‘Conscience whispers, but interest screams aloud.’ ~J. Petit-Senn

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Have you ever set out to start a new habit or goal, but found your willpower lacking?

Many new ventures are foiled by the morning email habit, for example — we want to exercise or write or meditate, but we can’t resist checking out email for just a minute … and then we’ve gotten lost, down the rabbit hole.

How can we build the willpower to beat these bad habits?

Reader Shanna Mann recently wrote:

“I’d love to see how to get over willpower being the final word on goal-setting :). I was doing morning pages this morning, and in spite of enjoying it, valuing the clarity it brings, and being able to quantifiably measure how much more productive they make me, I find it so hard to write them instead of check my emails first thing in the morning.

What the hell am I missing here?”

Shanna, of course, is talking about Julia Cameron’s suggestion to write three long-hand pages of free-flowing consciousness every morning, no matter what, before you do anything else. I’m kinda doing that right now, as I write this post.

It’s a beautiful habit. But Shanna is tripped up by the urge to check emails first thing every day. Is she lacking in willpower to achieve her goals?

In a word: no. It’s not a lack of willpower, but a very strongly ingrained (possibly bad) habit that’s beating her goal. Checking email first thing is a habit that has been repeated daily for years probably, with a positive feedback loop (I have new email! I’m productive!) that has reinforced the habit until it’s a very strong urge that’s hard to beat.
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