The authors of a bestseller suggest willpower is a finite but renewable resource.
So let’s say you’ve decided to give up sugar. On the first day, you skip your regular morning latte, evade the siren song of the doughnuts in your morning meeting, dodge the cookies in the lunchroom and turn down the candy at the checkout aisle of the grocery store.
And then, late that night, you head into the kitchen to do the dinner dishes only to find yourself facedown in a bowl of Ben & Jerry’s, wondering why you don’t even have the willpower to make it through one day of your resolution.
What went wrong?
We start our days, our weeks, our years with the best of intentions. We have great reasons for wanting to make changes in our lives, but we just can’t seem to stick to our goals. And then we beat ourselves up, blame ourselves, tell ourselves we are weak, that we have no willpower.
But the authors of a bestseller are here to tell us differently. In “Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength,” research psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and New York Times science writer John Tierney explain there are multiple reasons you give in to that brownie, the lure of the sofa or that desperate urge to check Pinterest.
And none of them means you’re a failure.