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The ability to do hard things, I would imagine, is an ability we all want more of.

Let’s call this ability, for want of a better word, willpower.

Willpower is this invisible force that seems to determine our ability to do a number of things that—physically—we all should be capable of, but have wildly different levels of success accomplishing…

If our level of willpower is what determines our ability to do these things…what determines our level of willpower?

Why is it that some people seem to have an incredible ability to do hard things, and others don’t? Is it nature, or nurture?

In this email I will attempt to answer that question.

To begin, it’s helpful to define what exactly we’re talking about here…

What is willpower?

From the moment you’re old enough to know what it means to make decisions, you’re faced with an uncomfortable reality of life: doing things you don’t want to do.

(Even when, and often especially when, they’re things you know you should do.)

The people who tend to achieve the best outcomes in life are the people who have a remarkable ability to disregard their feelings and perform these tasks anyway.

The ability to do what you know you should do in any given situation, regardless of whether or not you want to, is one way of defining what it means to have willpower.

Think of it this way…

We have two meters when it comes to making decisions:

The people who apparently have the strongest willpower seem to be the people who have simply thrown away the first meter and rely solely on the second.

For example, most people choose whether or not to go on a run based on whether or not they want to go on a run (the first meter). The best runners, and those with true willpower, choose whether or not to go on a run based on whether or not it would objectively be a good decision for them to run.

Sometimes the answer is no—while recovering from an injury, for example—but most often the answer is yes. And if the answer is that yes, objectively they should run, they run.

This doesn’t mean they need to change how they feel about it. I remember hearing that David Goggins sometimes spends half an hour staring at his shoes before he’s able to get out the door. He very well might detest the idea of running that day. But you can bet, sooner or later, he’ll be running. The first meter still exists, but it’s a backseat passenger, not the driver.

Does this make sense?

Here’s another way of thinking about it: Imagine you were a character in a video game, and you could control your own life while sitting on the sofa, snacks in hand and feet up, experiencing none of what your character experiences. When this character wakes up in the morning, would you choose to let it sit in front of the TV all day? Or would you perhaps send it out into the world to collect resources, level itself up, and try to build its kingdom?

The only reason we would do these things in simulation but not real life is because we aren’t impartial observers of our own lives.

It’s, in reality, really hard to simply set aside personal preferences and do what you know is good for you.

But there’s light at the end of the tunnel…

While it’s hard, I firmly believe that the ability to switch your personal feelings off and instead make and carry out decisions based on objectivity is a muscle.

And like any muscle, you aren’t stuck at one particular level of strength. If you’ve never intentionally exercised it, it might not be that strong—but all it takes it the right stimulus and you can grow it.

How do you build this muscle?

The same way you build any muscle: Giving it a hard but doable challenge, and then progressively and consistently increasing that challenge over time.

It’s so obvious to us that this is the correct way to build physical muscles, but less intuitive that this is how we build mental muscles.

Each day of your life is a chance to go to this ‘mental’ gym and work on your willpower.

How?

Design your life in such a way that you are given lots of small opportunities to exercise the willpower muscle, rather than just waiting for the obvious large opportunities.

Don’t wait until you need to climb the mountain to suddenly try to turn on your willpower. That’s like waiting until you need to run a marathon to train your legs.

Willpower and discipline isn’t something you reserve for special occasions: it’s something you’re constantly exercising each day, so that when those occasions come you’re ready.

This is one of the reasons I like running.

I don’t always actually like the physical act of running. Sometimes I hate it. But without fail, what I do like is that each time I run I give my brain a mini willpower workout. I run 5km and want to call it a day. My personal feelings are that I want to go home and sit in a comfy chair. But the objective reality is that I have a goal that I need to train for, and the best way to train for that goal is to run 15km instead of 5.

So each time I run longer than 5k, I’m mentally doing the equivalent of lifting a weight. My willpower muscle gets a little stronger.

After long enough, running past 5k isn’t much of a challenge anymore—just like how the 10kg dumbbells no longer feel that heavy after a few weeks lifting them. Instead, perhaps it’s when I reach the 10km mark that my mind starts telling me it’s had enough—and I get a chance to exercise the willpower muscle again. I’m progressively overloading it and watching it strengthen.

It doesn’t have to be running.

It could be:

You can dream up anything you like, and as long as it generally follows these principles, it’ll work:

A) Something that you think is objectively good for you

B) But subjectively hard for you to do

C) Can be increased in difficulty over time

These things don’t have to be big and dramatic to begin with. That’s the whole point. Start small and work your way up. Make a list of these things and intentionally grow your willpower.

Watch what happens.

Alright, thanks for reading. That’s the email.

By the way, if you wanna see me put my money where my mouth is…

I’m currently training to run the length of the UK this summer. The equivalent of 40ish marathons in about as many days.

I just put together a little video about what a week in my life training for this looks like. I promise it includes a lot of things that I honestly usually don’t want to do, but do anyway.

I posted it to my Instagram, and you can watch it by clicking this link. Give us a follow if you want more.

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Your friends,

Benji and Jacob