"Where there's a will, there's a way." It's the kind of motivational poster wisdom that makes you want to both frame it and throw it across the room. Because while determination can move mountains, it can also leave you exhausted and digging at bedrock with a plastic spoon.
The reality we all know is that sometimes you've got all the will in the world, but you hit a wall that won't budge. Other times, the path forward is crystal clear, but you just can’t will yourself to take the first steps. And occasionally, having too many paths forward can paralyze you completely.
So whether you’re trying to make a career change or just trying to get up off the couch, let’s talk about this old adage from a behavioral science perspective. Is it really as simple as it sounds?
A Will, But No Way
The idea that “where there’s a will, there’s a way” can feel empowering because it puts us in the driver’s seat. Work hard enough, want it badly enough, and the world will bend to your determination.
The problem with this narrative is that it can blind us to structural limitations that no amount of individual will can overcome. When we can’t find “a way”, we might assume we lack sufficient grit rather than examining whether a viable path actually exists.
It’s not you, it’s me
Sayings that put strong emphasis on individual agency (such as “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”) treat systemic barriers as personal failings. While personal responsibility matters, this unnecessarily converts external obstacles into shame and self-blame. Those feelings can in turn reinforce or reproduce the social norm of failure always being personal.1
But at some point, sustained investment in something despite insurmountable obstacles becomes counterproductive. It damages our self-esteem, well-being, and our future prospects when we don’t pivot appropriately. Sometimes the most rational, compassionate, and productive response is recognizing when to change course.2,3
The illusion of control
Understanding the influence of external factors becomes especially important when we consider that people tend to hold untrue beliefs about their ability to control outcomes that are, in reality, determined entirely by chance. Some may call this optimism, but behavioral science tells us that this is just one of the many ways humans behave irrationally.2,3
Furthermore, the research has shown that the more invested we are in something, the more likely we are to overestimate our control over it. In one study, participants who received lottery numbers gradually over several days were significantly more likely to keep their tickets even when offered significantly better odds elsewhere, compared to those who got all numbers at once. They had developed an irrational sense of influence over a purely random outcome just because they felt more involved in the process.3
While the lottery is not usually what people are referring to when saying “where there’s a will, there’s a way”, the lesson here is to be wary of forgoing a more favorable option so that we can stay on a path that we’ve already put effort into. Sometimes our will should be redirected so that we can balance our desires and external factors that may be out of our control. It may mean letting go of something we’re invested in, but avoiding the sunk cost fallacy means knowing when it’s time to move forward with something else.4
A Way, But No Will
Ancient Greek philosophers sometimes described procrastination as “akrasia”, which is associated with acting against one’s better judgment and a weakness of will.5,6 Harsh.
As long as humans have existed, we’ve been passing time reorganizing the hunting tools before dragging ourselves out to gather food (read: rearranging your desk so you don’t have to go to the grocery store). We all recognize procrastination and know how frustrating it is to give into the impulse to do anything other than what we know we’re supposed to. If even pigeons can learn impulse control,7 why is it so hard for us?
Procrastination Nation
Behavioral scientists have identified many mechanisms underlying procrastination and impulse control challenges. For instance, hyperbolic discounting explains our bias toward immediate reward over larger future benefits,8 and the intention-action gap captures the frustrating disconnect between what we plan to do and what we actually do.9 These are just a few of the concepts that try to explain why we behave in an apparently irrational way when there’s something we know we should be doing, but just can’t will ourselves to.
Engineering the Willpower Plant
So how do we strengthen our will? There are lots of ways, but one underutilized strategy is pre-commitment: the art of strategically limiting your future options to prevent self-sabotage.10 Arguably, this is less about strengthening the will and more about restricting other places the will might wander off to. The classical example of pre-commitment comes from The Odyssey, where Odysseus has his crewmates tie him to the ship so that he won’t be able to act upon the imminent siren song. The basic principle is that by constraining our future alternatives, we can make ourselves better off.
Modern pre-commitment takes many forms: automatically transferring money into retirement funds before you can spend it elsewhere, or avoiding buying cookies at the grocery store so you won’t be tempted at home. Notably, studies indicate that precommitment strategies work better when imposed by others rather than by ourselves.11 So if you want to start using a screen time limit on your phone, let your friend set the parameters and—crucially—the bypass password.
Too Many Ways and Too Much Will
Our society operates on the assumption that more choices equal more freedom, autonomy, and ultimately better outcomes. There’s intuitive logic here—surely having more options increases our chances of finding exactly what we want, right?
Surprisingly (and unnervingly), research has shown that the more options we have to choose from, the less likely we are to be satisfied with our choice.12,13 This means that even if we have the will to pursue something, and we have a way, the availability of too many paths forward can become its own kind of limitation.
The Paradox of Choice
Imagine you are finally getting around to deciding on an insurance plan for your car. The last time you bought a car was 10 years ago, and back then there were four insurance plans available. Now, with different providers, payment plans, coverage levels, and add-ons, you have 87 distinct possibilities. Are you really better off this way? Will your final choice be significantly superior to what you could have chosen before? And is any improvement worth the time, energy, and mental resources required to understand and evaluate all these options?
This abundance of choice creates choice overload, leading to decision paralysis, decreased satisfaction, and increased regret—even when we make objectively good choices.14
Optimizing for Disappointment
Psychological research identifies two kinds of decision-makers: ‘maximizers’ and ‘satisficers’. When presented with a set of options, maximizers will investigate every item on the list in an attempt to find the optimal choice. Conversely, satisficers will settle on the first option they encounter that passes a threshold of ‘good enough’. Research has shown that not only are maximizers more likely to regret their decisions, but that they also tend to be more insecure and unhappier than satisficers in general (once again, harsh).12,13
While the flexibility of these tendencies is unclear, the pattern stands: we are more likely to accept that perfection is unlikely and settle for good enough when there are just a few good options. But when the options feel limitless, we believe that perfection must exist somewhere. The level of determination here actually creates a recipe for disappointment, and a mindset that can make you regret good decisions.
Paying the Opportunity Cost
For recovering maximizers (and those who recognize themselves in this description) the path forward requires embracing a fundamental shift: learning to let opportunities pass by and accepting “good enough”.13 This doesn't mean lowering your standards, but rather setting "good enough" thresholds in advance and sticking to them. Define your non-negotiables before you start looking, set a time limit for decision-making, and resist the urge to continue searching once you've found something that meets your criteria.
Finding Balance
The relationship between will and way is more complex than folk wisdom suggests. Sometimes we need to confront the reality of structural barriers rather than try to generate more motivation. Sometimes we need to strengthen our will through pre-commitment strategies. And sometimes we need to constrain our options to avoid choice paralysis.
The key insight from behavioral science is this: sustainable change requires actually diagnosing problems, not just indiscriminately applying more effort. When you're stuck, the question isn't necessarily "how can I try harder?”—it's "what type of stuck am I, and what does this specific situation require?". The real wisdom isn't in the platitude. It's in knowing which problem you're really trying to solve.
