It’s a new year, so inevitably everyone is talking New Years Resolutions and about Building Positive Habits.

And while we might know what we want to do and what’s most important to us, a lot of times acting on that knowledge is really difficult!

Because willpower.

I don’t care if you are a super hero of Professor Xavier proportions, at some point in your life you are going to have to wrestle with your impulses and face down self-control issues. It is inevitable.

In the book The Willpower Instinct author Kelly McGonigal explains that ultimately it is your frame of mind that fuels your willpower:

“It’s almost as if we have two minds. We have one brain that is very responsive to our immediate needs, and when we’re in that mindset, we tend to make decisions that are inconsistent with our long-term goals. But we also have this other mindset that thinks about long-term consequences, remembers what our big values are, and takes a kind of expansive view on our lives and our choices.”

When we focus on the immediate we find ourselves caught in a constant cycle of instant gratification, making it really difficult to do the things we know are good for us; but when we place our attention on the long-term, we tend to act in a way that makes our future self (the real-life superhero we aspire to become) happier and healthier!

Willpower is the super-power that directs our energy and attention to what we truly care about, and when it is weak (or even worse, completely absent) there will be a giant gap between our thoughts and actions.

So because I want to give you every possible tool available to change your life for the positive, here are five great tips for how to develop willpower like a superhero!

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