The Role of Willpower

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I know that this recession has legs and many of you are feeling its effects in a lower client count, less income, or just working harder to stay even.

In my new book, Crisis-Proof Your Practice, I show readers a simple yet effective 4-step plan to keep a private practice strong in a down economy.

My idea was that since time is a factor in a recession, I could help others to get moving and adjust to a changing marketplace before it took its toll on a small business.

Unfortunately, some of us in private practice are slow to respond when it comes to changing the way we do business. Many of my colleagues tell me that making change in business is hard and it’s taking longer to adjust than they wish.

Some rationalize that they can operate as before and ride things out.

It’s Time to Take Action

The recession is going to stay with us for a while. The time to make necessary  change in your practice is now.

It’s ironic that we change agents find it so difficult to change our own practices — but we know from the research in the field of brain science that this resistance to change is universal for a reason. The human brain hates change.

Holding to the tried and true gives us a false feeling of security, and competence, even if our income is slipping away.

So often I hear the owner of a practice say, “I know what I need to do but I can’t get myself to do it.” There is a reason we procrastinate. You need to take action steps, but first you may have to work with your mind.

If what stops you from being more successful in the business of therapy (or coaching, or consulting) is a factor of your mindset, specifically, your willingness, then its time to ask yourself: What do you understand about your own mindset when it comes to willpower?

Willpower in Short Supply

Most of us procrastinate, but not because we are bad, lazy or crazy.

Recent studies about the brain show that willpower is not abundant or plentiful. Instead, for most it is a rare, often limited quantity that we need to learn to cultivate.

Once you understand the limitations of willpower, you can actually boost it up, so that you can take small, consistent action steps to keep your practice strong over time.

The Business of Change

Now, like many of my readers, I am in the business of helping others to make change – both large and small. I have worked as a therapist for over 20 years (and still maintain a therapy practice) and as a business coach for a dozen years as well.

I often get surprised by who changes and who doesn’t.

There is an X factor to change, and I think it is willingness.

As a business coach, I have worked with men and women of all levels of professional experience, and as best as I can tell, who prospers and advances their practice and who does not doesn’t correlate to gender, age, or years of experience.

Instead, it has to do with a person’s desire and courage to make things happen. Willingness is a precious commodity.

You need to understand how it works in your brain and then spend your limited willpower “budget” wisely.

Training Your Brain

Sandra Aamodt, the editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience, and Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton, explain that the brain’s store of willpower is quickly depleted.

People who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task.

Aamodt and Wang posit that willpower can grow with practice, but it requires body resources to grow – specifically blood sugar.

Neurons in the frontal cortex, which is responsible for planning behavior, or in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with cognitive control, use blood sugar more efficiently after repeated challenges.

But there is also a use it or lose it component to willpower.

Like a muscle, you need to keep exercising willpower to have access to it in your life and work.

Here’s Where It Gets Interesting.

I want to show you how to work with willpower in your brain and in your practice.

Boosting Your Willpower

Aamodt and Wang explain that like a muscle, willpower can grow in the long term, if you use it more and more and if you understand that you need to “feed” your brain and body between uses with rest and nutrition.

Like a muscle, willpower seems to become stronger with use.
Aamodt and Wang suggest that what limits willpower may be blood sugar, which brain cells use as their main energy source and cannot do without for even a few minutes.

Whereas most cognitive functions are unaffected by minor blood sugar fluctuations over the course of a day, the functions of willpower – such as planning and self-control — are sensitive to such small changes.

“Exerting self-control lowers blood sugar, which reduces the capacity for further self-control. People who drink a glass of lemonade between completing one task requiring self-control and beginning a second one perform equally well on both tasks, while people who drink sugarless diet lemonade make more errors on the second task than on the first. Foods that persistently elevate blood sugar, like those containing protein or complex carbohydrates, might enhance willpower for longer periods.” (“Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind” New York Times, 4/2/08)

Willpower in Action

Think of exercising your willpower as both a boon to meeting your goals as well as a training process, like business boot camp, where your overcome one challenge as a way to become stronger in general.

For example: If you know that referrals are down in your practice, and you have been reading past newsletters or my new book, you know the steps to building a larger and more potent community around your private practice.

How willing are you to make this happen?

Will you plan for the actions (that I spell out in detail in the new book) and take the time in your busy life to accomplish the steps?

To do this you will need to:

1) Focus on actions one at a time (limited supply of willpower)

2) Rest after each series of actions and “feed your brain” with healthy food to boost your blood sugar.

3) Repeat to build your willpower “muscle” over time.

Factor in your willingness to every business strategy. This is the secret ingredient that will help you to better manifest your goals and empower your action plan.

You may need more support. Accountability helps.

Hire a coach, form a circle of like-minded peers, or ask a trusted friend to track your progress. Your support system needs to be positive and accept your agenda.

You need people to cheer you on for every step you take in the right direction, and hold you accountable for your commitments when you are procrastinating.

It’s normal in business to have a support system of this type in place. Once you have it, and master the willingness factor, there is little in business (and in life) that you can’t achieve.