Let’s talk about willpower.

It’s the ability to delay instant gratification to reach longer-term goals.

That sounds a bit dry, doesn’t it?

Let’s look at a couple of examples of willpower in action.

When a little boy saves up his allowance money to buy a bike instead of spending it on candy this week, he’s using willpower.

When your friend skips the burger and fries at dinner and orders the grilled chicken salad instead she’s using willpower to reach the long-term goal of weight loss and better health.

When you make yourself crawl out of bed early in the morning to go for a run instead of sleeping in, you’re using willpower to reach your goal of getting back into shape.

In short, willpower means that you’re able to give something up now so you can reap a larger reward down the road.

We use willpower every single day.

We use it when we get up as soon as the alarm goes off so we can get the kids to school and go to work.

Would most of us rather sleep longer? Of course.

But we know we need that job and the paycheck that comes with it, so we exercise our willpower to crawl out of bed.

We continue to use it to make wise decisions throughout the day until it’s time to go to sleep.