Why does a person need willpower? Will is a special inner strength of a person
What is willpower?
It would seem that the simplest answer is when a person forces himself to do something through "I don't want". This is how most people interpret the term. On the other side Strength of will- this is the ability of a person to embody their intentions, dictated by their imagination of planning, going against their momentary desires, habits, emotions, fears, etc.
That is, when you planned to do something, for example, set yourself short term goal: go to the gym today. But suddenly you become so lazy that you change your mind and stay at home to go out. Your subconscious has dictated to you that it is better for you to stay at home. Why burden yourself again? And it turns out that, not having the willpower to resist her, you agree with her opinion and obey her.
Let's say you set yourself long term goal: quit smoking. Here it will be even more difficult. Today you managed to smoke half a pack of cigarettes less, but tomorrow you are already thinking: Why should I suffer so? I'll smoke another extra cigarette!!! And so slowly you return to your original place. It only seemed that you were a person with willpower, but time ... and you lost. Why? Because there is no will power.
What is willpower for?
Willpower is needed in order to achieve your intentions. This can make you a successful person. We will take the example of smoking again. You still want to quit smoking, but a week later you return to the same place where you were before. But the intention to lead healthy lifestyle you have the same stuck in your head.
You have an intention, but this intention is hindered smoking habit. Desire - to get positive emotions associated with smoking. And here it depends on your willpower whether you can neglect momentary desires in order to achieve your intentions. Will you be able to quit smoking and start leading a healthy lifestyle. To look more attractive and beautiful?
Strength of will- this is what your consciousness tells you. Momentary desires are what your subconscious mind dictates to you, which is already stuffed with its beliefs and habits. This is where the tug of war takes place.
You and your consciousness say: “Smoking is bad and it kills my body. Because of this, I feel bad and every time I have to go out to the balcony to waste time on a cigarette.
Your subconscious tells you: “Take a cigarette and enjoy. No one died from smoking, and everyone smokes now. Smoking is fashionable and it calms you down.”
You can take another example when you wanted to get up early in order to have time to do more things.
You said to yourself: "Time to get up! I have a lot of things to do and I need more time to get everything done.”
Subconscious: “Where are you in such a hurry! You will be able to do everything. Take another half hour nap"
I think this situation is familiar to everyone here. And what does the lack of willpower lead to?
What causes a lack of willpower?
As a rule, this leads to a lack of freedom. Now man becomes a slave to his desires. He cannot make a choice. He has no right to do so. Now everything is decided for him by habits, emotions and desires. And he himself is just an observer of this process with his own participation, despite the fact that he agreed to this.
These people have intentions to begin a new life, to change oneself, to learn something new, but the fear of the unknown, inconstancy - caused by unwillingness, all this robs a person of freedom. He cannot say: "NO! Stop ordering me. I am the boss here."
The lack of willpower is one of the reasons why a person’s plans fall apart, why he is not successful and why he is so unhappy.
Is it possible to develop willpower?
Definitely YES! You may have already started doing this. Willpower is not born. It is nurtured in every person. Just for the development of willpower, you need to know which buttons to press, as well as a little practice will not hurt.
In fact, we will get to that shortly. But first, you should consider that no one said that it would be easy. No one said that you can immediately say to your subconscious mind loudly: NO! It all takes time and practice. And persistence!!! This should not be forgotten.
Well!!! We have reviewed the answers to the above questions. Now we know what our weakness and lack of willpower leads to. We know what willpower is. And now let's move on to the actual practice!
Practice - how to develop willpower?
Firstwhere we start is from desire itself. We need to find ourselves stimulus, in order to lose weight or quit smoking. We must motivate ourselves with this.
If you want to lose weight, then the incentive can be the opposite sex, which you like, and he / she looks stunning. And, if you do not want to lag behind them and look just as beautiful and healthy, then this can serve as a quite powerful incentive for you to exercise more and eat less fatty foods. It was this example that helped me lose 13 kg of excess weight.
I liked one girl, and she looked very beautiful. I wanted to be on a par with her (according to my parameters, based on the difference in the sexes). And so I had a powerful incentive to lose weight. Every time I wanted to eat something, I remembered her beauty, and the desire to eat something was immediately eliminated.
That is, this was the same button on which I pressed myself. And the result showed itself. Therefore, you should find your button.
If you are a smoker and you like him/her and they don't smoke and don't like smokers, this will create an incentive for you to stop smoking.
I just got such an example with an incentive J
Second stepon the path to developing willpower is to start small. We have to develop slowly. Small victories will give you confidence in achieving big victories. No need to immediately fall from a big mountain. You are not strong enough to not break.
Start smoking a few fewer cigarettes today. Then keep that number of cigarettes smoked until you feel that you can smoke even less. Tell yourself: "Well done!!!"
Third stepis meditation. Meditation itself is difficult for beginners. Especially passive meditation. You can read all about meditation in the article: "How to Meditate Properly"
Through meditation, you can replace the settings that our subconscious is stuffed with new ones. This must be done in order for your subconscious mind to agree with you. Remember, we looked at examples with you?
This way you can develop new positive habits.
Fourth step- stop procrastinating "for later". While you do this, your willpower weakens and vice versa. Sometimes you can do it now, but a little laziness gets in the way. Do you want to feel satisfied at the end of the day and experience a spark of happiness??? Then take your will into a fist and do the planned business right now. Otherwise, at the end of the day you will arrive in a VERY bad mood.
Fifth step- Uniformity and consistency. Why do you sometimes feel like doing nothing? There are so many things to do that you don't know where to start. And here I did a little bit and there ... all this generates irritation and causes stress.
It would be better if you make a plan for the day in advance and put down the order of execution in it. Then you will not be too lazy and do something through "I don't want" it won't either.
If you have many goals, then of course it will be difficult to cope with your laziness and unwillingness to do anything. Because there is a defocusing of your attention. So you spend both energy and desire. Choose two goals for yourself and get to work.
sixth step- stop killing time. People are now sitting on social networks and simply wasting their time, throwing it in the trash can. Do you know that time is the most precious good (and knowledge is also by the way)? Tomorrow depends on what you did today. Use your time wisely and effectively.
seventh step- rid yourself of bad habits. About all bad habits You can find out in two articles: "Ten habits that pull us into poverty or get rid of the habits of poor people" and " Human habits or habits that prevent us from living.
How to do it? Through meditation and self-hypnosis!!!
This is where the article ends. Find buttons within you that you can press. Start small and learn to meditate. Do things today and follow the sequence. Actually this is where you should start!
How to develop willpower and why it is so important to do it - you will find answers to all these questions in this article. There are many definitions for willpower. My definition is the following. Willpower is a measure of a person's ability to translate their intentions into reality, dictated by considerations of reasonable planning, despite momentary impulses (desires, habits, weaknesses, emotions, fears, etc.).
For a task development of willpower ideally suited, those methods that in their main purpose serve completely different purposes, but sideways contribute to the development of the above-mentioned quality.
This may seem like a complicated, cumbersome definition, but, in fact, if we turn to specific examples, it becomes clear what I'm talking about.
Theory
What is willpower for?
But I used to eat meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and could not imagine a different order of things.
I am not a passionate animal advocate or a fanatical preacher of a healthy lifestyle. I do not eat meat, because it is easy for me to do it, it is not difficult for me to deny myself this pleasure, for the sake of healthy eating principles and just for the sake of experiment. Because I have trained myself to say “no” to my body and to say “yes” to my mind.
The pleasure of eating meat is not a significant criterion for me in favor of eating it if I pursue any long-term goals. It is easy for me to refuse the pleasure that alcohol brings, I can get up early and exercise, no matter how much I like it. For me, this is not a big problem, my body obeys me.
Are the desires of our body so important?
To some of you reading this article right now, it may seem incredibly difficult to deny yourself some pleasure every day. This is not true. In order to refute this belief, I described my experience.
Now, for many of you, the little pleasures of the body may seem big and big. You may think that you cannot live without your habits. I assure you, this is an illusion.
As a child, I thought that it was very difficult to drive a car and, at the same time, navigate the city. Now I can easily drive a car and know where to go and where to turn.
As soon as you educate your body, all its desires will no longer be so significant and important. Do not think that I am preaching some kind of monastic lifestyle, calling to get rid of attachment to the body and become a pure spirit. It's impossible. I just want you to become masters of your body, not its slaves.
This is great happiness and freedom, I assure you.
Practice
Willpower is like a muscle, in order to develop it, it is necessary to subject it to regular loads. Every time you act contrary to your momentary desires, this muscle grows and becomes stronger. Once you stop doing this, the muscle becomes flabby and weak.
Start Small
This is the motto of my site - "start small." If this is your first time going to the gym, then you will not lift a heavy barbell, because in this case you will overstrain and abandon this sport.
It is better to start with light exercises. The muscles should slowly get used to the load, if you have not particularly loaded them before. No need to strive to achieve everything at once. Start with something easy.
The following tips will help you move in the right direction.
Do not try to immediately implement all the recommendations that you will see below! It is very difficult for an unprepared person to do this. Therefore, adequately evaluate your own capabilities.
Implement these principles in your life gradually, start with one thing. For example, include morning exercises in your daily routine, for starters. Try to meditate every day for at least 10 minutes. Then move on to doing the other tips when you're ready.
Organize your daily routine
Start getting up early
You don't have to sleep all the way. Try to get up at the same time every day. Your day begins with awakening, if you go on about your body and sleep further, then the will muscle is not set in motion, it is not warmed up.
If upon awakening you start to be lazy, then later, throughout the day, it is much more difficult to force yourself to do something.
But if you make an effort on yourself and force yourself to rise, even if your body is desperately resisting, you will use your will, knead this “muscle” at the very beginning of the day. In this, any of your activities on this day will become easier and more productive. Physical activity is much easier if you have stretched all your muscles in the morning. The same thing happens with willpower. You need to tone this muscle.
The mode of sleep and wakefulness is not only an element of discipline, it is very beneficial for health.
Plan your affairs and follow the plan
Train yourself to stick to your plan. Set yourself daily, weekly, monthly, or perpetual goals and stick to them. For example: write a 3,000 word article on self-development today, read this book to the end, read one book a month, wash the dishes after every meal, clean up your hard drive every month, etc.
So that you are not tempted to come up with a reason for not doing something, then make it a rule that the thing must be done anyway and the plan must not be violated.
For example, if you have planned to go jogging three times a week, you can distribute classes by day as you like, the only requirement is that the plan must be completed by the end of the week.
If you have never run today, and today is Sunday, then you will have to run three times that day.
Don't put it off for "later"
If you have no objective reason not to do what you promised yourself to do, do it. Even if you are lazy and don’t feel like it, keep your promise anyway, learn to step over your “I don’t want to”. Develop your willpower muscle.
It is better to do something while there is an opportunity now. Who knows what will happen next? We cannot see into the future. Suddenly there will be a lot of things, and then we will not have time for anything at all? If you do everything on time, life becomes much more comfortable and the load of unfinished business does not put pressure on the psyche. This I know for myself.
go in for sports
Sport perfectly disciplines and develops the will, because physical exercise is a constant overcoming of laziness and body resistance. During each session, you have to step over yourself, through muscle fatigue and discomfort.
Many people do not go in for sports: because they lack willpower. But this is a self-contained process. It takes physical strength to lift the barbell 100 times in a row, but if you lift this barbell every day, then your strength will increase and sooner or later you will do 100 lifts.
If you are not yet involved in sports, then start doing simple exercises in the morning. These exercises should follow a routine, such as exercising 5 times a week.
Exercise in the morning is able to charge the “muscle of will” with a tone. If you do exercises, then later, all day, it will be easier for you to fight temptations and do what you have planned.
Do less bullshit
Limit the amount of time you spend on mindless, mind-numbing activities like watching TV series or working in . Read more fiction and educational literature, spend time outdoors. Develop, improve your skills, learn new things from books and from other sources.
Make promises to yourself and keep them
Turn "should" into "I give you my word." For example, you think, "I need to clean the house." Has it often happened to you that things did not go beyond this thought? All day long you suffered from nonsense, and you didn’t put the house in order, despite the fact that you thought it would be nice to do it. Therefore, turn "must" into "I give my word" or "I promise." “I promise to clean up the apartment by the end of the day!” Let the fulfillment of the promise be a matter of honor for you. Promises help maintain self-discipline.
Turn any of your intentions into a promise. Have you decided that you spend a lot of time in front of the computer? Stop beating yourself up about it! Better promise yourself not to surf the Internet in the evening at home after work!
Maintain hygiene and keep order around you
Hygiene is also an element of discipline, which is subject to a strict routine. Brush your teeth twice a day, wash your face, bathe and shave regularly. (I hope everyone does this, I wrote this just in case)
Keep order at home and at work. Get out, wash the dishes, clean the furniture. Organize your desk drawers and your computer hard drive. Delete unnecessary files from folders, get rid of inactive contacts in the QIP or Skype list, clean your email from spam. Create a logical directory structure on your computer.
Restrain your gastronomic weaknesses
Eat less fast food. Learn to cook. Eat more healthy food. Try to prepare a nutritious and tasty meal for dinner without the use of meat, at least once a week. This experience may be new and interesting for you.
Eliminate, at least partially, from the diet of sausages and other muck. Read articles about healthy eating and try to follow the recommendations given there.
If you eat a lot and have problems with being overweight, eat less. Learn to tolerate mild hunger. In this case, organize a diet and follow it. Eat three meals a day and don't eat anything in between.
Work on breaking bad habits
Smoke less, or better yet, quit altogether. Every cigarette, every bottle of beer is a little weakness. These weaknesses lead to the degradation of the will and the triumph of lower needs over our mind.
Practice meditation
With meditation, you can begin the development of willpower. Incorporate this practice into your daily routine. Meditation helps to relax, put your thoughts in order. With practice, you can learn to control your emotions and your body.
It was meditation that gave a significant impetus to my personal development. When I first started meditating, I drank, I smoked, I didn't exercise, I couldn't plan my affairs and see things through. All this came later, but it all started with meditation.
This practice is very disciplined, as the classes imply a strict schedule: you must meditate twice a day to achieve the desired effect. You should put aside all your affairs and sit in one position until the end of the session and try to keep your attention with one thing. If attention wanders to the side, you return it to the starting point. This is a great workout for willpower.
In Kelly McGonigal's book, it is written that scientific studies have revealed that meditation increases the content of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. It is this area of the brain that is responsible for willpower, while impulsive decisions are led by its central part.
“Over time, their [those who meditate] the brain begins to work like a well-oiled volitional machine,” says the author of the book. And indeed it is. It was regular meditation that helped me strengthen my willpower when I lacked it so much. For me, it all started with this practice, and only then everything else followed: sports, avoiding cigarettes and alcohol, and discipline. Meditation has made me, a lazy and disorganized person, a more collected and disciplined person.
Even one single meditation session can charge you with a “reserve of willpower” for the rest of the day. I noticed that if I didn’t meditate in the morning, my “willpower muscle” would not be in good shape. Then things will go hard and with resistance, it will be difficult for me to overcome temptations and temptations. But when I meditate and do exercises in the morning, I transfer my willpower into tone and full readiness. Things are going smoothly, and plans are being fulfilled!
This is not the most difficult exercise, but it is extremely effective. In my opinion, meditation is the best and most effective way to develop willpower. I recommend starting with it. You can learn about that from the article at the link.
Don't delay, start acting tomorrow!
Start working on the development of willpower right tomorrow: get up half an hour early and do exercises! After that, tell yourself that from now on you will get up half an hour earlier every morning and do the exercises. After that, go to the bookstore and buy yourself a good, informative book, start reading it.
Let this be your first step towards developing willpower.
I read somewhere that walking on two legs is a very difficult task for the brain. When you walk you are in a permanently controlled fall state, your brain sends a huge amount of signals to keep your body in balance.
That is why it is so difficult to teach a robot to move on two legs, while, as far as I know, this is an impossible task for science. This problem has long been solved by nature.
Also, willpower protects you from falling into the abyss of depravity and laziness. While you are awake, thousands of small desires attack your brain, and you run the risk of deviating from the intended course, falling halfway: “sleep more”, “do it later”, “you can’t, it’s very hard”, “stop and rest, work is not will leave”, etc.
Moving towards the goal is a constant controlled fall. The less you fall, the sooner you achieve what you want. But as soon as you start to constantly fall off your feet, your fragile balance will turn into an eternal fall to no one knows where ...
If you want to achieve something in your life, only your own laziness can interfere with this and that’s all. And the fact that any of us can achieve success in this does not even need to prove something, and it doesn’t matter in what area. A person is hindered only by the lack of willpower to overcome his own laziness, perhaps also patience, and faith in his own strength.
What to do in order to overcome your laziness and disorganization in order to eventually turn your life for the better? Remember the expression that the devil is not as scary as he is painted? That's all about it too. What's the main thing here? The main thing is to want and then nothing is impossible simply does not exist. It’s just that for some reason more time and effort is required, and here patience will be needed with you and me. It is important to develop your willpower and learn to control yourself, your emotions and desires. By the way, haven't you watched the film "Blinded by Desires"?)))) It shows well what an unreasoned desire leads to. You can watch it
Willpower is the ability of a person to manage himself and the entire course of his life, the ability to manage goals and realize any thoughtful desire. And it is the willpower that is probably the most powerful force inherent in the person himself. Unfortunately one of the least studied of human behavior.
It is willpower that enables a person to do exactly what needs to be done right now, especially if you don’t feel like it. You can plan a bunch of goals and write them down according to all methods, but sometimes, in the absence of willpower, everything remains on paper and in the category of eternal Wishlist. Only a weak-willed person achieves nothing in this life. Yes, at the same time, he will dream all his life about success, wealth, and you never know about anything else, fantasies are different. Without the use of willpower, he will never get anything, he will talk all his life about how unlucky he was in this life. Any achievement, any success in life is, first of all, work, always persistent and systematic. Only the use of the power of the driver allows a person to achieve any goal in spite of all the difficulties. And this is all because the real formula for success is: if a person wanted it, he planned it - and then he did it all. In this formula, one of the driving forces is willpower.
Will is the most used term to describe a person's personality. The term "will" is used with might and main by psychologists and philosophers. Volition, volition, voluntarism, strong-willed, arbitrary (i.e., made with an effort of will) ...
And if other personality traits - memory and attention, for example, have both volume and other calculable characteristics - which can be measured if necessary, then the will has only its eloquent praisers and the halo of something attractive, necessary for life, laudable ...
Why does a person need a will? Studying experimental psychology, I came to the conclusion that for only one purpose - to force yourself to do something that is not done in any way, no matter how you do it ...
A smart person will immediately ask himself the question: “Why is it not being done? Maybe you shouldn't do it?" A foolish person will continue to do - by will.
In the language of sayings, this case is called: "Banging your head against a closed door." Or try to destroy the brick wall right where you are, although the open gate is two meters further.
Precise experiments by psychologists have long proved that voluntary efforts are expensive for the body and lead to a rapid depletion of the resources of the psyche and body.
The most valuable activity is post-voluntary activity, mixed with the bright motivation of the one doing the deed. But, no matter how the bosses deceive the people, it is impossible to instill in them a hastily concocted "motivation". Motivation is like love. Born from the depths of the soul itself. You won't be forced to be nice...
Babel
We see the doubtfulness of the human "will as a value" even in the biblical myth of the Babylonian pandemonium.
By an act of will, man decided to build the Tower of Babel as tall as the sky itself. Everyone knows how it ended.
At the heart of an act of will there are always some not very beautiful, rather dirty motives - to prove something to someone, to wipe someone's nose, or - to punish oneself - with hard labor, maybe for completely fictitious "sins" …
Even psychologists (mainly commissioned, of course, by employers who praise the will) sometimes say: besides the will, there is also stubbornness. And stubbornness is a defect of the will. To be honest, I don't see much of a difference. It's like the difference between the words "spy" and "spy". If "ours", then of course - a scout. If "theirs", then - a vile spy.
If I approve of your difficult activity, I say: "Oh, a strong-willed person, everyone is equal to him." If I do not approve of your deeds, then I say: "Stubbornness and nothing more!" God forbid, at the same time I am also a psychologist in the line of duty, as often happens ...
"Personal will" ... "The will of the individual." Such terms are usually used in psychology when they want to “praise the will” and those who do everything on an effort of will - such a habit since childhood. He even kisses his wife in the morning - this is something special, yes ...
But there is also the will of God. None of the psychologists, except Jung, is likely to move an ear - having heard a term not from his diocese. What else is "God's will"? Colleagues?..
Yes, actually - what is "God's will"? The one, surrendering to which (and having previously abandoned, of course, his own), a person can turn - and turns mountains. And at the same time he does a really good deed, and not some hellish nonsense.
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