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What exercises can I do to strengthen my willpower? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've realized that I'm very mentally weak and it's impacting my success.
I suspect I have ADHD and whenever I get an urge to distract myself, I rarely manage to resist it.
I think what I am missing is the residtance to discomfort that eg. allows sports people to carry on going even when their muscles are telling them to stop. Or the thing that allows people to defy themselves and step into an ice-cold shower.

Unfortunately I am not a person who enjoys sports and a cold shower is only something that makes sense once a day. Can you think of any exercises that I can do here and now in my room, and practice routinely that will strengthen my willpower so that I can better resist my urges in the future?

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

ADHD Brains are different - so some advice that works for non-ADHD brains may or may not work.

In general, being present and meditation (in whatever way that works for you, but, generally the practice of observing your thoughts as they go by but not reacting to them) are helpful for 'strengthening' your thought patterns. Becoming aware of things and building up that muscle is how you can have more of that willpower.

Habits can be very difficult to build, don't get discouraged. Find things that work for you and ways to incentivize or motivate yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/@HowtoADHD/ Here's a great youtube channel

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh yes I've come across her channel before. This is unrelated but have you found any good ways to deal with the 'wall of awful' that she describes in one of her videos?

[–] Mikina 1 points 1 year ago

I highly recommend getting the book "The Mind Illuminated". It's a structured step by step guide to mindfulness, that explains the theory and reason for why you do it so well and without any mysticism, that it instantly made it click with me internally and it suddenly started making sense. It also gives clear goals for every step, and explains why you do it, and what troubles you'll probably encounter.

In summary, its the perfect book for someone who has an aversion for mysticism and is sceptical of mindfulness, and also for someone who needs clearly defined steps and goals.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I have ADHD and meditation has been a great help. I used the Waking Up app to learn to meditate, which removes all sorts of mysticism from the equation. The introductory course is great, it starts out simple enough but begins to become very interesting by about day 20 or so.

Amazing what 10 minutes of practice a day does.