this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
58 points (92.6% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35931 readers
728 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I have heard that willpower is finite and every person starts their day with a limited capacity.

On the other hand there are people like gym goers or sportspersons saying that they can muster up more will power if they have the right mentality at the right time.

I don't know which one is right, but is it possible to increase one's capacity for will power ? If so what kind of exercises or training methods do they have to use ?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have heard that willpower is finite and every person starts their day with a limited capacity.

Time for a new source of information. Whoever told you that is wildly incorrect.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is this not just a (mildly oversimplified) framing of what psychologists call ego depletion [1]? This appears to be a well-replicated finding. I don't see any reason to call it "wildly incorrect".

[1] The strength model of self-control. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-18261-013

Edit: After some more research, it looks like the science is inconclusive on ego depletion. So I would not call it "well-replicated", but also not "wildly incorrect".

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

I had never heard of ego depletion, and after looking it up frankly I think, outside of psychology, the idea is at best misinformation, to the point of disinformation. Not something to incorporate into your life beliefs. From Wikipedia;

Ego depletion is the controversial idea that self-control or willpower draws upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up. When the energy for mental activity is low, self-control is typically impaired, which would be considered a state of ego depletion.

As a self sufficient Boomer, that sounds too much like shooting yourself in the foot. Maybe it's a symptom of a mental disease/weakness, which is why it might be useful to psychologists. Maybe the ego needs to be repleted, if it's depleted. But rather than believe you start the day with a limited amount of will power, start your day by giving yourself a boost. Tell yourself what you can do, rather than what you can't.

So I stand by my original comment, flippant as it was. Don't buy into bullshit. If you are hanging out (real life or online) in places where the attitude is that we're each limited in what we can accomplish, then you should hang out elsewhere. How can you reach for the stars if you're convinced you don't have what it takes?

Yeah there are things that are legitimately hard to do. Excruciatingly hard sometimes. Overcoming hardships makes you stronger. Believing you only have so much "will" does not.

From your source:

Just as a muscle gets tired from exertion, acts of self-control cause short-term impairments (ego depletion)

Short term impairment. Like a tired muscle, which will be stronger tomorrow for having been worked to the max today.