[xiaoma]

I've thought a lot about this one, too. I'm in the opposite camp from you. Restraint is so much harder than "willfulness".

I'm great at putting myself through punishing training, physical or mental over a short duration but very weak in resisting things over the long term. For example, I've done endurance events that involve sleep deprivation, done intense 80hr/week work weeks when starting a business and even swimming sprint workouts so hard that I puked. But I've struggled greatly to avoid things like eating that extra 1500 kcal of cheese while watching Netflix from midnight to 2am.

The result has been a very high variance in my success at various endeavors. In the past year or so, I've been coming to believe that improving my weaker "negative" willpower carries a much greater benefit at this point than further improving my "positive" willpower. It's almost like the blades of a pair of scissors. If one it sharp enough, it can cut things on its own, but it's far better to have both blades at least reasonably sharp.