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💡 The Big Idea: If You Want to Do More of What Matters, Don’t Rely on Willpower.

There are lots of stories about famous people who eliminated trivial decisions in an effort to conserve willpower.

One of my personal favorites is Steve Jobs, who famously wore the same turtleneck and jeans every day so that he could focus on the important decisions that really mattered.

The takeaway? Conserve your resources & protect your limited willpower.

While there is an element of truth to these stories, I personally believe the focus on willpower is a grave mistake.

The Misguided Emphasis on Willpower

One of the first studies I came across when I started paying attention to the personal productivity space was this one by Roy Baumeister. If you’re unfamiliar with this study, the TL;DR is that we have a certain amount of willpower available, and it eventually runs out (a process called ego depletion).

They basically had two groups of people that they put in a room. One group was told they could eat the treats; the other was told they had to eat the radishes instead. Afterward, they had each group try to solve an unsolvable puzzle, and the group that had to resist the treats gave up about half the time.

This single study has fueled our modern conception of willpower since it was published in 1998.

But I believe when it comes to doing more of what matters, considering willpower alone is fundamentally flawed.

Lead vs. Lag Measures

One of the key business concepts I picked up from The 4 Disciplines of Execution is the difference between lead vs. lag measures. Here’s the difference:

• Lag measures track the success of what you did (i.e., number of sales)
• Lead measures track the critical activities that drive the business (i.e., the number of prospecting calls made)

The problem is that lag measures usually don’t show up for a little while (i.e., the sales this quarter come from calls you made last quarter). This means there’s a disconnect between the action and the result, making it easy to lose your way.

So here’s my hot take on why willpower doesn’t work 🔥

Willpower is a productivity lag measure.

It’s a convenient way to find an excuse for why we didn’t do the thing (“I ran out of willpower”).

But when something is really important, you usually find a way to get it done.

Why? You’re motivated.

Motivation Beats Willpower Every Time

Personally, I believe motivation is much more powerful than willpower:

• Willpower is limited, but motivation is renewable. You don’t ever have to run out of motivation, provided your “why” is strong enough.
• Willpower is backward-focused, but motivation is forward-focused. Motivation looks to the future (lead measure), while willpower looks to the past (lag measure).
• Willower is used as an excuse, but motivation is used as permission. Willpower looks for a reason why you didn’t, while motivation looks for a reason why you can.

The bottom line: if your motivation is high enough, you can do just about anything!

Even if you run out of willpower.

You see, motivation transforms the experience from something you have to do to something you get to do. There’s a sense of agency that is only strengthened when you connect it to your vision and your values. It brings passion and purpose to your day-to-day, and it can completely change the experience.

How to Create Motivation

If you want to create motivation, you have to connect to your why.

This isn’t “new” productivity advice, but it’s generally not very clear how to do that.

Which is why I’ve created a 5-step framework for crafting your LifeTheme, a personal mission statement that encapsulates your reason for being. Here are the five steps:

1. Identify your moments of impact (the times when you really came alive)
2. Think bigger (consider the possibilities you’ve suppressed)
3. Create an image (a detailed picture of the day-to-day life of future you)
4. Pick your personal core values (the non-negotiables that should be visible in your ideal future)
5. Craft your LifeTheme (condense it all down into a single sentence)

Once you’re done, you have vision and values that create motivation to show up every day and take action on the things that are important, as well as clarity to cut the things that aren’t.

Here’s an example of my LifeTheme:

Everything I do gets filtered through my LifeTheme. If I don’t see how it connects, it’s an automatic “no.”

Want Some Help Dialing in Your LifeTheme?

If you want some help finding your why and crafting your LifeTheme, I have two resources for you.

The first is a free email course on crafting your LifeTheme. You’ll receive five daily emails that walk you through each step in the process. If you want to enroll in this free email course, just click here.

The second is the LifeTheme cohort that my wife & I are leading, which starts next week. This 6-week cohort has weekly live sessions, Q&A, and lots of opportunities for feedback if you want a little more guidance. The cost of the cohort is $500, and gets you access to the Practical PKM cohort I’ll be leading in January as well.

😎 Something Cool: A Hotfix for the Query Control Plugin

A while back, I made a YouTube video about how to make a Quotebook in Obsidian using an amazing plugin called Query Control. This plugin basically added a bunch of controls to embedded queries that should really be there by default IMHO.

The problem is that with Obsidian v.1.7.2, Obsidian changed a few things that broke quite a few plugins. They even started a pinned message in the Obsidian Discord to track the plugins that broke so they could notify the devs.

Since then, Query Control has been broken. And I’ve been looking for something new. However, I had an exchange with a kind soul in the Obsidian Discord about how I used it, and they fixed it!

This isn’t a fix from the original developer (who has unfortunately been silent), but the TL;DR is that Query Control now works in Obsidian again!

You have to install it via BRAT, but you can find the patched version of Query Control here.

📚 Book Notes: Willpower Doesn’t Work by Benjamin Hardy

In a newsletter where I rail against willpower, it only seems natural to include my notes from Willpower Doesn’t Work by Benjamin Hardy.

This book is interesting and talks a lot about setting up your environment in a way where it’s easy to show up and take action on what really matters. I particularly liked chapters 7 & 8, which discuss changing your default options and creating triggers to prevent self-sabotage.

If you liked this newsletter, there’s a good chance you’ll like this book.

And if you want to download my notes, click here.

— Mike