Often we know what we should be doing to improve our sleep or our overall energy levels. And then we fail to take action. Or we get stuck in the middle of changing things…

In the next minute, I’ll walk you through the basic things you want to know when it comes to using willpower with ease (and success).

Misunderstanding of the concept

We often get confused with the belief that willpower will bring us all the way through to our goal. This is actually not true. The thing that will ultimately bring us to our goal is our core motivation for the planned change (#Step3 – Sleeptrust Sleep Map).

In that regard, you can imagine willpower to work as an engine starter. We need it to get things rolling or to restart the engine at times when our motivation experiences a dip (bad day etc.) – and that’s it.

If your goals don’t motivate you deeply – willpower will most likely not rescue you!

Lack of a good strategy

unrealistic objections

Changing things that are too big for us, with an unrealistic time frame and not being prepared for a certain amount of failure can make it hard for us to play out fully on willpower with ease and success.

Visualizing the thing you want to achieve in advance will give you a good indication of your goal feels achievable and attractive for you. If this is the case, willpower will be your friend.

yoga and meditation

These two practices are great to help us focus ourselves and will give us a stronger sense of the important things in our lives. As a result, your willpower will get strengthened and will help you to do the things that are in line with what you truly want for yourself.

incentives

Change can mean pain at times. Help your willpower by giving it a little short term reward when it brings you over the bump. Best think about a small reward before the situation arises. That way you will have something to feed the monster within right away 🙂

never negotiate

Never start negotiating with yourself why you should do this or not. If you made the decision to follow a path then you’re simply going to do it. When we start to negotiate with the monster inside we usually lose.

When my inner voice starts the negotiation I typically try to perform the action right away as a quick response. If you are not able to do this in the beginning – simply count backward from 5 to 1 and then take action. This is a method Mel Robbins found helpful for herself to move out of anxiety and it is also there to help us now.

Conclusion

There are a couple of things that you definitely want to get right when it comes to executing your willpower. Taking the above to heart and to set up a scenario keeping this in mind will let you utilize fully on your willpower and help you to further build your (sleep)trust.

So pick one thing that you will change to improve your energy levels or sleep today and practice your willpower with the above in mind.

Also don’t miss out on this week’s episode in which I walk you through the process a bit deeper to give you an even better understanding of how to set this up right for your benefit.

Have an energized day!

Michael Hildebrandt