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Willpower

Edited by Ruby, et al. last updated 24th Sep 2025

Willpower is the ability to overcome urges to do or not some activity– to overcome temptation. Typically there is a sense of coercing oneself to do things despite inner resistance.

Willpower is of interest those who wish to increase their productivity or otherwise do more thing that they wish to be done. The question then is "how does one increase willpower?"

There is an argument that the use of willpower is undesirable. The use of willpower may constitute a form of inner violence which is in tension with inner alignment of one's parts– a better path to productivity and wellbeing.

Related: Akrasia

Resources

  • The writings on Minding Our Way concerning productivity.
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Posts tagged Willpower
9
110Toward A Bayesian Theory Of Willpower
Scott Alexander
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12Notes on Self-Control
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83Self-empathy as a source of "willpower"
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245Hero Licensing
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22Does Thinking Hard Hurt Your Brain?
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586Pain is not the unit of Effort
alkjash
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237Ayn Rand’s model of “living money”; and an upside of burnout
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110Willpower Depletion vs Willpower Distraction
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11y
25
2
85Willpower Hax #487: Execute by Default
Eliezer Yudkowsky
17y
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61Solving willpower seems easier than solving aging
Yair Halberstadt
8mo
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2
58Not-Useless Advice For Dealing With Things You Don't Want to Do
Rafael Harth
4y
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2
56Policy-Based vs Willpower-Based Intentions
Unreal
7y
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45Spamming Micro-Intentions to Generate Willpower
moridinamael
8y
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2
39Willpower: not a limited resource?
Jess_Riedel
15y
28
2
22When Willpower Attacks
jimrandomh
16y
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