How to never run out of willpower: [The Battery Analogy]

Hi everyone,

Welcome back to my journey on learning to become The Attention Master.

If you find yourself sometimes lacking willpower, then episode 28 is for you.

I want to try a completely new format today. Instead of my long deep dives, I will sometimes just provide the summary of one very good resource.

In this case, let me share my takeaways from this podcast episode of Dr. K, known as Health Gamer GG:

But before we jump in, I have big news: 📢

Today is the launch of 🍋 Lemio 2.0 🤩 and I have a unique offer for you:

How to think about willpower

In my opinion, Dr. K really nails the conecept of willpower by using the best metaphore I heard so far:

Imagine willpower as a battery.

Every morning, your battery is fully loaded.

The more you make use of willpower throughout the day, the fewer you have left at the end of the day. You deplete willpower.

When the battery is empty, there is nothing you can do that requires willpower.

Does that mean that willpower is limited? No! it is a “fatiguable resource”, not a limited one.

Essentially there are 3 ways to always have enough:

1. Recharge = Refill when it’s gone

2. Increase the battery

3. Household better = waste less so that you never run out of it

1 is easy. Just take a break. No mental input. No conversation, no phone, no computer, no music, no noise. A real break means mental emptiness. No input, just let your brain process. Air, movement, sunlight, or just sitting still aka meditation will do wonders!

Take a moment and be completely honest with yourself: Is there a moment in your day when you have at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted silence?

If not, that's the answer to why you're always brain dead at the end of the day.

Increase the battery

If you know the right tools (like a electrician), you can increase the size of battery.

You do that by practicing. So this is a long-term battle.

1) Do more of what you hate

And you do so by doing things constantly that you don’t like. Stuff like:

• Cold Showers & Ice Bath

• Going outside in the morning even on rainy days

• Walking the stairs even though there is an elevator

You get the point. Do the opposite of what everybody else is doing.

2) Do less of what you want

You are not practicing restraint on good things, so how are you supposed to restrain yourself on bad things?

No one is acting for the sake of action. We are all just acting for the sake of goals = desires.

Remove accomplishment from action. Separate motivation from action. No benefit, no dopamine, no serotonin, but there is freedom and control.

How to household better

The rest was old news to me, but here comes the very interesting part of the episode.

First, Dr. K makes a connection between willpower & knowing what you want.

You need to know what you want to define the right direction.

Beause: Wrong direction -> willpower wasted to correct the route.

The second insightful thought was the following.

According to Dr. K, our actions follow 5 sources:

1. Desire

2. Habits

3. Emotions

4. Internal Motivation

5. Ambition

Willpower is needed to

1. Do something we don’t feel like doing but that gets us closer to our desire

2. Resist a bad habit

3. Act even though an emotion is holding us back

4. Act even though there is no internal motivation atm

Here comes the plottwist: If you make things easy, you don’t need to override.

Don’t override! Instead:

1. Make DESIRES smaller → create tiny milestones that are easy and fast to reach

2. Reduce bad HABITS → such as mindless scrolling

3. Let go of EMOTIONS → sit with them, don’t scroll or drink them away

Actionable Steps

Easier said than done, right?

And indeed, this is where all pure blocking apps fail.

They rely on your willpower in those moments when you are the worst version of yourself (mentally and physically). That's cruel and unsustainable.

Well, that’s exactly why Lemio is different.

Lemio 2.0 is the first mobile app that brings together 1 & 2.

We help you doomscroll less and instead take super tiny actions towards your desires.

And we are already working on a 3.0 version that might take care of #3, the underlying emotions that pull you in to your phone all the time ;)

Lemio is the only screen time app that ensures you need no or less willpower to resist.

Stay tuned for more and PLEASE support us on Product Hunt today:

This knowledge comes at 0 cost

If you learned something,
be generous and share it with friends or family.

See ya next week
Stephan