Willpower vs. "One and Done" Decisions

Thinking through when we waver and when we don't

Hello, friends. How are you feeling today? I have the sniffles. Ugh. It’s a little harder to breathe and harder to sleep. I guess it is a cold, though it is such a wisp of a cold, it might not even be that. But it is like the paper cut of respiratory ailments — so minor, and yet it makes you more miserable than it seems it should.

This is the first cold I can remember having in more than two years.

It was inevitable, I guess. After two years of faithful masking, I had started being more irregular in my mask use.

I walked into the grocery store last week, realized I didn’t have a mask in my pocket, and instead of driving home to get one, as I would have in 2020, I kept right on walking to the bananas. The germs in the air were going to get me eventually.

Covid is still here, and Long Covid is definitely still here, and yet we seemed to have moved on as a country. It’s hard not to get pulled in the same direction. And, yes, I am vaccinated and there are many more treatments available; we are not at the same level of risk that we were in 2020. But still, there is a risk, and it’s different calculation for each of us.

Every single day we make so many decisions about our health. What do we eat? When do we go to bed? How late do we stay up? Who do we reach out to? What do we buy at the grocery? How and when do we move? When do we take our medicine? Do we stay angry or do we let it go?

We are decision-making machines, and yet, we are not machines. Each of those decisions takes energy. And humans waver.

Willpower vs. self-discipline

I listened to a podcast episode the other day about self-discipline and willpower, and the difference, which I hadn’t considered.

Willpower is finite. You have an amount of willpower — like you have an amount of decision-making energy — and you use it up over the course of the day. This is why, when my son asks at 9:50 p.m., if he can, for the 11th time in a row, please please please please play 5 minutes of Minecraft, and then he promises he will go straight to bed, I cave. I am tired. I am hoping that 5 minutes means 5 minutes, and then bedtime can finally proceed. My defenses are eroded. My ability to say no for the 11th time is sapped.

Willpower is not a helpful barrier against much, because it has limited use. It takes a lot of energy to resist. That energy eventually runs out. It is not a matter of character, but a matter of biology.

Self-discipline, as Monica Levi described it on the podcast, is different. This habit has become part of your identity, so it is not a decision you need to make. The decision is done already.

The wavering and re-deciding takes an enormous amount of brain power and energy.

But when the decision is already made, it’s simple.

An example

Take the difference between a person who is trying to cut down on eating meat for her health, but who really enjoys and is used to eating it as part of most meals. She might go out to brunch with friends, and it would take a lot of willpower to resist not ordering the bacon, one of her favorites! Maybe I should order the bacon with eggs. When do I ever see these friends? It’s a special occasion. And it’s Sunday; it’s been a long week. I deserve it. I’ve earned it. And really, it’s like 3 slices of bacon, it won’t make a difference.

It’s a live decision to make, a mental process, a weighing of pros and cons.

Her friend across the table is a vegetarian. It’s a non-issue for her. She doesn’t waver about whether or not to order bacon or sausage or chicken with waffles. It takes no willpower at all. She only considers the non-meat options.

The bacon lover doesn’t need to become a vegetarian, but she if she truly wanted to cut down on meat, she could make a single decision, like: I’m going to eat meat twice a week, and that’s it. Then, if she had already eaten meat twice that week, she would turn to the pancakes and omelets; and if she hadn’t had meat twice, she would order the bacon. No willpower needed. The decision was already made.

I don’t know if I would have called this “self-discipline”, actually — perhaps there is a different word that could encompass? Faithfulness? Commitment? One-time deciding? “One and Done” decisions?

I feel this myself. When it comes to certain health-related things in my life, I’ve made the “One and Done” decision.

• I don’t drink soda. It hurts my tummy. I haven’t had a soda in years. When I think about a cold coke over ice, or root beer float, I get a little wistful. Those are delicious. But I never order one. It’s not worth it.

• I don’t eat popcorn. For people with GI issues, popcorn can be a problem. I have no desire to get into trouble for popcorn.

On other things, I haven’t yet really decided. I leave it up to my energy level, my mood, my inclinations. Do I want to take a walk right now? I open the door at a random hour, and the chill of the wind blasts me. I close it: Nope!

You could call it self-discipline, or a habit, or something else.

Long-term vs. short-term

As I was thinking this through, I felt the resistance in my mind. The thing is, there are good reasons to decline in the moment, to not follow-through — at least, it certainly feels that way.

It is cold outside. I am tired. I do not want to walk in the dark and the cold.

What is the difference, then? When is a decision a fixed one and one that can be still wavered, renegotiated at any point?

I’ve come to think that there’s a switch in your brain when you believe the short-term feeling is irrelevant, because the long-term purpose is clear.

When you don’t fully believe that — as I might not, standing in the doorway later today, unconvinced that it matters any which way whether I go outside — the option remains open to continually re-decide. I’m not really convinced. I’m not really committed to walking daily.

But when you do believe that there is a long-term need and purpose, and it feels real and palpable, and you do believe that your short-term decisions will make a difference, then the “One and Done” Decision becomes easier.

(I realize this is assuming you are in a place to be able to actually do the thing you want to do without harm. You might not be, and that’s a different realm altogether. If you are suffering from Long Covid or ME/CFS, you know that pushing yourself can backfire, and that a walk, say, may not be good at all right now. In that case, it might even be the flip of this example scenario — resting might maybe be unappealing in the short term, but it’s maybe best for you in the long term. This is to say, your decisions are always particular to your body and your needs and your life. My examples are just my examples; please dream up ones that fit you best. :)

Out of love

In the podcast episode, Monica talks about how self-discipline is grounded in love for your Future Self. Self-discipline is not about punishing, she explains, but about wanting something good for yourself in the future and knowing that the little actions add up:

“And so one of the questions that you can use to ask, using that future self version, say, ‘If I truly loved myself, what choice would I make right now?’ Because that takes you out of that immediate pain of what you want to do and resisting it.”

And then I realized:

This puzzle only exists when the long-term and short-term rewards don’t match up. There’s no decision to be made when the dish is delicious and healthy. It’s only a decision when the dish is delicious and not healthy.

If you can bring some of the long-term reward into the present, the dissonance isn’t so strong. When you can imagine your Future Self right now, the reward becomes more visible and obvious, which is its own small reward, in the moment.

Perhaps this is the appeal of visioning boards and other reminders of where you are headed. It brings the long-term reward closer to the moment today.

What is possible

I find this all fascinating, the way our thoughts lead to our actions, and the way we can change our thoughts, and how powerfully our life can change then, too.

I realize, too, that much about serious illness is out of our control. We can’t “One and Done” decide our way out of Crohn’s Disease or cancer or heart disease. And life has external factors, too. Emergencies happen. Kids and their needs happen. Extending yourself grace and compassion is a real need, too.

And your body and your environment will change — Maybe walking is not good for your knees now, but swimming is fine.

The realm of possibilities is always finite, but it’s never zero. You always have some control over some things, and often more than we realize.

What little actions or thoughts would help your health?

What is something you waver on regularly, but if you really spent time to think about it, you would agree that your Future Self would want you to do now?

What “One and Done” Decision do you want to make?

To our journeys,

Brianne