The Stanford University psychologist has transformed ‘willpower’ from a concept into a science, and she explained how to use it at last month’s IHRSA Annual Convention & Trade Show

How do you define willpower, and how important is it?
It’s hard to underestimate the importance of willpower. It describes the ability to make choices and take steps that are consistent with your highest goals and values – even when it’s difficult or when some part of you doesn’t want to. For example, it’s declining a tempting dessert to avoid gaining weight, or working out instead of watching TV.

Unfortunately, when most people talk about willpower, they think of it as forcing themselves to do things they don’t want to do, and that’s draining. That’s why people have such a problem with resolutions. When you set up this sort of mental battle – where you feel you’re trying to defeat your behaviour rather than advance your goals – it’s hard to move forward. In the end, force doesn’t work.

How can club operators, instructors and personal trainers better harness willpower?
I’d suggest that, to get started, they first make a point of cultivating “want-power” in their clients – examining and reinforcing their underlying motivation. People need to be clear about their values and goals, and recognise that they’re making a conscious choice rather than forcing themselves to do something. That fosters a willingness to proceed, rather than imposing what seems like a kind of brutal self-discipline.

When initiating personal change, it’s essential that you identify with and endorse the positive goals you’re pursuing. If that isn’t the case – if you simply feel you’re repressing or suppressing your preferences, desires and instincts – that’s actually a harmful exercise in willpower.

If you want to have more willpower, you have to learn to be a friend and mentor to yourself, rather than equating self-control with self-criticism.

How can fitness professionals leverage this understanding of willpower to help members succeed?
First, it’s important to recognise the difference between a desire to change and what actually motivates that desire. People typically sign up for a membership for what they regard as negative reasons – guilt, shame, body hate, fear of health consequences – or because of the false-hope syndrome. “Maybe I weigh 300 pounds today, and I’ve never exercised, but starting tomorrow I’m going to work out two hours a day and lose all this weight. It’s going to change my life!”

This dichotomy – a negative cause and punitive effects versus a positive goal and rewarding outcomes – predicts absolute failure in terms of behaviour change. They’re contradictory stances – we’re working against ourselves.

So what can clubs do? Instil the desire to use the club by ensuring they know there’s someone there who knows their name, cares about them, and is committed to helping them achieve their goals.

It’s also very important to communicate the value of small behaviours. It’s crazy that, in the fitness industry, we promulgate recommended activity levels that 10 per cent or fewer of Americans are meeting.

Meanwhile, research show that just 10 minutes of activity a day reduces the incidence of depression, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality, while simultaneously increasing daily functionality and life satisfaction. Members need to pay attention to things that are easy to affect and control. It’s important for club staff to encourage small, positive changes first. Such changes matter, and they do add up.

Anything you might warn them not to do when dealing with club members?
Yes. They might, for instance, be looking at someone who’s overweight or very much out of shape and thinking: “This person has a willpower struggle.” But having taught, written and spoken about willpower for more than a decade now, I want to stress that everyone has areas in their lives where they feel a bit out of control – where it’s difficult for them to consistently make the positive choice.

I’d refrain from assuming anything about anyone until they choose to share information with you.

Also, it’s not what other people judge us for that we necessarily need to change. The real questions are: What are the things that matter to each of us individually? What are we not doing to support our own personal goals and values? Exercising your willpower instinct is really about devoting your attention, time and effort to what matters to you most – and helping your members do that same. It involves a very important discovery process.

You believe that willpower in action – whether successful or resulting in failure – is ‘contagious’. Could you elaborate?
When researchers study epidemiological events, and how willpower struggles spread over time, they find – on the negative side – that you’re more likely to become overweight or increase your drinking or become sleep-deprived if people in your social network have made that change already.

However, on the positive side, when someone we care about adopts a positive new goal or a healthier lifestyle behaviour, we tend to begin to incorporate their goals into our own goals, often unconsciously. And the more you like and spend time with someone, the more contagious they are.

The epidemiological data demonstrates that these behaviours tend to spread across networks, and a health club is a network – a very positive network.

You also say willpower isn’t an unlimited resource, but some people – such as Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group – seem to have no end of it. How do you explain that?
First of all, I’d challenge the utility of identifying anyone as a willpower role model. Everyone, no matter how successful they may appear, has an area in their life that’s a bit out of control or self-destructive – it’s just that those unique willpower struggles are often invisible to others.

If you’re looking for a willpower role model, you’d do much better to look within your own circle of friends and acquaintances – for someone who’s been successful and whose struggles you’re aware of.

People tend, unconsciously, to choose individuals who don’t appear to be struggling as their power exemplars. But, remember, willpower is the ability to do things that are difficult – and we all have difficulties in our lives.