240 | The Willpower Trap: Why Motivation Fades and What to Do Instead

Ever wonder why you start the day feeling motivated but by the afternoon, you’re reaching for snacks, snapping at your kids, or ditching your well-intentioned plans? It’s not because you lack discipline—it’s because willpower isn’t a limitless resource!

In this episode of the Moms Without Capes Podcast, we’re diving into the real reasons why relying on willpower alone doesn’t work for busy moms. I’ll unpack three key ways supermoms unknowingly drain their energy and I’ll share simple, effective strategies to make healthy habits stick without burning yourself out.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated with yourself for not having enough "willpower," this episode will help you understand why—and what to do instead!

Transcript

Willpower
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[00:00:00] You start the day with the best intentions, healthy meals, patience with your kids, maybe even squeezing in a little me time. But by the afternoon, you're exhausted, overwhelmed, and making choices that feel like the exact opposite of what you planned.

Does this sound familiar? Mama, it's not because you lack discipline or motivation. It's because willpower is not an unlimited resource. And if you're a busy mom juggling all the things, you're draining it faster than you realize. Today, we're uncovering the hidden energy drains that are sabotaging your ability to create lasting change.

And more importantly, Hey there, I'm Onnie, a mental health therapist and a mom of six who is passionate about helping you let go of the supermom hustle and carve out space for yourself in the chaos of motherhood. It's time to put you back on your [00:01:00] to do list. This is Moms Without Capes. I want to food journal.

I know that it's important and I have been trying to lose weight ever since my dad passed away in 2016, up until that point, I had been losing weight and got to my goal weight in 2016. After years of being very meticulous of writing down everything, increasing my exercise, going to sleep, I had finally made it to my goal weight, but then after my dad passed away, I ended up gaining back all of the weight I had lost and then some. I know that journaling my food was an important part of me losing weight and I need to get this weight off again, but I had been very resistant to [00:02:00] journaling my food. 

One reason is because when I did it before I was meticulous with writing down everything so much so that It became a full time job now I struggle because I have many other my plate and Journaling my food just seems very Overwhelming at this point, but I know that it's important typically what happens is I start out the day eating healthy I write out my breakfast even my lunch, but by the time afternoon comes around I stopped doing it and then I end up feeling disappointed and discouraged to the point that I just give it up altogether.

And then I learned what I'm going to share with you today, when I felt disappointed and discouraged, I got stuck in feeling that it was my fault. while some of it is, [00:03:00] it wasn't that I was unmotivated. It wasn't that I didn't want this, because I did, I stopped to ask myself, what is happening in the afternoon that keeps me from following through on my plan?

Now what I teach you today has to do with my goal of keeping a food journal and realizing that it wasn't the lack of willpower. stopping me, this could apply to anything That you struggle with having the willpower to do.



before we dig in. I want to share with you though I just created a brand new resource and I can't wait for you to get your hands on it It's the moms without capes ultimate self care guide in it. You're not gonna find any fluff or unrealistic routines But instead just simple doable [00:04:00] ways to take care of yourself without adding more to your plate Stay to the end where I'm going to share how you can get your personal copy of this incredible guide

Okay back to the story



I thought that I just needed more willpower to push myself harder Through the day and actually do what it is that I wanted to do which was to keep a full day of a food journal.

In reality though, my days were full. There were so many things vying for my attention that I was easily distracted from my initial goal of writing down what I was eating. Even when I kept the journal on the counter right in front of me, using it as a visual cue, I still Was distracted. I would look at that and I just wouldn't even connect [00:05:00] in my mind I felt like I was failing but the thing is I wasn't failing I was just out of fuel.

I learned that willpower is like a battery it depletes throughout the day as you do certain things As you know, I am a recovering supermom. I am learning things like I'm sharing with you today, that allow me to hang up my cape

and create space for myself. rather than feel that I was failing, I can recognize that my battery is running low. Certain factors influence this battery 

When we're thinking to ourselves that if we just try harder, if I just find motivation, then

we can just stick to our goals. But that is a losing battle because we're not addressing what is actually draining us. [00:06:00] What is draining the battery? What's draining the willpower? What is draining the motivation? This isn't about being more disciplined. It's about managing our energy better. So now what are the factors that drain our willpower?

If we can get at our source and control that, because remember, we need to determine What we can control versus what we can't the three things that I'm sharing with you today are three things that we actually can control. Number one is Decision fatigue. We are mentally overloaded as moms.

We make hundreds of micro decisions every single minute of the day. What meals are we gonna eat? What meals are our families gonna eat? Who likes what? What time should we eat? What time does Susie have to get to practice? What time does your husband get home? [00:07:00] 

?Who's going to unload the dishwasher?what time do we have to get out of the house in order to make it to the meeting on time? All of these decisions. are being made constantly and it wears on you. Every single decision you make is chipping away at the willpower.

It drains the willpower, making it harder to stay motivated as the day goes on. You start the day determined to eat healthy, but by dinner, decision fatigue leads to just grabbing takeout instead.

The second drain is bottling up emotions. Hello, I know many of us do this. We are great, but not really, at suppressing our emotions, the frustration, the resentment, the exhaustion. It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to suppress our emotions, rather than express them in healthy ways.

every time we're suppressing our emotions and bottling [00:08:00] them up, it depletes our ability to stay focused and intentional with our actions. if you're constantly sucking it up when you're overwhelmed, you're more likely to snap at your kids or emotionally eat by the end of the day.

The third drain on our willpower is multitasking. This is the willpower killer. You're constantly switching between tasks, helping with homework while cooking, answering emails while folding laundry. This burns through our mental energy. And then you don't have the energy to make the choices that you know are good for you.

Every transition requires some cognitive effort, leaving less energy for making intentional choices. multitasking is a fallacy, even if you think you're doing two things at one time, [00:09:00] your mind is actually transitioning from one task to the other and back again.

And it can take up to, 20 minutes to actually get back into that first task after switching and switching back. So by evening, after juggling a million things, you're just too mentally drained to do something for yourself. Like reading a book or going for a walk or in my case, writing down what I ate in my food journal.

So what can we do instead? There are some strategies we can implement for lasting change. to reduce decision fatigue, we can set up routines that eliminate unnecessary choices. For example, Meal planning. It's one of these things that we do at the beginning of the week, and we plan for the week ahead. You know, our grocery shopping, the things that we have on hand, are all gonna come from that meal plan.

That way, [00:10:00] when Thursday night hits, you've already planned for the fact that you need to run to ballet lessons. At 7 p. m. So you knew that you're going to have an easy dinner and you're going to do it earlier, a little bit of pre planning

can cancel out the overwhelm from having to prepare dinner on Thursday night, having a morning checklist, what needs to get done in the morning, creating some habits or simple routines that take the decision out of it. Some default options. Automate low stake decisions to preserve your mental energy for more important ones.

So there's some decisions that you will need to make every single day. Try to automate them so that you don't need to. It's the whole idea behind a capsule wardrobe. When you have a full closet of clothes, it's the 80 20 rule. You wear 20 percent of [00:11:00] the clothes 80 percent of the time. So get rid of the other 80 percent of the clothes.

Yes, it might be a little bit of extreme. But you can apply this rule to many things.

When you don't have so many choices it becomes much easier to make that decision, and takes a lot less energy to address bottling up emotions express emotions in real time. Find some healthy outlets. Journaling is an awesome way. To express your emotions because you're putting words to how you feel and what you're thinking Something that I've been doing recently is morning pages, which is an idea Found in an artist's way by Julia Cameron I reread it in a book I just read by Tara Schuster. And again, she mentions Morning Pages and it's been a game changer for me. Every morning I wake up and yes, I had to wake up a little bit earlier than I usually [00:12:00] do. I spend about 20 minutes. Writing three pages my notebook is not a big spiral bound notebook.

just a Small journal and in it. I just spent three days or not three days Good. I spent 20 minutes writing three pages of Whatever comes to my mind So it's those things that are on my mind that are going to be coming out at some point. Sometimes it comes out sideways.

I want to make sure that I'm expressing it and working through my thoughts in my journal. It's a great way to express your emotions, but venting to a friend, setting boundaries instead of internalizing stress. Try therapy. Therapy is an awesome way tolearn some tools.

to work through those emotions and process your experiences.

When you are bottling up your emotions, they are bound to come out sideways. Whether they come out in [00:13:00] rage, misdirected at your kid or your spouse oryour body can actually hold. Your emotions, it can come out with weight gain or even physical health.

There's a huge connection between your mind and your body, and when you are not effectively processing your emotions, it can come out as somatic symptoms.

To help you limit multitasking and create transitions set boundaries around when and how you multitask. Or, maybe even eliminate multitasking altogether. Although, it may be really difficult to do that, especially if you have a lot of things on your plate.

That may mean you need to take a look at what it is that you are holding. What are you holding on your plate? And perhaps learn how to eliminate, automate, [00:14:00] delegate those things that are causing you to multitask. Maybe you need some more boundaries around your time and not be so overcommitted.

You could also create some transitions by building in small resets between the tasks. instead of listening to a podcast while cooking dinner, imagine if you were to enjoy the piece, cook your meal, following dinner, talk to your family and say, I just need 20 minutes to myself, go lay in your bed and listen to that podcast so that you're not distracted.

So that you can give your full attention to the tasks at hand. Now, that might not be something reasonable for you to do. You may only be able to listen to podcasts while you're cooking dinner at this point. So maybe it is looking at, what are you multitasking at? Are you trying to check your email 

while you're trying to [00:15:00] help your kid do homework. the distraction, the transition back and forth. It's likely causing you to feel a bit overwhelmed. What do you need to set boundaries around so that you can be fully present in those moments?

I know for me, when I try to do computer work at the dining room table, and I have One kid trying to do a project next to me and another one sitting across from me asking questions about something. I am so pulled in every direction that I feel like my head is going to burst. I need to, at that point, decide who and what am I going to put my attention in and go all in with that person.

Or project, it might mean I close my computer and say to the one asking questions, can you just write these questions down or hold on five minutes while I help

Gianna do her project? Or I [00:16:00] might say to Gianna, Gianna, I'm not able to do this right now with you. I need you just to go brush your teeth and then I'll be able to help you. Or I may have to say to both of them. I need to get this done within the next hour. I would be happy to help both of you after dinner.

But let me get this finished so that I can give you the full attention that you both deserve. It's okay to be unavailable. It is okay to tell other people what you need. In fact, it's necessary because they're not mind readers.

If you've been relying on willpower to change your habits and it's just not working, know that you're not failing. Your strategy is. Before you go, be sure to take a peek in the show notes of this episode to grab the link [00:17:00] of the ultimate self care guide that I shared about at the beginning of this episode.

In this incredible resource, you will find simple, doable self care strategies. You'll discover how to break through common barriers like time and guilt. And you'll learn why setting boundaries. It's the ultimate form of self care. The ultimate self care guide is like a love letter from me to you, because if you're constantly giving to everyone else and running on empty, which I know you are, then it's time to change that.

thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Without Capes. As you learn from listening. Willpower isn't the problem. Your strategy is. Instead of relying on willpower alone, focus on reducing decision fatigue, expressing your emotions, and managing multitasking to create lasting habits without burning yourself out.

Remember, you are 100 percent responsible for your own life and for creating the joy that you want to feel. [00:18:00] Stop living on autopilot. Slow down, check in with yourself, and please, above all, Take care of yourself, because you, my friend, are worth it.