Willpower is NOT a Superpower, Unless You Measure It…
Willpower has limits, especially for children. If you expect your child to choose chores over responding to that addictive notification on their phone you’re kidding yourself. No amount of willpower can overcome these brilliant app developers scheming to keep us all addicted to our phones.
Yes, willpower is important. But not as important as developing healthy habits and routines. Furthermore, healthy habits and routines depend on establishing processes that you can measure.
What’s more, measuring the progress of a process is a magical motivator. Measurements are tangible. You view a measurement with your eyes, you can track a measurement in a spreadsheet, and you can share a measurement with others.
Conversely, willpower is not tangible. It’s basically an idea. Who cares if I check Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram one more time for the 100th time. No one will know and tomorrow it won’t matter. Who cares if I promised myself I would get up at 5 am to workout, or read, or start writing my book and I hit the snooze button 10 times. There is always tomorrow, right?
This is true, until you measure it. When there is a record of your decisions that you can see and that others can hold you accountable for, everything changes. Once you add the ability to measure willpower, willpower becomes something else. It becomes a superpower.