[Imagine the picture here]
Gamer probably know about stats of characters in a game. In some games the stat helps to resist, some games are completely about and around willpower. I do not want to talk about the stat in the game. I want to have a look how this affects the gamer. In most of the games you can adjust the difficulty setting, this is quite common for a long time. Play a game again using and increase the difficulty setting mostly is more challenging and focus more on your motivation for achieve the new difficulty setting than your willpower.
A great game about willpower is The Darkest Dungeon. It is about heroes wants to escape a dungeon and are afflicted by a stress level. If a certain level is reached a stress test resolves with a chance of 75% of any affliction. The other 25% results in virtuousity and they can go then far beyond because of their willpower.
Of course, this gaming setup also inflicts the player himself. I cannot say how many "oh no" and "..not again.." I had in this game. To finish the game, you need some extra portions of motivation.
Have you ever thought about willpower in your daily life? The ego deplention theory refers to the idea that self-control or willpower draws upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up[1].
I do not think, that there is a counter in you brain like today 20 and tomorrow 24 and after that counter you start to fail. There are a lot of dependencies which affects this effect of the theory and I do not want to talk about all influences.
If you keep on focus on the theroy, it is about making errors. Working 12 hours a day in software development will probably decrease the overall performance in the long time. Team members get ill and are not available and Bugs are added to the code which results in technical depts.
This is not what you want in the company, or like in Darkest Dungeon on the way out. Keep the stress level on a manageable level, avoid and mitigate bad stress.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion
