Maybe You Don’t Need More Willpower After All

Maybe you’re not broken — just busy

I definitely should shelve these books. I feel guilty every single time I walk past this cluttered table outside my office. (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

We all feel bad about certain things. It’s usually things we think we “should” do.

You have to run 10 miles every day before dawn, read three books each week, write daily, eat more kale, fold the laundry … you know the list.

There’s likely at least one thing in life you’re not nailing and you feel bad about it — as you are meant to.

And if you aren’t nodding along with me, it may be that someone else — your spouse or a paid employee or housekeeper or lawn service — is handling certain tasks that you would find it challenging to keep up with otherwise.

Financial privilege makes everything easier

As with everything else in life, many things are easier for people who can throw some money toward them. Even things like spending an hour reading to your kids each night — or hitting the gym — are a lot easier if someone else is doing the dishes and folding the laundry for you.

We don’t all have the same 24 hours. Some people have others cleaning their homes, cooking their food, doing their laundry and caring for their children for at least part of the day. Those folks ought not congratulate themselves too much for being able to spend extra hours building their business or working out.

Nevertheless, the world always lets you know you have failed in something. A thousand influencers and bloggers and productivity experts have let you know they don’t have these issues. They’re all accomplishing amazing things.

You probably are competing in the wrong categories

I often feel bad about myself because although I always say I want to ride my bike more, I often miss opportunities to do so. I say I’d like my house to be neater and cleaner, but it remains dusty and cluttered most of the time unless I turn to the nuclear option — inviting people over and then panic cleaning right before they arrive.

But I finally realized something pretty major recently, and it was like I’d been wearing a bag over my head and someone just pulled it off:

Intrinsic motivation isn’t willpower.

What you enjoy, you do

The world is always reminding me of the things that I don’t do, but only I can list the things I have done. I have plenty of success in other areas, and I bet you do, too. It’s just that nobody has ever written an article congratulating you on your accomplishments because nobody but you even knows about most of them.

We all have natural talents

Baby, I was born to breastfeed. I never used a drop of formula and happily nursed each kid past their third birthday.

But here’s the thing: It wasn’t hard for me. I loved it. I felt fulfilled. To me, nursing a baby is a lot like hugging a puppy. If you had sore nipples or problems with thrush or felt touched out, your experience was different from mine.

I cook almost all our food from scratch. I go so far as to bake sourdough bread. In fact, I grind the wheat first! Do I do this out of obligation? Not really. I enjoy it. I generally find cooking relaxing. It’s also a creative outlet for me.

If you hate cooking, you’re allowed to eat bagged salads and sandwiches made from store-bought bread instead.

I write nearly every single day and have for years

You see, I don’t have to make myself do it. It’s a pleasant and satisfying thing I love to do.

It isn’t for some people. When I see people talk about all these courses and tricks designed to make it easier to get your writing in, I just cannot understand it. If you don’t feel the urge to write, go do something else! It’s my thing but it doesn’t have to be yours.

I publish at least four long pieces a week on Substack; three on Untrickled and one on The Indie Author. I have a publication on Medium I run called Minds Without Borders. At any given time, I am working on several books; last year I published two.

In addition, I have a writing side-gig (SEO) I do just for the money. It probably takes me about 30 hours most months.

I probably shouldn’t talk about this, but I’m going to go there

I’ve almost never said no when my husband or any past partner has suggested we work on our scrapbooks. In fact, I am often the one to suggest a good scrapbooking session.

You see, I enjoy scrapbooking. It’s not that I feel obligated to scrapbook. If you don’t feel like working on your scrapbook, you absolutely should not feel pressured to do so. Some people like to work on their scrapbook every night and some people say that they don't care if they never scrapbook again.

So am I a better wife because I happen to have this preference? I would love to say yes. But honestly, I scrapbook because I want to, not because I think I ought to.

I walk my dogs twice a day

It is sometimes a pain in the butt, but I generally enjoy it a lot. So do they. Except in really nice weather, I don’t see most of the neighborhood dogs out. Some are never walked.

Do I do this out of obligation? Sometimes, like when it’s bitterly cold or hot and humid, but mostly no. I like doing it. If I hated it, I’d do it much less and my dogs would be fine just running around the fenced yard instead. They’re honestly spoiled rotten.

I judge myself harshly for not doing enough

But the truth is I have more things to do than I have waking hours. It’s not necessarily a personal failure that I’m behind on housework. I hate doing it and I’m not good at it and anytime I prioritize it, it cuts into things that I think are far more important.

Say, walking the dogs. Or scrapbooking. (It’s metaphorical. Or is it? You sweet summer child.)

My husband and I chose to buy a big old fixer-upper house

I can’t even guess how many hours of painting, rewiring, replumbing, drywalling and more we’ve performed. We’ve gutted whole rooms. (When I say “we” I mostly mean my husband did it. But I do help.) Old houses require a lot of work, but we didn’t have enough money to purchase a decent-sized house in better shape.

A reminder: It takes a lot of extra time and effort to be poor or poor-adjacent. But even so, we chose to have a high-maintenance yard with a pool and goldfish pond and garden and treehouse and deck and more. It all takes so much work.

Sometimes I envy my friend who lives in an urban loft and does zero yardwork, orders in most of his meals, can call the landlord when a faucet starts dripping and has the freedom to just sit on his balcony and write all damn day. Like a maniac.

But I chose otherwise and I’ll honestly miss all this someday when we’re too old to keep it all up.

I don’t need more willpower or discipline and I bet you don’t either

Nor do we need to hire a life coach, probably.

It took me a while to realize all this, but I’m doing a lot. I’m not lazy. I’m just busy, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything. As my life has changed through different stages, I’ve sometimes been a lot better at keeping up with certain things. I’m not taking care of small children so I can write more. I promise you I couldn’t have written as much as I do now when I had kids at home.

I admit there has never been a time in my life when I’ve done a great job of keeping the house perfectly neat and clean. Call that a personal failing if you will. But you aren’t allowed to judge me if you have a housekeeper or — importantly — if you enjoy housekeeping.

The myth about 21-day habits

Supposedly, if you do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. Don’t believe it.

What’s really going on here is that people who start doing something and find it satisfying are the people who continue doing it for 21 days and then beyond.

If you start doing some new thing and keep on doing it, I can almost guarantee you’re doing it because you want to. One exception is when you’re doing it out of fear, because your doctor told you that you were going to die if you didn’t make changes, or because someone with power over you is making you do something.

Different people like different things

My husband gets up long before dawn each day to walk, and also walks on his lunch break. Plus he takes ultra-long bike rides on the weekend. When he lived in The Netherlands, he rode his bike to a crazy extent — he rode an hour to work, then he did eight hours of manual labor, then he rode an hour home. After eating dinner he would on some nights ride his bike into Germany where he played for the Aachen Greyhounds. After baseball practice he rode his bike back home. (Yes, I married an insane man.)

He didn’t do this out of obligation — he had a car. He did all that riding because he loved doing it.

My daughter creates lots of art. Her house is filled with her paintings and other works. Her job has nothing to do with creating art. I guarantee nobody is holding a gun to her head and forcing her to create. She does it because she loves to do it.

My son loves to read. He is long out of school. No summer reading program is bribing him to read more. He lives alone and could do almost literally anything he wants to do in his free time. Reading is his top choice.

Don’t take credit for things that you do because you enjoy them, but also don’t blame yourself for not doing things you honestly don’t find intrinsically rewarding.

Maybe you don’t need more willpower after all. Maybe you just need to notice what you’re already doing right.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here and on Medium. I also have a new Substack aimed at authors who want to self-publish books, called The Indie Author. My most recent book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules. If you prefer to give a one-time tip, I accept Ko-fi.

All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park

For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.

Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.

When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.

Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.

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