Willpower is a Skill

Willpower is trainable. The aMCC grows with effort, making discipline easier. The key: do what you don’t want to do until persistence becomes automatic.

People tend to think of willpower as something you either have or you don’t. Some people just seem to be naturally disciplined, while others struggle with even the smallest amount of self-control. But what if that’s the wrong way to think about it? What if willpower isn’t a fixed trait, but a skill that can be trained?

This isn’t just speculation. Neuroscience tells us that willpower has a physical basis in the brain, specifically in a region called the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC). The aMCC is involved in effortful decision-making, persistence, and the ability to endure discomfort. And crucially, it gets stronger with use. Studies show that people who are considered to have extraordinary willpower—elite athletes, military personnel, monks, and individuals in highly disciplined professions—have larger and more active aMCCs than the average person. This suggests that willpower isn’t just something you’re born with. It’s something you build.

This was something I realized early in childhood, though I didn’t have the neuroscience to explain it at the time. I noticed that things that seemed impossible at first—speed reading, expanding my vocabulary, managing my own work without external structure—became easier over time. The effort that once felt overwhelming eventually became second nature. And the real shift wasn’t in the difficulty of the tasks themselves, but in my brain’s ability to handle them.

This reframes the whole idea of willpower. It’s not about having some mystical inner strength that allows you to power through tasks effortlessly. It’s about systematically training your brain to tolerate discomfort. The key isn’t just doing more things—it’s doing things you don’t want to do. That’s the mechanism that rewires the brain. And once you train yourself to push through discomfort in one area, you develop the ability to do it in any area.

The Neuroscience of Willpower

The aMCC plays a crucial role in this process. When you engage in effortful tasks—especially ones that require persistence through discomfort—this brain region activates. It helps integrate pain, stress, and cognitive control, allowing you to keep going instead of giving up. This is why it’s heavily involved in activities that require endurance, whether physical or mental.

We can see this in extreme cases. Neuroscientists have found that elite athletes, special forces soldiers, and long-term meditators have significantly larger and more active aMCCs than the average person. A study by Shackman et al. (2011) found that the aMCC is particularly engaged when people experience stress, pain, or effortful decision-making. Another study (Parvizi et al., 2013) showed that direct electrical stimulation of the aMCC triggered an intense feeling of determination in patients undergoing brain surgery—they suddenly felt an overwhelming drive to persist through difficulty.

This tells us something important: the ability to push through discomfort isn’t just a personality trait. It’s a function of brain structure. And since the aMCC strengthens with use, that means willpower is something that can be developed.

But the real insight here is that what matters isn’t just doing more—it’s doing things you don’t want to do. The reason elite performers have such strong willpower isn’t just because they do a lot of difficult things; it’s because they regularly force themselves to override their natural resistance. This is what rewires the brain.

Think about a soldier in special forces training. The goal isn’t just to make them physically stronger. It’s to put them in situations where they’re exhausted, freezing, hungry, and in pain—situations where every fiber of their being is telling them to stop—and force them to keep going. Over time, this changes their baseline response to difficulty. Tasks that once seemed unbearable become routine. Their aMCC adapts, and what once required immense effort now takes very little.

The same principle applies to mental willpower. The first time you force yourself to sit down and work for three hours without distraction, it feels like torture. But if you keep doing it, the resistance fades. It’s not because the task itself has changed—it’s because your brain has. Your aMCC has adapted, making it easier to persist through effortful tasks in general.

Why Training Willpower Changes Everything

This also explains why willpower isn’t a limited resource in the way people often assume. There’s a popular idea in psychology called ego depletion, which suggests that self-control is like a battery that drains as you use it. According to this theory, the more willpower you exert, the less you have left. This would mean that discipline is fundamentally exhausting—that the more effort you put into something, the more drained you become.

But if willpower functions like a muscle, this model doesn’t quite hold. Yes, exerting effort can be tiring in the short term, just like lifting weights fatigues your muscles. But over time, your capacity increases. The more you train, the stronger you get. This would explain why elite performers—whether in sports, the military, or intellectual fields—aren’t constantly running on empty. They’ve conditioned their brains to handle high levels of effort without experiencing it as a drain.

And once you develop this capacity, it extends beyond the specific tasks you’ve trained in. A soldier who has trained himself to endure grueling physical discomfort isn’t just better at pushing through pain—he’s better at pushing through anything. A person who has forced themselves to focus on difficult intellectual work for hours isn’t just better at thinking—they’re better at resisting distractions in general. The ability to override discomfort generalizes.

This is the real secret of willpower: it’s not about making yourself do more things. It’s about making yourself do things you don’t want to do, over and over, until your brain rewires itself to make effort feel easy. And once that happens, you gain an ability that applies to everything.

Conclusion

The common idea of willpower—as something you either have or don’t—is wrong. Neuroscience shows us that willpower has a physical basis in the brain, specifically in the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC). And like a muscle, this part of the brain strengthens with use.

The people we consider to have the most willpower—elite athletes, special forces soldiers, high-achieving professionals—don’t just start out with more discipline than everyone else. They develop it by repeatedly forcing themselves to push through discomfort. Their aMCCs become stronger, making difficult tasks feel easier over time.

This has major implications. If willpower is trainable, then self-discipline isn’t a matter of personality or genetics—it’s a function of conditioning. The key isn’t just doing more work. It’s doing things you don’t want to do until your brain adapts. And once it does, the ability to persist through difficulty stops feeling like an uphill battle.

Most people assume that effort is something to be avoided—that if something feels difficult, it’s a sign you’re on the wrong path. But the opposite is true. Difficulty is the training ground for willpower. The more you lean into it, the more capable you become.

And once you reach that point, everything changes. Tasks that once felt overwhelming become easy. Challenges that once seemed impossible become routine. The very thing that used to hold you back—effort—becomes your greatest advantage.