Willpower is over prescribed as a solution for problems
To the majority, every problem seems to be a problem of willpower. This isn't a thread about willpower being unimportant or not a solution to problems it's about the overprescription of willpower as a solution to problems.
Name a problem, someone will tell you the answer is to work hard or toughen up. Problems become a matter of character, it's your fault for not being strong enough and only look for alternative explanations if you're trying to escape the reality.
1. Willpower is undependable.
People are lazy and there are biological explanations to why they're lazy. You can't ignore the fact that people lack willpower while evaluating it as a solution, it's like evaluating a car while omitting the fact it breaks down all the time.
There are things you can do to increase your willpower but as a solution for problems, If your willpower is insufficient to complete a task then you've got to train your willpower to be sufficient to complete the task. The pre-requisite for willpower appears to be willpower and at least that's how I believe most people think. If you drill yourself hard enough, if you accept all the blame - you'll do the right thing next time - then you'll be able to solve your problems.
2. People are ignorant
I think a huge factor in any widespread issue is that people haven't got a clue what to do. "Work smart, not hard" but half the time that's not even relevant because people don't have a clue what to do at all.
People do diets which they'd realise don't work if they just it plugged into a calorie counter, they do exercise programs which they invented rather than following a guide with proven results. People don't make plans for the future, they don't understand what they should be doing with their money. They don't know how to structure responses to exams and they've got no realistic plan.
Worse yet, many of the "experts" are just as ignorant as everyone else.
3. Other reasons
I don't want an essay for my OP but we've got habits, interpretations, environments and problems which are more responsible for our problems than willpower.
People try to break habits with willpower but again, that's not a good method for breaking habits. You should try to plan as if you have absolutely no willpower whatsoever. Make a plan that requires you to have willpower for the shortest time possible, as few times as possible and ensure your plan relies on your willpower as little as possible.
I think it's a huge problem. People overprescribe willpower as a solution and but also too often inaccurately blame a lack of willpower for their lack of success. If something is really hard, you're probably not doing it well or there's a reason it's hard and you need to remove that reason.
Even people with great willpower waste their efforts because they assume willpower will give results when realistically, as with any scarce and important resource you should be trying to use it as efficiently as possible. There's no point working hard to do something that doesn't work well - or doesn't work at all, you may as well just be working less hard to do something that does work well. If people made a plan for what they're trying to achieve, more likely than not it would show their plan to be unrealistic or just plain wrong.
Name a problem, someone will tell you the answer is to work hard or toughen up. Problems become a matter of character, it's your fault for not being strong enough and only look for alternative explanations if you're trying to escape the reality.
1. Willpower is undependable.
People are lazy and there are biological explanations to why they're lazy. You can't ignore the fact that people lack willpower while evaluating it as a solution, it's like evaluating a car while omitting the fact it breaks down all the time.
There are things you can do to increase your willpower but as a solution for problems, If your willpower is insufficient to complete a task then you've got to train your willpower to be sufficient to complete the task. The pre-requisite for willpower appears to be willpower and at least that's how I believe most people think. If you drill yourself hard enough, if you accept all the blame - you'll do the right thing next time - then you'll be able to solve your problems.
2. People are ignorant
I think a huge factor in any widespread issue is that people haven't got a clue what to do. "Work smart, not hard" but half the time that's not even relevant because people don't have a clue what to do at all.
People do diets which they'd realise don't work if they just it plugged into a calorie counter, they do exercise programs which they invented rather than following a guide with proven results. People don't make plans for the future, they don't understand what they should be doing with their money. They don't know how to structure responses to exams and they've got no realistic plan.
Worse yet, many of the "experts" are just as ignorant as everyone else.
3. Other reasons
I don't want an essay for my OP but we've got habits, interpretations, environments and problems which are more responsible for our problems than willpower.
People try to break habits with willpower but again, that's not a good method for breaking habits. You should try to plan as if you have absolutely no willpower whatsoever. Make a plan that requires you to have willpower for the shortest time possible, as few times as possible and ensure your plan relies on your willpower as little as possible.
I think it's a huge problem. People overprescribe willpower as a solution and but also too often inaccurately blame a lack of willpower for their lack of success. If something is really hard, you're probably not doing it well or there's a reason it's hard and you need to remove that reason.
Even people with great willpower waste their efforts because they assume willpower will give results when realistically, as with any scarce and important resource you should be trying to use it as efficiently as possible. There's no point working hard to do something that doesn't work well - or doesn't work at all, you may as well just be working less hard to do something that does work well. If people made a plan for what they're trying to achieve, more likely than not it would show their plan to be unrealistic or just plain wrong.
Comments (16)
I am pretty overweight, and if people ask if I am trying to lose weight, I get the sense that when I say no, they are a bit surprised.
I realise that dieting is usually prone to fail, and not only fail but result in putting on more weight.
A lot of diets will result on someone thinking about food a lot more, which is really not a good idea for someone who wants to lose weight.
So adopt the attitude that by not focusing on my weight, but just bearing it in mind, I might be more likely to lose weight, and I did lose quite a lot of weight over a few years, but in these years it was a change of diet unrelated to the desire to lose weight.
Most people do I agree, vastly overestimate their own will power, and therefore in the example of weight, maybe assume it's not a matter of not having will power it is due to them being some kind of hedonistic glutton, which is maybe how issues to do with changing something in one's life, and failing are thought of as some kind of 'sin', some kind of flaw in character.
The idea that being overwieight is an indicator of character flaw has its opposite in that being fit and healthy is some kind of virtue.
This could be seen as a failure in the part of the dam builder and people will encourage them to build a better dam.. maybe higher walls or something people might suggest. :)
So the more the dam builder tries to build a better dam the more it looks to some people that this guy is just a rubbish dam builder.... :)
And the dam builder gives up in the end and goes away believing he is just a failure of a builder/designer etc.
I suppose part of the problem in that case is that for a while it really did look like the dam building stratagem was working, and so the strategy isn't cast into doubt, in fact it might have been re-enforced.
Excellent analogy.
Weight loss is the best example of overprescribing willpower as both the solution and problem, I find most overweight people are terribly ignorant about how weight loss actually works and they're fed lies by everyone around them - even the experts. Dieting is a terrible solution for overweight people, it doesn't even make any sense. Eventually, your willpower will fail you and then you just go back to eating what you're used to.
Most people who try to lose weight, make plans that rely completely on superhuman willpower. It's so sad because even experts think that's the best way to do it. Ignoring the psychological aspect of food to be dealt with by willpower and discipline. Even the idea of "cheat days" goads people into thinking they lack willpower. There's no attempt at sustainability, education or even just trying to introduce better habits one at a time.
The truth? No running, skipping or situps are required, you can easily eat smaller portions of high-calorie food and still lose weight at a rapid pace and the main reason people are overweight in the first place is due to how they try to fulfil hunger with high-calorie food and they keep that food around the home.
Mind you, I keep saying most and that's what I mean. Not saying this is the only reason people can be overweight.
Why don't plans to lose weight incorporate an understanding of human behaviour instead of pretending more willpower is the answer? Just ridiculous.
I mean, if an expert were asked onto a breakfast program and asked what diet people should opt for, and they said that all weight loss diets were pretty much useless but here are some other options, maybe they wouldn't be asked back.
What if they just said that people should accept that they are overweight, and just focus on small changes that might make their life a bit more healthy, like walking to places like the shop if it is not too far, instead of driving.
Maybe research information about food science, like what calories are, how many calories are in this or that. May be before they eat something, ask themselves if they are really hungry, and if not what is motivating them to consider eating something.
I think challenging the 'nuclear option' as the best way forward, ie some kind of overly strict diet regime, is also challenging a lot of things. Like the idea that weight loss diets don't actually work, that people have less will power than they thought they did; that will power might not be what they thought it was, not to mention the whole dieting industry.
It also challenges the idea that being fit and healthy is a virtue, rather than a luck of the draw.
Yes, I think it is often interesting to examine behaviours in society that don't seem to work, but yet are promoted, and that carry on decade after decade, regardless. There are many interesting reasons often why these things continue.
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"
I wouldn't say it was insane, but I would say there is a lot going on behind that behaviour.
Another interesting point of view from you, Judaka.
Where do you think this idea of willpower comes from? Where could we track its origins?
not that you asked me, but if you did, you might find an answer if you trained to do a half marathon, and then ran a half marathon.. :p
Unless you have and found it easy...
I was really thinking of it in evolutionary terms, why do we have it, if we really do have it?
Honestly, I have ideas but I don't know. I think it's not easy to tell when willpower is the solution and when it's not. There's the virtue signalling aspect of it as well.
EDIT: You meant what is willpower? Probably a better question asked to google than me. I would probably acquiesce any of my views to the standard psychological literature to which my current understanding is mostly predicated upon.
I myself do not have the willpower for such things, and quite often when challenged along those lines i’ll just step aside and say I don’t really need it that badly. I’m not sure if I’ve ever really been tested.
This doesn't mean it is that powerful; a candle is using energy(it has power), as well as a Bowing jet.
Perhaps it is all we have in our interactions with the world, but it often seems to be used in a brute force way of looking at it. Like instead of using one's willpower to examine the root cause of a problem, we should throw ourself at the problem like a bull in a china shop...it's like the harder something is to achieve, the better we will feel about it if we do end up achieving it......it sort of is a madness.
if it is a choice, and not something someone wants to do, then yes.
If I wanted to eat a cake, it doesn't take will power to do it, apart from the will power to walk to the kitchen..if I had a cake, which I don't atm..