Many self - improvement books often attribute success to two factors: self - discipline and focus.

They will tell you: Why can others succeed while you can't? First, you lack self - discipline and can't consistently adhere to "good habits" every day. Second, you lack focus and can't fully immerse yourself in the tasks at hand.

What lies behind these two factors? They tell you it's called "willpower" (Willpower).

What is "willpower"? Simply put, it is the ability to "control oneself".

For example: After work, you're so tired that you don't want to move, but you still force yourself to memorize words. Here, the motivation that drives you to "keep memorizing words" instead of "lying on the sofa playing with your phone" is willpower.

In some situations, it is also called "self - control", which means the same thing.

You must have heard this saying: Willpower is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more fatigued it becomes. When willpower is fatigued, we are prone to distraction, daydreaming, and unable to resist temptations, etc. Therefore, we should exercise willpower like we exercise muscles to achieve success.

There is another saying: Willpower is a limited resource. When you use it, it decreases. As a result, you need to exert more effort to "control" yourself to work, study, and resist temptations.

These statements seem very intuitive, so many people believe them without question.

Consequently, many people fully accept the explanation of "willpower" and think: The main reason why I'm not successful and achieve nothing is the lack of willpower. I need to strengthen my willpower, control myself to adhere to good habits and overcome bad ones to become better.

This kind of thinking is of course good, but the premise is:

Does the so - called "willpower" really exist?

Let's start with the "Marshmallow Experiment".

The origin of willpower can be traced back to around 1970, to the marshmallow experiment conducted by Dr. Walter Mischel at Stanford University:

A group of children were locked in a small room, and each was given a marshmallow. They were told that they could eat the marshmallow. However, if they waited for 15 minutes, they would get two marshmallows. If they couldn't resist the temptation and ate the marshmallow in their hands, they would get nothing.

The result of the experiment was that the children who waited for the researcher to come back performed better in their future lives than those who "ate the marshmallow", including in aspects such as interpersonal relationships, SAT scores, and classmates' evaluations.

Walter Mischel believed that the children who could wait for the researcher to return had stronger "willpower" - what he called the ability of "delayed gratification". Therefore, they had a stronger ability to resist temptations, and thus were more likely to achieve success in society when they grew up.

In 1998, psychologist Roy Baumeister (Baumeister, an important name, please remember it) conducted an experiment and systematically developed the theory of "willpower". It was this theory that became the most significant discovery in the field of psychology in the past 20 years and was written into many textbooks.

He baked a bunch of small chocolate cookies and then invited a group of students. Among them, Group A students could eat the delicious chocolate cookies, while Group B students could only eat the small radishes beside them. Then, they were asked to solve an extremely complex problem.

He found that the average time for Group A students to give up was 19 minutes, while that for Group B students was 8 minutes.

Baumeister explained that this was because the participants in Group B had already consumed a large amount of willpower when controlling themselves "not to eat the cookies". Therefore, when doing the problem, their willpower to control themselves "not to give up and to persevere" weakened, making them more likely to give up.

Based on this, he proposed a groundbreaking result: the Ego depletion theory.

Specifically, it includes:

1. Willpower is a kind of "mental energy". Every time you use it, it will be consumed.
2. Its physiological basis is sugar. A glass of lemonade with sugar can quickly and effectively replenish willpower.
3. It is like a muscle and can be strengthened through exercise. Regularly training it can improve your willpower.

As soon as this theory was put forward, it spread all over the world and was widely accepted by the public.

The reason is simple: This theory seems so concise, reliable, and wonderful that it perfectly meets the public's expectations and intuitions, as if it should be like this.

This is also the reason why the concept of "willpower" is widely recognized by the public.

Many best - selling books and textbooks published during this period more or less cited this result, including David Myers' "Social Psychology". Therefore, it is not an overstatement to say that it is the most influential psychological theory for the public in the early 21st century.

But this theory was soon questioned.

From 2013 to 2015, Evan Carter from the University of Miami and his tutor published a series of studies, stating that they were unable to replicate Baumeister's results. At the same time, they conducted an in - depth review of previous studies and found many detailed problems.

In view of this, they believed: Is the Ego depletion theory perhaps completely wrong?

The Association for Psychological Science in the United States immediately responded. In 2016, they conducted a series of large - scale replication experiments in an attempt to reproduce Baumeister's theory of willpower and ego depletion. What was the result?

They did not find the existence of the ego depletion phenomenon.

That is to say, Baumeister's theory is probably wrong. It was widely accepted probably just because the public thought "it seems correct".

To ensure objectivity, these experiments were conducted under Baumeister's guidance using more rigorous experimental methods, but the results were still not optimistic.

This can be regarded as a relatively major setback in the field of psychology in the past 20 years.

By the way, the marshmallow experiment has also been found to have a large number of problems in the past 20 years.

For example, in 2013, an article published in the Cognition journal pointed out that the marshmallow experiment did not exclude an important variable, that is, the children's trust in the researchers.

The article believed that if the children were in a more stable and familiar environment and were sure that the researchers would give them the second marshmallow, the number of children choosing "delayed gratification" would increase significantly.

And so on. There are many other problems. At present, the academic community basically holds a cautious and negative attitude towards the marshmallow experiment.

If you see an article or a course using it as a positive example to prove "willpower", it is probably because the author's knowledge system has not been updated in time.

In fact, both the marshmallow experiment and the Ego depletion theory have a problem:

They try to understand and describe this extremely complex world with an extremely simple factor.

This is what I often call "simple attribution".

Just imagine, the world is so complex, and there are all kinds of "successful" people. Can the only criterion to distinguish them be whether they have "willpower" and the ability of "delayed gratification"?

That would be too simplistic.

So, if we deny the theories of "willpower" and "ego depletion", how can we explain the various phenomena related to them?

In our eyes, some people are "weak - willed" and "lack self - control", and have difficulty adhering to plans, maintaining habits, and doing "the right thing" in the long run. For example:

You say you want to lose weight, but still can't resist having midnight snacks;

You make a detailed reading and study plan, but give it up after a few days;

The goals you set for yourself never succeed...

If we abandon the concept of "willpower", how can we explain these situations?

A relatively explanatory theory is the "Self - determination Theory" (SDT).

It revises the theory of willpower and believes that the so - called willpower is actually part of a greater ability, namely "self - regulatory ability".

Self - regulatory ability refers to the ability to decide what the brain "should do" and "should not do". It has a very wide scope, including resisting temptations, making decisions, and handling complex tasks, etc.

According to neuroscience research, it is mainly controlled by the "top - down" channels of the prefrontal cortex and involves areas related to emotions and rewards.

The SDT theory holds that self - regulatory ability will decline only when the things to be done are not chosen autonomously - this is called the "autonomous model".

For example: Your boss throws a task at you and asks you to finish it immediately, and you don't really like it. Then, during the execution process, you are more likely to experience the so - called "ego depletion" phenomenon - that is, having difficulty concentrating, being prone to distraction, feeling bored and irritable, etc.

On the contrary, if this work is something you like and want to do, even if it is very difficult, you can immerse yourself in it effortlessly.

In short, the SDT theory divides people's internal motivations into three types: competence, belonging, and autonomy. That is to say, we do everything out of three internal motivations:

To explore our own abilities and performance;

To establish interactions and relationships with others;

To implement our own will and control our own behaviors.

You will find that the SDT theory is very consistent with the "flow" theory: Under what circumstances will we immerse ourselves in a thing whole - heartedly and feel happy and immersive?

First, it is autonomously chosen by me, without the pressure and restrictions of external conditions;

Second, its level of challenge is moderate, requiring me to use all my wits and abilities to overcome it.

Only when the above conditions are met can we feel the satisfaction of the "flow" state.

When you are immersed in the flow state, do you need to use "willpower" to keep yourself "focused"? Of course not. You don't need to do anything, and your brain will naturally focus on the task at hand without being affected by any interference.

Similarly, when you are in the flow state, do you need to strictly follow the so - called "Pomodoro Technique" and take a break every 25 minutes? No, it's just a distraction. Your brain will automatically adjust to the most suitable and comfortable state until you get tired.

The SDT theory and the flow theory return the power of "willpower" to yourself.

They jointly reveal one thing: If you feel that you lack willpower, it may be because this thing is not what you really want to do from the bottom of your heart. What you need to do is to think and ask yourself clearly: Why do I do it? What do I want to achieve through it?

For example: You set a reading plan for yourself. Is it because others tell you "you should read", because you hope to change your "non - reading" image, or because you really want to read and gain new inspiration and knowledge from books?

If you have difficulty "adhering" to this plan, you might as well first think about your goals, values, and motivations for reading.

Another example: Do I write each of my 6,000 - 7,000 - word articles by willpower? Of course not. It's because I like writing and hope to help and influence more people through writing - this is a strong motivation.

So, even though writing is very hard, I don't need to tell myself "persevere" or "improve my willpower" - because this is what I really want to do.

Thinking about your goals, motivations, and values is more meaningful than pinning your hopes on the illusory "willpower".

In addition to the "autonomous model", another powerful model is the "reward model".

This model holds that when making any choice, people will follow a principle of "value judgment". We will analyze the costs and benefits of an action by thinking about its expectations, make a value - comparison judgment, and choose the behavior with the highest net benefit.

The most common scenario for this model is to explain the "long - term - short - term" balance in daily life.

In daily life, everyone has long - term goals and the need for short - term satisfaction. The reward model believes that to achieve long - term goals, one needs to use self - regulatory ability to constantly control one's behavior. However, doing this for a long time will cause brain fatigue and a lack of rewards.

Therefore, we need to take some "immediate feedback" actions to recharge and energize the brain.

So, we keep moving back and forth between "long - term" and "short - term". This is both reasonable and necessary.

At the same time, the reward model also makes some discoveries.

If a person doesn't get external rewards and feedback for a long time, then he is more likely to prefer "immediate feedback", that is, to do some short - term and small things to get immediate rewards. This is manifested as "weak willpower".

For example, some studies have found that poor people show lower willpower and self - regulatory ability, probably for this reason. They are used to poverty, so their thinking is all about "how to meet current needs", thus ignoring "long - term development".

Similarly, if a person has a more developed amygdala and is more sensitive to fear and emotions, then he is more likely to choose to complete short - term tasks and put off long - term things to avoid uncertainty and anxiety.

This is manifested as procrastination.

You may remember that when I talk about "self - discipline", I always use an analytical framework called the "motivation - resistance" framework.

Here, motivation can be divided into internal and external. The autonomous model is internal motivation, and the reward model is external motivation (and part of the resistance).

This may be a better way of thinking to replace "willpower".

So, after talking so much, as an individual, how can we better improve our "self - regulatory ability" to develop good habits and become a better version of ourselves?

1. Give yourself a vision

Many studies have shown that imagining the completed scenario of a task before starting it can effectively enhance motivation and the probability of success.

For example, before writing an article, I will definitely establish a framework first to have an overall feeling and understanding of "what the article will look like when it is written". Based on this framework, I then fill in the content step by step, so that I won't get tired easily.

Similarly, when learning a new field, you also need to establish a framework, roughly know its origin, methods, achievements, and schools, and then classify and put in specific knowledge points. Only in this way can you effectively maintain long - term learning.

Before taking on a difficult task, you might as well think about "what the situation will be after it is completed", which can effectively inject motivation into you.

Of course, more importantly, as I always emphasize: You must think clearly about what kind of person you want to be.

Only when this is clear can all your actions be targeted.

2. Take minimal steps

I have mentioned in many articles that the most effective way to establish a new habit is to take minimal steps.

Don't aim for instant success. Instead, start step by step and replace old habits with new ones. Wait until it is internalized and no longer requires conscious action, and then proceed to the next step.

The simplest operation is the "as soon as... then..." rule. For example, as soon as you finish writing a paragraph, get up and move around; as soon as a meeting is over, immediately record the meeting points; as soon as you are free, open your notebook and organize the notes of the day, etc.

Similarly, in my writing class, I also tell students not to try to apply all the knowledge points at once. It's too difficult. You can try to pick out one point first, use a sticky note to remind yourself, and apply it in actual writing and expression. Wait until it becomes a habit, and then start with the next knowledge point. In this way, gradually build your own expression system.

You can also refer to the "EDISON" training method mentioned in my article "Good methods don't need 'self - discipline'". Step by step, change and improve yourself.

3. Question your inner self

Most of the time, our behaviors may not follow our autonomous will but come from external indoctrination, requirements, guidance, and hints.

And they also come from our negative imaginations, worries, pressures, and anxieties about the future due to various emotions.

Therefore, this set of tools can help you better sort out your inner self:

Detachment: Jump out of the current situation and observe yourself from the perspective of a third - party bystander.

Awareness: Be aware of your own state, what you are doing, what reactions you are having, and what kind of interactions you are having with the outside world.

Control: Consciously control your own behavior, restrain your attention, and re - define and direct your goals.

Gradually exercise this ability, and you will gradually realize how the outside world affects you and how you unconsciously affect yourself.

Try to tame and standardize it so that you can jump out of the framework and view things and think about problems more calmly.

4. Make peace with yourself

Why did I write this article? Not to subvert your perception, but to tell you:

Don't use "I lack willpower" as an excuse and ignore your own subjective initiative.

Only you can decide which direction you want to go and how far you can go.

I hope to help you establish this kind of perception: When you encounter obstacles and difficulties and stop, perhaps you can try to think one step further, deeply consider your goals, motivations, values, and feedback, and find your real motivation and desire from the bottom of your heart.

Perhaps you can try to view yourself from a more long - term perspective and think about how you will feel if you look back at yourself now from 5 or 10 years later.

Instead of staying at the point of "I lack willpower" and stop moving forward.

No external force can determine our limits. Only our own choices can do that.

Let's encourage each other.