Willpower

According to this research, some people are born with more willpower than others. But, we can all learn how to strengthen our willpower by working out as we would to strengthen a muscle. (I hope someone is paying a lot of money for this conclusion. Doesn’t’ every parent already know “practice makes perfect?”)

“...discovered that the will, like a muscle, can be fatigued. Immediately after students engage in a task that requires them to control their impulses — resisting cookies while hungry, tracking a boring display while ignoring a comedy video, writing down their thoughts without thinking about a polar bear or suppressing their emotions while watching the scene in "Terms of Endearment" in which a dying Debra Winger says goodbye to her children — they show lapses in a subsequent task that also requires an exercise of willpower, like solving difficult puzzles, squeezing a handgrip, stifling sexual or violent thoughts and keeping their payment for participating in the study rather than immediately blowing it on Doritos…

Baumeister then pushed the muscle metaphor even further by showing that a depleted ego can be invigorated by a sugary pick-me-up... And he showed that self-control, though almost certainly heritable in part, can be toned up by exercising it.”.