The Willpower Myth: Why action beats waiting for motivation.

When faced with a big challenge, we might think: Gee, this is tough and I can’t deal with this right now. It’ll be much easier to tackle later when I feel stronger and inspired – like a superhero supercharged by willpower rather than a potato powered by a failing high-school science project.

Flash forward several months and the narrative remains the same. Waiting for our superhero moment, nothing has been done to address the looming issue at hand. Procrastination is a short-term solution and the mythical willpower we wait for remains elusive, leaving us feeling more like a phone battery at 1% than a superhero.

Ah, willpower…it’s a mysterious source from which one can draw strength to rise up to great adversity. At least, that’s how the myth goes. But is it true?

For years, willpower has been thought of like a muscle that gets tired and needs rest – a limited resource that runs dry after too much use. But fascinating research is challenging this belief. Michael Inzlict, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and principal investigator at the Toronto Laboratory for Social Neuroscience, is one of many researchers furthering our understanding of how willpower functions (read further on his expanding body of work here).

Instead of likening willpower to a muscle that gets depleted, it appears to be more accurate to think of it as an emotion that ebbs and flows. We don’t permanently drain our capacity for joy after a good laugh, nor do we use up all our anger in one burst of frustration. Instead, these feelings come and go like waves, responding to our experiences and levels of stress. Willpower, it turns out, follows a similar pattern.

So if our willpower gauge is low, the answer isn’t to wait with wishful thinking for it to fill up on its own. Just like exercise has been proven an excellent anti-depressant (even if we don’t want to), taking action (even when we don’t want to) inspires an emotional shift towards feeling willpower / inspiration / superhero-powers.

We arrive here at a healthy “fake it ’til you make it” strategy, where acting strong will in turn make us feel strong. The key to enacting this process is to simply begin. Eventually it becomes self-reinforcing, but it’s always worth breaking down a difficult task into smaller and more manageable tasks.

This shift in understanding transforms how we approach personal challenges, and doubly so when they involve others. Rather than relying on the ebbs and flows of willpower, we can plan and create structure that anticipates future obstacles to find growth.

Self-regulators (ie: folks who get things done) actually use very little willpower. Instead, they establish structure that anticipates future obstacles; frameworks to be relied upon when waning or raging emotions threaten to derail them from their goals.

Applying this concept to the obstacle of conflict, the structure can look different depending on our goals (a long-lasting relationship, a workplace of respectful coexistence, sharing a fence with a neighbour, etc). For example:

• With a couple, it might be about scheduling a “state of the union” chat every Sunday. This time is dedicated to checking in with each other to prevent issues from building up over time and gives space for appreciating each other and solving problems.
• With a work team, it might look like having a weekly stand-up meeting where everyone is encouraged to discuss projects, identify challenges, and brainstorm solutions. Keeping it short – which it will be, because standing can be tiring – helps to keep things on track and makes it easier to fit into everyone’s busy schedules.

When structure is established like this, we needn’t rely upon willpower so much. Communication is key in addressing conflict and having frameworks for open conversations help deal with it as it arises. In confronting things early, issues needn’t escalate to the degree they otherwise do.

These sorts of conversations aren’t always easy, so after an uncomfortable confrontation has passed it’s worthwhile to take a moment to check in with yourself. Acknowledge the effort you just put in and offer yourself some encouragement. This reinforcement helps build new behavioural patterns and strengthens emotional resilience – and good habits will make these conversations feel more natural next time.

It’s worth noting that choosing the ideal moment to act can be threading a needle between too quickly and not at all.

In the heat of a conflict, there can be merit to the time-out approach where we step back to allow defensiveness a moment of cooldown and prevent a rash reaction. But unchecked, repeated avoidance can become a troublesome pattern that doesn’t address real issues.

While it would be great if it could be counted upon, emerging research is finding that willpower is more like a fickle emotion than a predictable resource. Instead of waiting to be blessed with the right mood / muse / motivation, we need to simply begin. Behaviour changes mood and it gets easier with practice.

This strategy of "fake it ’til you make it" isn’t about deception – it’s about embracing the fact that our actions can reshape our emotional landscape. Being strong doesn’t always feel strong. When we engage in deliberate behaviours, even when we don’t feel like it, we create opportunities for learning and breaking free from rigid patterns of thinking and feeling.

A superhero doesn’t always wear a cape.