In Dave Asprey’s Game Changer bestseller book. the first law: Learning How To Say No, is really about how to get more energy.
Dave’s first law in Game Changes has more to do about learning what you’ve been put on this planet for. That is, what is your life’s purpose. When you learn what that is, you can then make decisions that support that. As a result, you will then you will be prioritizing your actions. Focusing on your strengths. Learning how to preserve your brain power. Ultimately resulting in happiness.
When you say no more often, indirectly, you strengthen your will power.
Will power is a muscle, that can be increased in two ways:
1) Doing things that are a bit uncomfortable. Pushing your threshold (like holding your breath past what you think you are capable of), and
2) Making fewer decisions.
As an example, Dave Asprey suggests future planning. and asking the question, where do you see yourself by the year 2019?
What’ is important to you?
Who is important to you?
Make decisions that allow you to reach your goals.
Next, the term Will Power is explained. Approach each day as a new day for you to produce more energy. That each and every decision that you have to make, whether it’s deciding what clothes should I wear, what foods should I eat, what items on my to-do list are most important.
The more decisions you have to make, the more it will impact your decision making budget. Your decision making budget is the amount of energy you have towards making decisions.
When you determine what is important and what isn’t, you will no longer waste valuable energy. That is the first way to manufacture more energy.
The other way to learn how to get more energy has to do with working the area in your brain called the anterior cingular cortex. This is the region in the brain, involved in having to make decisions. Having to make too many results in decision fatigue.
So Dave explains basically doing hard things that you don’t want to do like holding your breath, or doing muscle contractions.
With the combination of less decisions on a daily basis combined with increasing your ACC’s capacity to do difficult things, you can effectively increase your will power, and hack your energy production.