How to Build Willpower, Self-discipline and Perseverance?

One can build willpower by eating only a millet for two weeks. One can build self-discipline by taking cold showers 10 times a day. One can build perseverance by maintaining the same workout regime (e.g. a 5-mile run) every single day.

There is zillion ways to build those traits, however 99% of them are not really applicable for average mortals. Thus, let’s talk about some things that can help you starting with little to no willpower, self-discipline or perseverance.

First, it will be amazingly useful, if you can shift your thinking about those traits. Normally, those traits are considered something above-human, difficult and tiresome.

In reality they are simply character qualities, like any other (picture self-confidence, patience or diligence here). What is more, it’s much easier to develop and maintain them than to struggle through life without them. Take a closer look at below chart:

The Slight Edge chart

Lack of discipline or inconsistency move you further along the downward curve, straight to failure and a life failure at that. It is enough to develop the traits in question and you will automatically switch into the upward curve and your life journey will be accelerated the longer you practice them.

Yes, it’s tiresome to build those qualities, but only in short-term. In the only meaningful time horizon in human life – decades – those traits are actually much easier to live with.

According to BJ Fogg, the head of Persuasive Lab on Stanford, the only reliable way to change yourself for good is to modify your habits. He even claims, that the only reliable way to create new habits is to develop them in incremental tiny steps. He called this method “Tiny Habits.” I highly recommend you take his free course:

Tiny Habits w/ Dr. BJ Fogg

The course covers starting three habits, ideally for your purposes. Pick one thing you don’t really like, so you will train your willpower.

Pick one thing that has to be done in a disciplined way, e.g. weighing yourself, paying bills or tracking your expanses. This one will help you with self-discipline.

Pick one thing that you want to do for the rest of your life, for example exercises. This habit will build your perseverance.

The Tiny Habits course will teach you how to develop those three habits not by theorizing, by practice. In a week you will have nucleus of three new habits that will cultivate the three traits you want to build.

The Art of Persistence

Here comes the silver bullet: focus on perseverance and the two other qualities will follow. When I started turning my life around and building new habits I had no regard for willpower or self-discipline whatsoever. I still have them in a little esteem.

By external standards I have an iron willpower and am self-disciplined like a Marine. But I don’t care about this at all. I focus solely on perseverance.

At the beginning I took on faith the Slight Edge model (see the chart above) as a probable approximation of reality. In a couple of months I became convinced that this IS reality. Thus, I have been caring only about doing my daily disciplines.

I didn’t care if doing them cries for exercising willpower or not. Some of them were very easy for me (like reading a book written by a saint for 10 minutes a day), some were excruciating (like studying professional documentation for 10 minutes a day). I was interested only in the output: did I do them or not? Nothing else mattered for me.

I was obsessive about doing my habits every day, I built habit streaks like crazy. Breaking a consecutive streak of my habit was unimaginable for me. When I finally broke a few it was a cause for a mild depression and self-loathing sessions