Willpower is an interesting topic to think about from a psychological lens. It’s likely that every single one of us has some habit we would like to will ourselves out of or into. Perhaps you wish you could exercise six days a week, or remember not to nag your husband, or finally stop smoking. Many of us try to use a brute-force approach to force ourselves into making these changes. More often than not, these efforts fail, and we wind up with something even more difficult to grapple with than willpower – guilt.

I’m of the belief that the brute-force approach is almost never useful. Aside from being an almost sure-fire route to crippling guilt, it also ignores that there are usually explanations for why we pick up certain behaviors in the first place. Maybe you’ve never stuck with that exercise routine because deep down, you hate your body too much to even imagine having a better relationship with it. Maybe you nag your husband because it seems like that’s the only way you can actually get through to him. Maybe you smoke because it’s the only way you know how to cope with stress. Resistance almost always exists for a good reason.

That being said, I know that we are all in different places when it comes to examining our inner worlds. I can appreciate that sometimes people just want to create change in their lives, and don’t have the resources or the desire to do further exploration at that particular moment in time. That’s why I’ve really been enjoying the blog Lifehacker lately. If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve likely already seen a handful of links back to Lifehacker articles. The entire purpose of the Lifehacker blog is to find easy and manageable ways to improve your life. I like it because the tips are simple, straightforward, and small in scale. They offer something unique to try, without promising that you’re going to change your entire life.

Lifehacker has a great little trick to try when it comes to improving your willpower: try building a completely unrelated habit. Pick something small, that doesn’t have a lot of emotional weight, and feels easily manageable. Great examples might be doing your laundry at the same time every Thursday, drinking three cups of water before noon, or taking out the compost every day. The idea is that you can build your willpower capabilities for more difficult tasks by making habits of simpler things. Give it a try today, and see if you notice any changes in your willpower!