Guide 4: How To Conserve Will Power

Now willpower is a common subject when it comes to PMO addiction. Most people might know already that it is a muscle that needs to be worked out and it gets depleted throughout the day, which makes white knuckling so unsuccessful. What I hope to accomplish on this guide is to shed light on how to conserve willpower.

Willpower is depleted throughout the day without you realizing it. Every time you have to make a decision, put up with stress, or fight a temptation you are slowly draining your energy bar if you will. There are other depletion causes but these are very common ones so lets cover them.

1. Decision making: You see when you are making decisions such as going to workout or do a project you are typically either dreading or procrastinating the decision throughout the day. You are constantly dwelling on it subconsciously. When it comes to commitments like working out you need create a preset a macro if you will and have it decided ahead of time that at this time you are going to workout and that is final. Believe it or not this actually does work and quiets the dwelling thoughts in your head. As for procrastination there are a couple of techniques. First I always recommend making to do list. Now most people will simply write down something like 1. Get a job. this does not suffice you will still dread all the steps in your mind so you need to break it up into easy steps that you can wrap your head around and not feel overwhelmed. EX. 1. find all local companies of interest. 2. collect all their numbers 3. call every company and find out if they accept application online or in-store. 4. break up the companies into groups that you will tackle each day. 5. print resumes and head out! by doing this you will avoid being overwhelmed and discomfort and create a momentum each step that encourages you to tackle your project. When having to do a project at home like an essay you can do 1 of 2 things. Set a 1-2 hour timer and have it decided that you will either work or do nothing for the next two hours, No distractions allowed. You can also do the Swiss cheese method were you do small chunks of the essay in small time intervals. This works great when trying to clean a room or garage.
2. Stress: Often we lose willpower quickly when dealing with heavy amount of stress from our boss, a significant other, or traffic/long lines. Now you need to be aware that those upset feelings you are either acting or dwelling on are draining you fast of willpower and will most likely lead to a relapse that night or sometime that week. You need to do what is considered a “paradigm shift”. Humble yourself and try to put yourself in the other person shoes and experience what they might be feeling, a lot of the time your SO is hurt or your boss is receiving the same treatment from upstairs. Now of course this does not excuse their behavior but if you instead understand and sympathize and focus on yourself and what could you do better in that situation you will end the cycle. We need to learn to act not react. This really applies to being in a relationship & friends. Now this is not suppressing the anger but instead dispersing it. The beauty of taking responsibility in any given situation is that you have the power to not only choose how you feel but the power to change it. Trust me you will feel at peace. When you try this method, I recommend going for a walk or a driver and practice slow breathing when attempting.
3. Temptation: Here is the big one, out of sight out of mind if you will. Every time you are tempted by anything you are draining your power, when you have to tell yourself no. Lets focus on PMO now. This is war my friends and you must treat it that way there is no playing with the enemy or balancing levels of porn, you will get stabbed in the back. You need to get rid of everything, and be strict with yourself. You need to arm yourself with every weapon possible (purpose of these guides) and prepare yourself from some painful nights. The best technique for this is the “Bright Line” I have mentioned before. It is a beam of light in your mind that makes it clear at all times what your mission statement is. Example, “I will not intentionally look at any explicit content, nor will I seek it out.” By making things clear and cemented in your mind, you put your tempting inner demon in his space and give him less room to infest.

That being said I feel I should address the painful nights we all face. This has to do perspective. Pain ceases to be pain once it has meaning. For its not pain any more, its a sign of growth, it is a sign that you are doing the right thing and you need to embrace it.

Now I know I didn’t talk about PMO that much in this guide but these guides are much bigger then PMO they are guides to live a better life because in reality why are we trying to beat this addiction? So that we can live the lives we deserve to live, so that we can be the man or woman our friends and family need us to be.

Tomorrow I will cover how to Increase willpower and following that how to make everything easier through Habit formation.

I’d like to end with a personal quote of mine, “Pain comes from within, it is not what happens to us externally that hurts us but our lack of accepting or expecting perfection from our lives & the people in it. We must learn to accept the imperfections, take responsibility & show self compassion in order to be happy.” -ARS

Remember my friends, you are much bigger then this.