When you can't make a firm decision on something, it really eats up all your willpower. I discovered this interesting problem while reading a book called The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. This is a great summary of much of the recent scientific research on the subject of willpower.
The book also goes over many willpower techniques and concepts. One concept is that the human willpower is a tank that depletes throughout the day. We draw from the same source of willpower whether we are deciding what to eat for breakfast or dealing with a difficult customer. One way to get more willpower is to protect yourself from things that drain willpower.
One of the ways to preserve willpower is to limit decisions. Making decisions drains willpower. The word “decide” comes from the Latin word decidere, to cut off or to kill. To decide is literally to kill off all the other possibilities.
When we leave something incomplete or undecided, we must spend willpower each time the decision comes back to our minds.
When we decide something, we actually consume a ridiculous amount of willpower and willpower turns out to be a combination of blood sugar and mental toughness. If your blood sugar is low, your mental toughness also goes down. Researchers performed an experiment where they had people decide on a bunch of options. After 10 minutes, they would be asked to avoid eating a bowl of candy that was placed in front of them. Meanwhile, they had another group simply resist the candy that was in the room, without making decisions for 10 minutes beforehand. What they found was that the group that spent 10 minutes making decisions were more likely to eat the candy than the other group of non-decision makers.
The problem is that not deciding also drains energy, in the sense that the thought constantly resurfaces in your mind. You must constantly decide not to make the decision now, which in turn drains you of the willpower to decide and move forward. The point is that strong leaders make decisions quickly, and change them slowly, whereas weak leaders make decisions slowly and change them quickly. Strong sharks decide and act.
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