Keep reading … it will makes sense.
In my earlier posts in this series, I wrote about the idea that willpower is less a muscle we can strengthen, and more a limited resource that we need to spend wisely. If we spend our day doing taxes (difficult), we’ll have less energy at the end of the day to resist sweet desserts or other temptations.
We all “leak” willpower to some extent, wasting our daily supply of mental fortitude on battles like staying awake when we’re sleepy, resisting food cravings, making ourselves do work we don’t want to do, enduring annoying people, etc. If we take proactive steps to either change our lives or establish new habits, these “leaks” go away and we’re left with more willpower to work on whatever we really want to work on (making art, earning money, fixing stuff, improving the lives of others — whatever our “life’s work” happens to be).