Category: Willpower

What a surprise, only two weeks in and I’m already starting to lose the willpower to follow through with this project (and no the irony is not lost on me). I’m not sure if I’m struggling already because the first two weeks require passive activities or if dragging out the process of reading one book chapter-by-chapter over ten weeks is starting to get to me. Perhaps this is just the time of the year it is, but regardless, I hope it picks up after this week!

In Chapter Two: Your Body Was Born to Resist Cheesecake McGonigal asks her readers to do two things: 1) spend five minutes doing breathing exercises, reducing your breaths down to approximately three-to-four a minute (10 seconds breathing in; 10 seconds breathing out); and 2) spend five minutes practicing relaxation, so allowing your body to completely relax and not move, I guess this is different from the meditation in Week 2. On top of these two activities she recommends getting five minutes of outdoor time every day (easy peasy) and getting a good night’s sleep.

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So this first week was super simple. On top of other things that were going on this week I wasn’t sure if it was the best week to start, but better now than never. I had two experiments for the week: notice every decision you make related to your willpower challenge and five-minute brain-training medication.

The first wasn’t as difficult as the second. I’m actually pretty aware of when I start to delay and procrastinate. I did, however, notice that it starts even earlier than I thought. I start making excuses not to go to CrossFit almost 24 hours in advance. I slowly start making minor excuses and then follow through. I’m interested to see what will happen in chapter two. As for the meditation I found it nice. Every day got easier and easier and I’m wondering if I should extend it to more than five minutes. The basic premise is to concentrate on your breathing and when you find yourself drifting away (which I often did, depending on when I meditated) you bring yourself back. I definitely noticed a difference each day and the five minutes which felt like forever at first got shorter and shorter each time.

Next up, Chapter Two: Your Body Was Born to Resist Cheesecake. I’m not so sure about this one based on the title, but we’ll see what’s next.

Check out last week’s Introduction post below:

• The Willpower Project Introduction

As I’ve said numerous times I decided late last year that I planned on spending 2014 focusing on my mental health. I, being who I am, went immediately to my comfort zone and started gathering books around me to work on the things that I immediately felt I wanted to address/discover more about. So far this year that includes The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, somewhat shockingly Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and most recently Overcoming Passive Aggression by Murphy and Hoff Oberlin (the last two scheduled for later this week).

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