Willpower vs. Resilience: What’s The Difference?

Words such as willpower and resilience are often used interchangeably to refer to emotional strength and perseverance, but there are actually some key differences between them that are worth distinguishing. This article will show you how to tell the difference between willpower and resilience and what you can do to improve them.

How Do You Define Willpower?

In layman’s terms, willpower is a word that can be simply explained as having self-control. Some people might describe themselves or others as having a lot of it, whereas others may lack it.

However, more specifically, willpower is essentially the ability to refrain from impulses or temptations.

For example, someone who has a strong sense of willpower can resist:

Overeating and consuming too many calories
Smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol
Unnecessary spending

When trying to quit an activity such as the ones above, it will take willpower to reach specific goals, like improving their health and longevity and saving money. However, because there is practically instant gratification, which can often lead to addictions, it can be difficult to break these habits.

Not everyone has the willpower to achieve these goals right from the get-go, but it is something that people can train and improve, and this usually coincides with developing emotional resilience.

What Is Resilience?

Although they are fundamentally different, willpower and resilience are closely related concepts to one another.

Resilience can be defined as adapting and recovering from difficult and stressful situations. People who have strong emotional resilience are able to get through tough times with healthy coping mechanisms.

In order to overcome harmful activities like overeating, smoking, drinking, and other substance use, individuals must take a look at the reasons that make them have temptations to use these as coping tools.

For instance, work-related stress may trigger one’s smoking habit, or someone who is depressed may resort to comfort eating to find relief.

Therefore, it’s very difficult for people to develop willpower or the strength and discipline to resist if they don’t tackle the root issue and develop resilience first. Luckily, these are two skills that can be worked on simultaneously.

How To Improve Resilience and Willpower

Although there are many people who have learned to become resilient and have a strong sense of control through various trials and tribulations on their own, there are just as many who can benefit from assistance in order to improve and live happier lives.

Regardless of how it is learned, willpower and resilience aren’t innate traits that you are born with, and they come from experience and reflecting on the feelings and emotions that have come from them.

Not everyone has had the opportunity to look back at stressful situations and find productive ways of adapting to them; in fact, many will utilize maladaptive coping mechanisms in order to deal with them.

This is where a professional comes in, and counseling and therapy are the tools everyone needs to build emotional resilience to find the willpower they need to achieve their goals.

A therapist, like the ones you can find online at BetterHelp, can show you how to cope with stress in healthy and constructive ways, and this will make it easier not to give in to the urge to fall back on bad habits.

Even once you overcome them, willpower and resilience are traits that you can continue working on throughout your life. Of course, it’s healthy to reach out for emotional support, but also consider activities like deep breathing, meditation, exercise, and incorporating a healthy diet and sleep routine.

Conclusion

While they seem identical on the surface, willpower and resilience differ from one another, but hopefully, you can see how these words are interconnected by reading this article. If you struggle with either of these in your life, don’t hesitate to reach out for help. You can become stronger and find the ambition to do what you set out to do.