#121: Gary Keller's ONE THING and Optimizing Your Willpower

Do you ever feel like you should have an endless supply of willpower that you can just call upon whenever you need it?

Well, according to author Gary Keller, who wrote the book "The One Thing," that's simply not true. In fact, we all have a limited, finite supply of willpower, and it's important to optimize it if we want to achieve our goals.

In this episode, I talk about willpower. I share a fascinating study of parole board judges that illustrates the impact of willpower on complex decision-making. This study underlines the importance of tackling your most important work when your willpower is strongest to achieve optimal results.

As always, thanks for listening.

You can find me here:

WEBSITE:  https://www.thorchallgren.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/thorchallgren

You can find me here:

Dr. Thor on Instagram @thorchallgren

Website: https://thorchallgren.com

Transcript

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Author Gary Keller, who wrote the book, "The One Thing," says this: "Without intentionally protecting your willpower every day, we allow ourselves to go from will and a way to no will and no way." Today on the show, I want to talk about willpower. 

Welcome to Everyday a new thought. I'm Thor Challgren. Today I want to talk about willpower. And my inspiration for this show comes from the book, "The One Thing" by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. I'm rereading this book now. And I'm in a section where he's talking about willpower. 

And it's really kind of fascinating, because I think there's a common belief that a lot of us have that willpower is something that that we have infinite reserves of and that we should just be able to call up whenever we need it. And that if we don't something is either wrong with us or we're deficient because people who are able to achieve big things must just have unlimited amounts of willpower right? 

Not true, says Keller. In fact, he makes the point that we all have a limited finite supply of willpower. And he cites a very interesting study in the book to make this point. And this is a study of parole board judges that the study measured the willpower of the judges, and in the study found that parolees who were up their case was up before a judge, their chance for being released went down dramatically if their case appeared before the judge, either right before the morning break right before the lunch break or right before the end of the day. So in other words, the judge would hear this case, and often they were very complex cases, that requires the judge to have a level of complex thinking and really dive into it. And they're making an important decision as to whether someone would get parole or not, not an easy decision. 

And the study found that a parolee was much more likely to receive parole, if their case happened when the judge was fresh. In other words, when their willpower was the highest, they could go through and make complex decisions. But near the end, like say right before their morning break, the chances of you being paroled went way down. Because at that point, the judge is just going to default to the easiest decision, which is denied bail. 

So think about that for your own life. When you're having to do your most important work. If you do it at a time of day when you're tired. When you've already done important things, chances are you aren't giving your best. And so the result that you get is going to be kind of average work and Gary Keller is making the point, ff you are focused on the thing that matters most to you the thing that is the one thing that's the most important thing, you need to do it when you have the most willpower. 

And because you don't have unlimited willpower, you need to do what matters most to you when your willpower is strongest. 

That's the show for today. If you liked this episode, please hit like if you're watching on YouTube. If you're listening to the podcast, please subscribe or follow the show on your favorite podcast app. Until tomorrow. Thanks for listening.