Willpower: How to Maximize Your Energy Levels Throughout the Day

We all have a limited amount of energy we can spend throughout the day. Psychologists often refer to this as “willpower” or ego depletion.

Willpower plays a key role whenever we spend any type of physical or mental energy. This includes everything from resisting to eat a slice of cake on an empty stomach, to getting up and going to the gym when we feel groggy, to not snapping back at a coworker when they annoy you.

Anything that takes effort or energy to do (or not do) uses up willpower.

The classic “marshmallow experiment” is one of the most popular examples of willpower. In this 1970s study, psychologist Walter Mischel had children sit in front of a marshmallow for 15 minutes – if they could resist eating it, they would get a reward of a second marshmallow.

The study found that children who were better able to resist the marshmallow for 15 minutes were shown to have better outcomes later in life (as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment, body mass index (BMI), and career outcomes).

The main idea is that the ability to delay gratification – which requires willpower – helps individuals to pass up an immediate reward that eventually leads to a bigger reward in the future.

This is applicable to many different areas in life – anything that requires us to forgo an immediate pleasure in the service of a more long-term goal.

This can include passing on dessert so you can lose weight, or avoiding a silly argument with your spouse so you can have a healthy marriage, or avoiding a party so that you can study for an exam and get good grades.

In the moment, you want the cake, you want to argue, and you want to party, but in the long-term you have bigger goals in mind.

Further research by Roy F. Baumeister built off of the “marshmallow experiment” and discovered the idea of ego depletion. This is where the idea comes in that your willpower is a limited resource – and if you use it for one thing than you are going to have less of it for another.

In one experiment, researchers had participants resist eating chocolates on an empty stomach, then they had them work on difficult puzzles. The puzzles were impossible to solve, but researchers wanted to see how long participants would keep working on them until they gave up (a measure of willpower and resilience).

The study found that individuals who had to resist eating the chocolates were also quicker to give up trying to solve the puzzle.

All willpower comes from a single source, so spending willpower on one task will make you less likely to expend willpower on a future task, even if those tasks seem completely unrelated.

For example, spending an extra hour at work can make you more likely to argue with your spouse when you get home, or quitting cigarettes can make you less able to resist junk food, or studying extra hours can make you less likely to go to the gym that evening.

You can probably think of familiar stories of this from your own life – something that happened that day drains you, so you have less energy and effort to dedicate to other things later in the day.

In fact, some interesting studies suggest that people become less “moral” or “ethical” as the day goes on. People tend to have the most willpower in the morning, and as it depletes throughout the day they are more likely to give into temptations (including when given the chance to lie or cheat).

Your willpower levels are something to be mindful of throughout the day. If you notice your energy is depleted, it may be best to avoid certain people, situations, or triggers that will be difficult to fight against.

Roy F. Baumeister’s popular book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength is a great breakdown of the current research into ego depletion and the many ways it can influence us, including our everyday decision-making.

One alarming study shows that judges are more likely to grant parole early in the morning (when their willpower is high and they are willing to take the risk of setting the prisoner free). As the day wears on and their willpower depletes, they are less likely to take the risk and more likely to deny parole (even among prisoners with very similar backgrounds and convictions).

More interestingly, the judges willingness to grant parole increased to similar levels again after they took a lunch break, revealing another interesting fact about willpower.

While our willpower is limited, we can give ourselves time to recharge and refuel throughout the day. Then we can exercise it again when we need it later in the day.

Eating in particular is often a good way to recharge your willpower, because willpower is heavily linked to glucose levels in the blood.

While the quickest way to boost glucose levels is to consume carbs or sugar (which provide an immediate energy boost and are often used in psychology studies for convenience reasons), psychologists recommend eating a balanced diet with many healthy foods. A balanced diet takes longer to breakdown into glucose, but it will raise your overall levels throughout the day (plus sugar highs will always crash eventually).

A small healthy snack before a big meeting, phone call, or exam, may be the simplest and easiest way to give your energy levels a quick boost. This is why I also recommend people have difficult conversations after eating a meal rather than before – it’s easier to be peaceful on a full stomach rather than an empty one.

Other relaxing and stress-reducing micro-breaks (such as a quick nature walk, or friendly conversation, or meditation) can also keep your mind fresh and energized throughout the day.

In general, strategic breaks are the best way to increase your willpower levels when you’re feeling depleted.

Overall, it’s important to invest your willpower wisely – including your daily management as well as your long-term goals.

When it comes to changing habits, psychologists often recommend only focusing on one big change at a time.

Instead of trying to quit smoking and late-night snacking simultaneously, it’s often better to just choose one goal and put all your energy on that for now.

If you try to change everything all at once, you will often stretch your willpower thin and end up snapping back to your old ways because you won’t be able to sustain it.

However, if you focus on just one goal at a time, then you can put all your focus and energy on that until it becomes a consistent habit.

Once something becomes a consistent habit, it requires less willpower to perform. You don’t have to actively try to do something different, it becomes automatic or second-nature.

Like when you first learned to tie your shoes, you used to have to put a lot of effort and concentration into it, but now you can do it without even thinking about it.

When your new habit becomes automatic, you can begin re-directing your willpower toward the next new habit you want to build.

And that’s how you use willpower to build discipline and a sustainable daily routine.

In fact, Roy F. Baumeister suggests that building discipline in any area of life can help us build discipline in other areas of life.

Throughout his book Willpower, Baumeister analyzes several exceptional case studies in willpower, including musician and performance artist Amanda Palmer (and her difficult experiences being a street performer as a completely motionless statue), magician and stuntman David Blaine (and his insane willpower to hold his breath for the Guinness World Record), and Henry Morton Stanley (an American explorer who weathered the disastrous experiment of traveling the Congo river in the late 19th century).

As a journalist, Stanley and his exploration crew traveled for months through harsh weather, limited food and supplies, constant threats by nature and man, and other dangerous conditions throughout the Congo. Stanley enforced strict order and rules that helped ensure the survival of himself and his crew. Any single mistake could be deadly – and much of his crew did indeed die throughout the journey.

Seeing all these dangers and evils (including how they brought out the worst in humanity), he considered these expeditions the ultimate lesson in willpower, one time stating, “Self-control is more indispensable than gunpowder.”

Despite these innumerable threats (especially starvation and death), Stanley made it a point every morning to shave and present himself in as neat and clean way as possible. He saw it as the first step toward building self-discipline and order in his life, even amidst all the chaos. If he wanted himself and his crew to be orderly and disciplined, he had to start with the basics.

Similarly, building discipline with even small things (like making your bed, or stretching every morning, or reciting a daily prayer) can have a spillover effect in you becoming more disciplined in other areas in life.

Psychologists like Baumeister see willpower as a muscle that can be strengthened over time – and it often starts with the small things.

Another interesting challenge you can try is urge surfing one temptation you have.

For example, instead of giving into a specific desire to eat junk food, or smoke a cigarette, or watch TV, take a step back and observe your desire without reacting to it or responding to it. Just sit and watch.

Often you’ll find your desires change over time, and by simply waiting things out and observing your impulses (without trying to fight them or change them), your mind will eventually move on to something else.

The mantra “this too shall pass” applies to all of our temporary urges, wants, and desires. If we remember that, we can overcome anything.

Now ask yourself, if you had to choose one thing to focus your willpower on today, what would it be?

Key takeaways:

• Willpower is a limited resource that needs to be used wisely.
• Willpower comes from one pool – if you use it in one area of your life, it will be depleted in others.
• Willpower can be boosted throughout the day by taking strategic breaks and eating healthy (including healthy snacking to keep glucose levels high).
• Willpower should only be focused on changing one big habit at a time.
• Willpower is no longer needed once a habit becomes consistent, so you can refocus your willpower on the next new habit.
• Willpower can be strengthened like a muscle with practice and discipline.

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