to set the goal and then cultivate the right beliefs and cultivate the right nervous system states so that all of them are kind of stacked up like a pyramid instead of pulling you in different directions. The result then is the inner friction is removed. All that you know, need for willpower, all that inner resistance suddenly disappears, and you can move forward from a sense of peace, from a sense of joy. Because here's another important key. You know, back in 2003 already, 23 years ago, some of the greatest happiness researchers came together, including Sonia Libominsky. And what they did was they they wanted to answer the question of what comes first, happiness or success? In other ways, in other words, does success drive happiness, or does happiness drive success? And so after analyzing all the available research, what they found is actually it's the opposite of what we were usually taught. It's happiness that drives success. When I feel good on the inside first, it's a lot easier to change on the outside. When I feel excited, it's easy to work out. When I feel at peace, it's easy to eat good food. When I feel you know, love on the inside, it's easy to be nice to other people. And so, really, the key to effortless change is to cultivate the state that we want on the inside first to take on the state of our dreams and wishes fulfilled, and then to act from that state.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Wonderful. And that's how your your system can help people do that. If I want to work with you, what's the best way that our listeners can contact you and get some of this? Because it sounds fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Uh, thank you. Well, the best way is via my website, psychosomaticintelligence.com. You can take the free PSQ testin to actually measure those neuromuscles or on social media at Max Vigant.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Oh, wonderful. And and Max, uh, I'll put the details in the show notes, but I also discovered that, and I I'll always like to read my guests' books, but I only noticed this morning that you've actually you've actually a published author as well, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Absolutely. Psychosomatic intelligence, that's where where the name comes from. It's really been yeah, more than a decade of of love put into this. I was traveling all over the world with this very deliberate intention to decode happiness and share that with the world. That's a promise I made myself when I was 17. And just starting out on a journey, and it's led me all over the world to you know going out on fishing trips with Brazilian fishermen, to meditating with monks and yogis and Himalayas, to working with Olympic champions, FBI agents, and you know, many of the greatest psychologists in the world to decode happiness and then bring all of that together in the system that you know we talked about today.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

I found it very helpful. I find it's filled in a lot of blanks where the you know you're trying to work on one aspect of yourself, but if the other two aren't in alignment, that's why it's not working. So I think, dear listeners, do check out Max's website and I'll put details in in the show notes. I have got one more question, if I may, before we finish. And that is if someone wanted to start upgrading their inner operating system using your PSQ system, what be what would be a simple daily ritual that they could do today?

Guided Forest Meditation Closing

SPEAKER_01 29:23

You know, all of my work is really encapsulated by an idea from former US President Abraham Lincoln. He said, give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I'll spend the first four sharpening the axe. That's what PSQ is really all about. It's about learning to optimize our brain and our nervous system so that we feel great. And when you feel great first thing in the morning, you're gonna operate at your best throughout the day. And so the key is understanding that first of all, I need an intention. How do I want to feel? Do I need peace or love or joy or excitement or inspiration or motivation or love? And then what are the tools I can use to get myself there? And with the tools regarding tools, I'm really agnostic in a sense, right? There's a billion different ones. You can use breath work, meditation, visualization, auto hypnosis, working out. You know, you can jump into ice cold water, you can dance to your favorite music. It really doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do something with the deliberate intention of optimizing your brain and your nervous system, so you feel great. And once you do that, that's when you start the day.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Oh, fantastic. Yes, and we've all got this ability, dear listeners, to change our change our life and change, change the way we perceive our life. Um, so Max, I've I found this a really fascinating conversation. Uh I think I've learned a lot from it. And um, I'm gonna check out your book as well. Dear listeners, stay do stay tuned. As always, this is a meditation inspired by today's show. But thank you once again, Max Weingand. Thank you to thank you for coming on the show.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Top tips for the meditation is either sit nice and cross-legged on the floor with a nice straight back, always nice to sit on a block or a cushion, or that's not available for you. You sit in a chair with the back nice and straight. The important thing is you're not slouching. And if you're doing something that requires you concentration, all you need to do is just pause this and you can reconvene the meditation at a time that is good for you. If you're doing the meditation, that's fatiguing. So slowly start to take some calm, deep breaths, whatever that means for you. There is ferns on the ground, and the sun cascades between the trees, almost looking godly as it lights up the way. And you, dear listener, in your imagination, you start to become aware of what you see in this forest. Could it be a fox in the distance or a stag deer, or maybe the odd bird? The smells, the sounds as you walk through this imaginary forest with a load of awareness, you feel as if thoughts can come and go, but in this place, you are rooted to your awareness, you're aware of these thoughts, these sensations, without trying to fix them or put a label on them, but instead just simply be, and you can feel the texture of the forest as you walk through it, and you allow yourself to be to feel fully what life has to offer without resistance, feeling less and less overwhelmed. Emotions are a feeling emotion. But instead of being hard on yourself, instead you use that awareness just to allow those emotions to be without having to feel like they are stuck to you. As you breathe in and out through your nostrils, feeling the positive light of this forest scene as it makes you feel more calmer, full of gratitude, and fully in the moment. Taking you out of that fight and flight moment into the mode of being. You are a human being in this beautiful woodland scene. So slowly now take some more calm deep breaths as you come back into the moment, come back into the now.