What exercises can I do to strengthen my willpower?
I've realized that I'm very mentally weak and it's impacting my success.
I suspect I have ADHD and whenever I get an urge to distract myself, I rarely manage to resist it.
I think what I am missing is the residtance to discomfort that eg. allows sports people to carry on going even when their muscles are telling them to stop. Or the thing that allows people to defy themselves and step into an ice-cold shower.
Unfortunately I am not a person who enjoys sports and a cold shower is only something that makes sense once a day. Can you think of any exercises that I can do here and now in my room, and practice routinely that will strengthen my willpower so that I can better resist my urges in the future?
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“Just do it” is such easy advice to give but I feel your pain OP. There are things I want to accomplish that I CANNOT get myself up to do. I can’t execute plans or schedules for things that don’t immediately threaten my livelihood. It’s a real PITA. Executive dysfunction is a term I’ve read about recently that describes this.
I’m convinced the way we think about things is the driving force. For example, I’ve always struggled to work out regularly. What’s really been helping me the last month is the mantra “I’ll never regret working out but I absolutely will regret not working out”. So try to critically evaluate your thought processes behind the things you want to accomplish and see if there is another way of thinking about it that makes doing it easier.
I really like your mantra – yeah it really helps me when thoughts like this reframe the way I look at things. I often struggle with being paralized by guilt, for example the guilt of having put an email off for too long, or tge fear that starting ti revise for my exams now would make me feel guilty that I didn't start preparing earlier. I wish I had a similar mantra for that
Yes! The guilt eats you alive and completely paralyzes you! I never could figure out what made me tick to help improve my study habits. But I just graduated so I managed and now I’m done forever! You will always wish you started sooner, no matter how early you start.
For little things like emails, consider how they take barely 5 mins to do. We have 1,440 minutes in a day and we can’t even take 5 to send the freaking email?! I use that mindset for chores too. I gripe and moan about the kitty litter box but it takes 60 seconds to just scoop the damn thing.
Ahh putting it into perspective does sound like it would help me. Unfortunately for me writing an email usually takes closer to 20 minutes because I'm really slow at phrasing what I have to say and I sit around stuck on trying to phrase my email in a way that doesn't sound too commanding/impolite/etc . Have you ever had this? It might be an ADHD thing idk.
I’ve experienced that as well with emails. I’ve gotten faster over the years because of the amount I’ve had to send but have definitely spent 30+ minutes writing some of them. I will write it and then read it out loud to myself to make sure it makes sense and, like you said, doesn’t sound rude or aggressive. Realistically, no matter how careful you are people still might misinterpret it. I’ve never been diagnosed or sought to be diagnosed with ADHD so it’s hard to say. I’m too stubborn to seek a diagnosis and try meds because it’s just one more thing for me to forget to do 😅
Don't overthink it. That helps me. Obviously match your phrasing to the situation like if it needs to be formal, be formal, but if not then just write it out and send it.