Breaking a promise to our friends, to our family, or to our boss seems almost unfathomable. We will go to almost heroic lengths to not let them down. We want them to know that they can trust us. That we can deliver for them. That when we say something, we are going to do it.

But when it comes to a promise to ourselves...that’s a different story. We promise ourselves that this time we’re going to make it to the gym 4 times a week, cut back on spending, and eat healthier. But for some reason if we don’t keep that promise, we’re not too upset about it.

“This time is going to be different.”

Those are the first words we tell ourselves when we set a goal and plan to change our behavior. It does not matter if that behavior change was to quit smoking, lose weight or start exercising. Despite our past failures, we believe that it’s going to be different.

For most of us, “this time” is rarely ever different. We set up an unrealistic plan to achieve our goal and get burned out within the first couple of weeks. But for a rare few, “this time” really is different! 

It may be the most competitive event on the planet.

Every 2 years we see athletes from all over the world converge on one city to compete in the Olympic games. They do it for pride. They do it for their country. And they do it with one goal in mind – win medals. 

Many athletes train all of their lives and only get the chance to compete in just one Olympic games. Imagine that. Years of training from as young as even 5 or 6 years old for just one chance at glory. Clearly with that much time invested on an event that may span only mere minutes or seconds, athletes want to make sure they’re training properly.

The test was simple. The participants, all non-exercisers with the goal of adding workouts to their weekly routine, were asked to write down how many hours they planned to spend in the gym over the next two weeks.

Each participant entered in the amount of time they planned to spend in the gym. Then they recorded how much actual time they spent there to see if it matched up. After careful calculation, the participants planned to spend about 20 hours on average over the next two weeks in the gym.

“I’m going to start working out. I’ll start by going to the gym every Wednesday.”

A friend of mine told me those words 2 years ago. He didn’t go to the gym on a regular basis, and was trying to make it a habit. My first inclination when he told me that was probably pretty typical.

Really? You’re only going to go on Wednesday? Come on, you can at least go 3 times a week!

But that friend knew something that I didn’t. He knew that no matter what he was going to be able to make it to the gym every Wednesday without fail. If he went more than that, great, but when trying to build the habit, he had to start somewhere.

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University had a simple question.

Can we help students who are struggling in class turn things around by helping to boost their self-esteem? 

They had a good basis for the question. After all, there is a correlation between getting good grades and having a high self-esteem. But which comes first? Do students with a high self-esteem naturally try harder because they believe in themselves? Or is it just natural that those who work hard and get good grades have a high self-esteem from achieving great results?

It’s 6:30am in the morning in Beijing and Michael Phelps wakes up to what will be his 3rd gold medal performance of the 2008 Summer Olympic games. He goes through his normal routine. He has his breakfast planned in advance. He eats exactly what he has before each of his previous competitions and what he will for the next 5 gold medal performances in front of him.  

After breakfast, he goes through the rest of his routine. A 45-minute warm-up swim, a long period of stretching - honing his focus by listening to the same hip-hop mix he has before all of the other competitions.  

If you were to ask Michael Phelps what he was thinking about at any point during this pre-competition routine, he would respond saying that he’s “not really thinking about anything.” And that’s exactly what he wants.  

Rest days are crucial to recovery. Whether your goal is physical or mental in nature, a rest day can help you recharge your batteries, avoid burnout, and allow you more clarity and focus for the week’s worth of activities.

However, rest days are not an excuse to be lazy. Whenever you take a day off, you risk losing your focus on your goal, or derailing it entirely through the “what-the-hell” effect.

“Who is successful here and why?”

That’s the question that Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has been asking for over 10 years. Her goal was to determine what factors most impacted success in the great performers of our world. She looked at education, sales teams, the national spelling bee and even West Point Military Academy to see which factors impacted the success of the high performers in each field. 

We tend to believe that factors outside of ourselves play the key role in our success. Factors like IQ, household incomes, the prestige of school we’ve attended, etc. But what Duckworth found was the only factor that correlated with success across all domains was a concept she called “Grit”.

Charles Garfield looked around the room at his new job. There was a certain buzz in the air that wasn’t there before. His new team was achieving great results on a regular basis. People were visibly happy in their work, and everyone was working cohesively towards a greater good.

He asked his supervisor, “What is going on around here lately?”

Every year, thousands of alcoholics check themselves in to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in order to get over their addiction. They do this because, despite having a relatively low scientific basis for getting over addiction, AA consistently outperforms other methods of treatment for alcoholism.

Recently, many researchers have looked into what specific practices AA does differently than the other treatment methods to have such a high success rate. They have found many things AA does differently that work with their patients. Everything from increasing their self-awareness by first taking time to understand why they turned to alcohol in the first place, to creating a sense of genuine support from a sponsor who knows what your going through. They have found many proven effective strategies for helping treat alcoholism.

But I want to focus on one rule that AA uses to help make the task of getting over the addiction stick – “don’t have a drink today”.

Heroes remind us of what is possible

Heroes are not just for kids. We all have heroes in our lives. It may be a sports star, a business leader or even our own parents. We all have a different reason for calling someone a hero. It could be because they overcame adversity in their lives to make it to the top. It could be because they stand for something that you truly believe in. Or they are simply a person that we aspire to become one day.

There are many reasons we choose our heroes, but here are 3 reasons that having a hero will increase your willpower.

After a live performance put on by one of the masters of comedy, Jerry Seinfeld, a young comedian came up to his dressing room. He asked him, “What is your secret to success?”

Seinfeld turned to the young man and said, “in order to succeed at comedy, you need to tell better jokes. And in order to tell better jokes, you need to write everyday. So what you need to do is get a giant calendar of the whole year and every day that you write a new joke, mark a big red X on that day. Then it is as simple as not breaking the chain.”

That’s it. That’s what moved Seinfeld from your typical struggling comic to a place where he’s still pulling in a cool $80 million a year. I’m no comedian, but after reading this, it got me thinking, can I do the same thing in my life?

“Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” – Benjamin Franklin 

Mornings are amazing. Mornings are the best time to be productive. Why? Because you can spend them however you want. You haven’t been beaten down by the stresses of the workday, you haven’t filled your body with unhealthy food or caffeine, and you haven’t been asked out for happy hour with your friends. This is the time that you can get some serious self-improvement done.

The problem? When that alarm goes off at 6am, the last thing you’re thinking about is your long-term goals.