938. I Have No Willpower!

Have you ever said, “I just have no willpower”?

Yeah, me too.

But what if the problem isn’t that you’re weak—or that you don’t want it bad enough? What if the real issue is that you’re trying to use willpower the wrong way… at the wrong time?

In this episode, I’m breaking down what I learned from Gary Keller’s The One Thing, along with my own experience, about how willpower actually works—and why most people are burning it up without even realizing it.

We’ll talk about:

• Why willpower is a fast-twitch muscle, not a forever resource
• How to stop defaulting to bad habits when your energy runs out
• What to do when you need willpower in the evening, not just the morning
• The difference between discipline and design
• Why it’s not about being strong—it’s about sequencing your life right

If you’re tired of starting strong and finishing flat, if you keep beating yourself up for “caving” at night, or if you want to create a life that makes doing the right thing feel a little easier,

This one’s for you.

Let’s stop relying on willpower and start building rhythm.

Transcript

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All right. 3, 2, 1. Let's get it. Welcome to another episode of What's Your Problem, the podcast. I'm your host, Marsh Buice, and this morning I'm reading out of Gary Keller's book, the One Thing. I've read it several, several times and these are, it's just a good book. Um, that's good to just not only read it all the way through, but really just kind of prime your mind. Based on, you know, it's, it's good to just kind of prime your mind where you're going. And sometimes I like going back to that book because it's just kind of check-ins for me. That's what I really like about it. And one that I hadn't read, I, I don't even remember reading this section, was on willpower. And, you know, you, you hear that all the time. You hear people that say and raise the white flag and say. I just have no willpower, but Keller makes a very important point. He says that willpower is not on will call, and a lot of times people think that you can just summon up the willpower, but that's just not the case. You are not born with willpower. But it's, it's kind of like that's how people justify their tendencies. And I say, habits are productive. Tendencies are destructive. And so sometimes what we do is, is we just, we'll do an act, whatever it is, skip the gym, smash a seafood platter, swipe the credit card. We'll, we'll do these things and we're like, and we justify it, and we just say, I'm, I'm sorry, I, I just have no willpower. But it's not that you're not strong enough, and it's not that you don't want it bad enough, it's that you don't understand what willpower is and isn't. And how to structure your life around it. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. You do have willpower, you do. You do want it bad. Your success is gonna come, but you have to understand and manage. Willpower. You gotta think of willpower as a fast twitch muscle. Keller says, and I really like this distinction, slow twitch muscles are the marathoners. Those are the guys who go long and strong. But then there's the fast twitch muscles, which are the sprinters, and that's what willpower is. It's got a lot of power, but it's not going far at all. You have to understand first and foremost that willpower is a finite resource. It's not infinite, okay? It's not like you don't have infinite money. You gotta manage your money, right? Same sort of situation. You gotta manage your willpower every day. Now, what's good about it is you get a fresh set every single morning. I'm gonna unpack this for you as well. First and foremost, you gotta think of willpower as like the battery on your cell phone. You wake up in the morning assuming you got enough rest, you wake up in the morning and you're fully charged. But the moment you unplug that phone from the source and you're moving throughout the day, your battery starts to drain. And you don't, it's not like you can see it. It's like one minute you're fully charged and then you look down, you had a half, and then seems like a few minutes later you look down again and it's in the yellow or the red and you're like, oh, that's what willpower is. It is not just the hard tasks that burn willpower, it's the, it's the tiny, sometimes very heavy cognitive pulls that you have throughout the day that you don't even realize. Like if you start a new habit, I mean, think about when you first start working out or you have a, a brand new position at work or brand new job., It's a cognitive pull, man, resisting temptations. That takes a lot, suppressing your emotions. You wanna just go off on somebody, you wanna slap 'em, you wanna tell 'em like it is, bro, that, to suppress those things, man, you gotta, you gotta push those things down. Doing deep work, when I write in the mornings, that takes a lot. Or when I'm working deals, it takes a lot.'cause I, I can't screw up when you're taking tests, even when you're trying to impress people. Yeah, that's a, that's a big cognitive pull. See, it's a lot of these things that we don't even think about. Even impulsive eating, impulsive spending, all these kind of things. Tough meetings, biting your tongue in those meetings. All these things pull at your capacity. It's crazy. Keller points out that your brain only makes up 2% of your body mass, yet uses 20%. Of your caloric burn Bro, that's massive. You're not just burning willpower when you're trying. You're burning it all the time, and a lot of times it's unconscious. You don't even know that you're doing it. I mean, think about it like this. If your brain were a car. It wouldn't be a hybrid. It would be more so like a Hummer. It's got a lot of power, but it ain't going far very long without getting refilled again. So once you're mentally drained, what happens? You go back to the defaults normally towards your tendencies. In your default settings if you're not careful, if you haven't constructed these things. And it takes time. But your default settings are usually tied to drink dopamine or distraction, and that's where you'll go. Which explains the reason why you do well all day and then you crash at night. I mean, you're you. You had just a beautiful streak going all day long, and then it started getting wobbly, and then you just crashed at night and you wake up the next morning in a deficit. You know, you're in a deficit and you're all pissed off at yourself. You broke your commitment, you're losing your confidence, and then you just throw your hands up, Hey, I have no willpower. Oh, well, I'm not gonna do this. And, and you revert back to your old ways. You're in great company, man. Every one of us have been here. It's not that you don't have the discipline, it's that you haven't sequenced your day to protect your willpower. Here's how to think about it. Think of willpower as like a scuba tank that's strapped to your back. Once you crack the valve open and dive into the deep waters of the day. That oxygen, that willpower, it's flowing and you only have so much. So the deeper you go suppressing your emotions, deep work, trying to impress people, new habits, resisting, impulsive spending, impulsive eating. Somebody comes there with fresh cookies. I mean, you gotta push all these things down so the deeper you go throughout your day. The faster it's gonna deplete. And you gotta understand you're not getting another tank. Mid dive. Ain't nobody coming down into the deep waters of your day bringing you an extra willpower tank to strap to your back. So you have to manage what you already have. That means that you gotta be doing things that matter. When you're the freshest, that's so key. Now let's, let's pause that right there. That's all fine and good. Before we go to starting your day, what happens? Let's go with real world situations. Let's happens if you have evening obligations. That's real world. Going out with friends. Date night, going out with your family. Professional situations, whatever. I mean, you don't wanna be that guy that's sitting there at the table drinking lemon water, and eating steamed vegetables while everybody else is celebrating. There's a social aspect to these things and you gotta fit in, but you can still. Manage your willpower. You just have to manage it a little bit different. So let me give you a couple, a, a few ways to, to look at that. If you, if you have these social obligations later in the evening, because remember, you're freshest in the morning, but what happens Marsh, if I need that willpower in the evening, okay, number one, you gotta budget your willpower, like their energy credits. Okay? So think of it, that's what willpower is, the the bank of credits. So think of it that you have an expense, a big expense at seven o'clock. And so it could be a social event, it could be a high stakes dinner, or anything else that requires not only your presence, but also your control. So you have to save your willpower earlier in the day knowing that you have a social obligation that evening. That means you gotta keep your breakfast and your lunch. Super simple. I try to eat the same meals every single day, like during the weekday. Except on Sunday, 'cause I work Monday through Saturday. I, I try to eat the same thing every single day. Pretty close to the same thing that way in the evening, if we are going out, if we are watching a movie or something, then I've already managed that. You gotta try to eliminate. Also with these energy CR credits, try to eliminate unnecessary decisions like lay out your clothes the night before. It seems like a very small thing, man, but anything that requires you to decide is the small energy leaks, man. Any sort of big meetings. Logistics, like try to either delegate some of that stuff or maybe not necessarily get too far in the weeds with those different things. Also, this is key. You would be shocked how much. Social media is pulling at you sometimes, man, I've even had, and, and I kick, I kick myself for saying this, but it is true sometimes if I have a big expense in the evening, a big social expense, I limit what I read. I limit what I take in because that learning, that listening, that reading has a deep pull. I still do. I still read early in the morning, but sometimes I won't read as much later on throughout the, or throughout the day and later on in the evening because I need to keep that, that energy capacity as full as possible. See, the less decision fatigue that you rack up, the more you have control over the evenings. Which kinda leads me to my second point. You gotta do kind of the bare minimums of excellence I like to call it. So if you have a big event that evening, that is going to require some willpower. Not only do you try to limit what you're doing throughout the day, but also like in the mornings, don't torture your body with just a Spartan workout man, where your, your energy is just completely drained. Your morning ritual should activate you, , but you gotta be mindful that it doesn't drain you because you have the rest of the day that is demanding of you. Like on Sunday I had a, uh, a hard workout. And I was gonna record a, an episode after the workout. I was drained, like there was nothing there. And I was like, see, I didn't, I didn't manage it well, and that's, that's what I'm talking about there another way to manage your willpower and save some of that up so that way you have a good. Expense. A good credit there, a good bank of willpower there for the end of the day when you need it. Set your standards, man. What does winning look like for you? So if you're gonna drink a couple of drinks, max, that's it, because you know on that third drink, man, is when the fuse gets lit. Leave the bread basket alone. Most people when they order appetizers, it's all shareable. Just take a little bit, just get a taste of it, and then just order a steak and some vegetables. You're good to go. You'll feel full and you'll, you'll be thankful that you're just like, oh my God, I just blew everything up. And you'll be thankful the next day and you'll be like, thank God I didn't blow everything up, bro. It's, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting thing when you start stacking these wins It's kind of cliche to say, but when you start stacking these wins And you hold tight in the moment and you hold the line and you do things that reinforce your commitment. The next day, man, it, it, it's not that it ever gets easier, but it gets more manageable. Okay? And then, so you'll have these temptations early on that really, you know, try to rock you. But if you just stand tall, man, they, they, they actually get weaker. And this is where you create the identity. So when you're sitting at the table that evening, who is it that you, you gotta embody the person that you wanna become now, not some future version. You are that person now, whatever it is. So you have to move in that kind of way. You gotta understand, man, people are watching you and people are sizing you up. Even if it's people that you've known for years. They're watching what you do. How do you identify with yourself? That's a part of communication. How do you communicate that with yourself and then radiate that outward? You carry yourself in that way. Now, that's when you have a big expense in the evening for every other day, and that's not every night, but when you do, okay, that's real world situations. Budget your willpower, like you have these energy credits. Do the minimum effective dose in the morning. Decide what winning looks like throughout the day. And then lead with your identity. What's the person that you wanna be on the other side of this?'cause just this once isn't a moment, it's a mindset when you say, okay, I'll just do it just this once. And then, bro, you gotta start all over again. All right, so when you don't have anything big planned for the evening, this is when you gotta double down on your routine, because again, your willpower is strongest in the day and it's weakest at night. Understand that. So. Let's learn how to manage the willpower, make it work for you. First thing is everybody talks about a morning routine, but if your evening routine is trash, your mornings aren't gonna matter either.'cause all you're doing is you're just working out of a deficit. See, you gotta understand your day doesn't start when the alarm goes off. It starts when you start shutting things down the night before. So here's the thing. I mean, not trying to sound like your parent or nothing, but it's pretty much 1 0 1. Number one, don't stay up late. When you stay up late, that's when the temptation sets up. Shop, right? When you cross into this no man's land and you're up later, what do you do? You entertain yourself and you start grazing. You start snacking, it lights the fuse, and then you just go from one thing to the next. Late night is the land of just this once, but understand justice once is in a moment. It's a mindset. Understand that. One bad decision at night sets off a chain of events. You know, I've talked about the lead domino. Find your lead domino. The thing that when you put that lead domino down, everything else falls in sequential order. That's good and bad. In good times, those things just domino boom. You're just, you're just rolling in momentum. But there's negative momentum too. So that lead domino, one bad decision that night. The next day, man, you feel like trash your head's groggy. You're pissed off at yourself. You back at zero, back at negative five. Actually, you're not even back at zero.'cause you gotta work outta that. Now it's gonna take you for that 15, 20 minutes of indulgences. Now you gotta work all week. The, the, the, the exchange rate is not worth it, man. It's just not. And when you stand up to those things and stand up for yourself, you'll realize this. But look, this is a long game you're playing. So we've all had those kind of situations so that, that evening, man, like a morning routine is important. But an evening routine is just as important. Try to have a light dinner. Hang out with your family that way you don't have this big heavy dinner man, and you're just like trying to hold a conversation. You just weigh down, man. If you have a light dinner, then you're actually freer to, you're, you're actually in tune and can talk to your family. You're not all like, gimme a pillow. I need to lay down. Go walk the dogs. That's a good thing. You can eat a meal and then go walk the dogs. That helps digest that food. That's what me and my wife do. Like we, that's our, we catch up in the evening, we go walk the dogs and we find out what, what happened at the gym. And she finds out what, what happened at work today. And then take a shower, bro. Go to bed. Done this way, this sets up your morning routine. Understand this man, you come first. You've gotta put yourself first. If you put yourself first, everybody else gets the best representation of you. So here's my rhythm. I wake up, I go walk the dogs. I read random reading, 15 minutes, which is where this came from. I write for 15 to 20 minutes. What did I read? What's my take on it? This is the only time I'm alone with myself. And then I go work out 30, 45 minutes tops. See, I've, I've, I have the mental clarity, I've connected with myself. I have some physical movement, and now my day is already won. Doesn't matter how hellish the day goes, I'm not having to make up. F for the mornings in the evening. No. And that's what set, that's what screws up your morning routine too is because you get in the evening, you're like trying to play from behind. No, don't do that. Set it up even if the day gets hijacked.'cause I do those things. Wake up at a set time. I read, I write, I bust the sweat, get some movement in. If the day gets hijacked, doesn't matter. Ari took care of me first. Also, another thing that is super important, you know, that you're gonna eat today. This is how you're gonna manage your, your willpower. You know that you're gonna eat today. And when you work out, you're, you're probably gonna manage your meals differently because. Y you, you put a strain on your body, you're gonna think differently on those things. So plan your meals super early. All of my meals take, I don't know, 10 to 15 minutes max to make, I'm not a big meal prep guy or anything like that. I just do it on the fly. So I have the air fryer, I have the oven, the broiler, and I have the, the microwave all going all at once. If you, if you wanna know what that is, I'll tell you. Just DM me. So I'll have all three of those things going at once. That way when they all chime, boom, it's on a plate. I'm eating, I'm gone. I just, I, I love to eat, but it's, it's fuel, man. I gotta go on to the next thing. You know this, you know you're gonna eat lunch, you know you're gonna eat dinner. So decide ahead of time what it looks like. I mean, you know this, don't starve yourself all day, because if you're running on these fumes again, your willpower's gonna be depleted. You're gonna default to something. You're gonna say just this. Once that becomes a ni, a mindset, it opens up the gate and now everything is ruined. Okay? You gotta respect the sequence of willpower. Put it in the right sequence, man. And your day is going to go a lot simpler. It's not gonna always be easy, but it'll be super simple. The simpler you can keep it, the better off you are. So here's how I like to think of it. Create in the mornings. Curate in the evenings, alright? Create in the mornings. These are your high cognition task, reading, writing, working out, designing my meal. Okay. Those are, those are high pulls so that way throughout the day, my bandwidth is free to go into deep work because I don't have to, it seems like a small thing, man, but it's a big thing. I don't have to waste any mental currency trying to decide. What I'm gonna eat, what I'm gonna wear, all these kind of different things. Those things are already taken care of. So create in the mornings, curate in the evenings. This is where you just kind of reflect, you tweak on things that you've already, uh, done. So like a lot of times, lemme just put it in writing terms. A lot of times what I'll do is I'll write in the mornings and then I'll edit it in the evenings. I'll curate it so that way I'll come behind. But see the hard thinking and the deep thinking is already done in the morning. So now I'm just going back over what I've already gone into. The, the, the deep recesses of the mind have already gone there. And then some days, bro, I'm just gassed. Like there's just nothing there. I don't force it. Go to bed. It's not weakness, man. That's, that's like real experiential wisdom. So let me wrap it up with this. You, you look at some people and you think that they're actually disciplined. Understand this. They don't have more willpower than you. They just understand it better. And they sequence their day to support it. They don't waste it on things that don't matter. And so if you make these few adjustments, understanding. That willpower is finite and it's gotta be managed, and you sequence it correctly instead of willpower being something that you think is mystical, now it's understood. It becomes the formula. It's what willpower is. When people say, what's your formula? What's your secret? It's really willpower, but it's sequenced in taking care of tasks that matter most. It's sequencing that, and it's understanding also that it is finite. It's going to run out. The strongest person in the world runs outta willpower too. All right. Alright, let's get out here. Thanks for sharing this episode. Who needs this? Who, who's lacking willpower, who just hit you up the other day and said, bro, you just don't understand man, having no willpower. Or maybe you're in that situation, you're like, bro, I keep having to start over every single day. Every Monday is like a start over day. What is that? You just, it's the game, man. You gotta figure out the game. I'm, and look, I'm learning this right alongside with you. Thanks Gary Keller for laying the tracks of this episode. Appreciate the inspiration. The one thing get the book, it's a really good book. It's, it's a bookshelf book. It's one to just kind of keep on hand at all times. All right with that keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.