HABITual Offender

Before embarking on my fitness and health journey, I was convinced that diet and exercise were a matter of gargantuan will-to-power, a triumph of the will beyond my abilities.

Not to diss my old friend Freddy Nietzsche, but there is no such thing as willpower. Drop this notion from your lexicon fast! (Existential Aside: Wille zur macht is a useful concept in critiquing the metaphysical drive to truth. I heart Nietzsche. But it's useless in thinking about the physical drive to sit on the couch.)

Here's what I learned about the myth of willpower:
We spend lots of time, hours, days--maybe even years?--gearing up for that moment when we will finally possess the strength to bypass brownies and run a marathon. The waiting never amounts to much. It drains the life out of you, though. You wait and scheme...and hope and wait... and convince yourself that tomorrow is the day. An hour from now is the time. A week from now, I'll turn it around.

I spent a lot of time burning psychic energy waiting for the magic of will power to arrive. Yeah, you already guessed it: the parcel of willpower is never delivered.

Did it take gargantuan willpower to will myself to sit on the couch? Nope. Don't think so.
Did it take an epic burst of commitment to will myself to be sedentary? Nope. Don't think so.

What it took was the HABIT of sitting around. The HABIT of being sedentary. The HABIT of mindless eating. Not an effort, a struggle or strength of character. Why should the reverse be any more true? Don't let the lie stop you from making the changes you want to make. It doesn't take strength of character or epic effort to be active and fit. It takes the HABIT of being active and fit. Sorry to disappoint those fellow philosophers among me, but there is no will-to-power in the health & fitness universe. There is simply habit. Good habit, repeated without undue psychic energy.

If you hear this message, "I'll just get myself psyched up and then I'll go run." Stop! This is a dead end. Just go and do it. No willpower is necessary. Just do it. And then do it again. And do it again. And soon the neural pathway of habit has you doing what you need to do. No struggle, no willpower, no torture needed. It really is that simple.

So if you don't have any willpower. No problem. It is absolutely unnecessary. No kidding.


Layout & photo (c) 2007 by Ann Hetzel Gunkel. Software: Adobe Photoshop; Digital Supplies: 727 Collection by design butcher at Scrap Girls.