Willpower: The Key to Achieving Goals and a Happy Life

Willpower directly affects our ability to achieve goals, find success, and organize a happy life. That’s why it’s important to understand how to develop and nurture it—and ultimately, to make friends with it.

The Meaning of Willpower

Willpower is often associated with force, obligation, and fighting against oneself. It’s no surprise that this kind of attitude can lead to resistance. Let’s look at willpower from a friendlier perspective, which can help us build a positive relationship with it.

Read aloud: WILL, FREEDOM. How does that sound? Do you hear any hint of coercion or struggle in those words?

Willpower is about a person’s ability to be free from automatic, “reptilian” reactions. It allows us to avoid living on autopilot and creating unnecessary problems or distancing ourselves from what we truly want.

Imagine a woman who wants a fit, athletic body but spends her time eating donuts and lying on the couch. She has a desire for fitness, but her energy is focused elsewhere. You could advise her to force herself to get up and exercise, but often, attempts to force ourselves only lead to resistance and rarely bring lasting results.

Instead, she could focus her energy on stopping the behaviors that lead to guilt and distance her from her goals—like eating donuts and endlessly lounging on the couch.

The Efficient Brain and Willpower

We all have learned strategies for reacting in different situations, many of which we picked up in childhood. As adults, much of our behavior is based on the “stimulus–learned response” model. Sound familiar? Like Pavlov’s dogs?

Morning alarms, reflexively checking your phone, and other routines are examples. Our brains use less energy when we act reflexively, relying on memory instead of searching for new responses. This efficiency isn’t bad—unless it becomes our only way of living.

Willpower helps us break out of automatic reactions and make conscious choices that support our well-being and happiness. In this sense, willpower is about self-regulation, mindful living, and freedom from reflexive behavior. With willpower, we can stop being prisoners of our habits and become free, aware individuals. Sounds pretty friendly, doesn’t it?

Why We Struggle with Willpower

Our childhood experiences often shape our relationship with willpower. Some parents give their children strict instructions about what to do and what not to do, usually based on what’s convenient for the parents. For example, a parent might offer a child food with the promise of a reward—like watching cartoons or playing a game on a tablet. The child may not be hungry, but the parent wants to fulfill their duty to feed them.

Some parents also compare their children to others as a form of discipline. Over time, other people’s needs become the child’s reference point. The child learns to be aware of others, not themselves.

This leads to a habit of living to please others, and willpower becomes focused on meeting others’ expectations and seeking approval. As a result, willpower feels stressful because:

• We betray our own desires to satisfy others’ needs and wants;
• We feel dissatisfied with life because our true needs aren’t recognized or met.

Can you really live a happy life without understanding and fulfilling your true needs and desires?

Some people confuse their real desires with collecting things—cars, clothes, accessories. This kind of collecting doesn’t bring happiness; it may provide short-term pleasure or comfort, but it’s not the same as feeling happy living your own life.

How to Befriend Your Willpower

The key is to learn to slow down. When we slow down, we can recognize our needs and desires and make conscious choices, avoiding automatic behaviors and reactions.

You can slow down through your body—using breathing and movement. As you slow down, fewer stimuli travel from your body to your brain, allowing your lower brain to calm down and your cortex (responsible for thinking, creativity, and seeing the big picture) to engage.

Slowing down opens up the possibility to:

• Recognize your needs and desires;
• Distinguish true needs and desires from neurotic ones (sweets won’t cure stress, collecting things isn’t happiness);
• Prioritize your needs and desires;
• Make conscious, optimal choices to satisfy them.

This is about self-care and mindful living, which you can access by learning to slow down.

The Secret to Developing Willpower

The secret is smoothness and gradual progress. It’s important to gently and gradually train yourself to focus on living consciously with the help of willpower.

Let’s return to our example of the woman who wants a fit body. She can acknowledge her desire for donuts and rest, and gradually start shifting her attention to exercise—even if it’s just 10 minutes at first, increasing the duration over time.

With willpower, you can learn to refocus on your true needs without denying your desire for donuts. This way, you’re not fighting your neurotic craving for sweets.

Willpower helps you recognize different impulses without automatically acting on them. You can choose how to respond, what to focus on, and which needs to satisfy first.

When you stop doing what harms you and calmly make the best choices for yourself, you open the door to a happy, mindful life based on self-care.

Willpower and Slowing Down: How to Practice

Meditation and mindfulness practices are great ways to learn to slow down. They help regulate emotions and train awareness, freeing you from the negative effects of anxiety, stress, sadness, and automatic thoughts and reactions.

Here are two mindfulness practices you can use daily:

Mindful Breathing

• Practice at least once a day for 5–10 minutes.
• If you’re at home, air out the room first.
• Find a comfortable position, sitting or lying down. Place one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest.
• Breathe in slowly through your nose, feeling your stomach rise while your chest stays still.
• Exhale about twice as slowly as you inhaled, tightening your abdominal muscles if you like.
• Return to the inhale. Focus your attention on your breath.
• If your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to your breathing. Over time, this will become easier and more natural.

Mindful Showering

• Practice daily while taking a shower.
• Notice the temperature of the water on your body.
• Consciously observe how the water flows over your skin.
• Pay attention to sensations on different parts of your body.
• Slightly change the water temperature and notice how your body reacts in different areas.
• If your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to your sensations. Over time, this will become easier and more natural.

Conclusion

Willpower is about freedom from automatic, habitual reactions that lead to the same old results. The mechanism for regulating willpower is slowing down. This helps you make optimal choices and recognize your true needs, allowing you to live a happy, mindful life and manage your state of mind.

Anyone can learn to slow down by practicing meditation and mindfulness. No matter your childhood or how you were raised, as an adult you have the choice: to live on autopilot or to live consciously. To do this, it’s important to study yourself—your inner world, reactions, desires, traits, unconscious processes, and your own understanding of happiness. Working with a psychologist can help with this journey.