As career dieters, we hear a lot about willpower. We need willpower to overcome temptation. Well, I think we need will-power and won’t-power.
Sometimes, you wish to go for a walk, knowing how good it is for your health and how wonderful you feel afterwards, yet, you feel too lazy, and prefer to watch TV instead. You might be aware of the fact that you need to change your eating habits or stop grazing, yet, you don’t have the inner power and persistence to change these habits.
Does this sound familiar? How many times have you said, “I wish I had will power and self discipline”? How many times have you started to do something, only to quit after a short while? We all have had experiences like these.
Everyone possesses some addictions or habits they wish they could overcome, such as emotional eating, grazing, excessive eating, laziness, procrastination or lack of assertiveness. To overcome these habits or addictions, one needs to have will power/won’t power and self discipline. They make a great difference in everyone’s life, and bring inner strength, self mastery and decisiveness.
Definitions of Will Power and Self Discipline
Will power is the ability to overcome laziness and procrastination. It is the ability to control or reject unnecessary or harmful impulses. It is the ability to arrive to a decision and follow it with perseverance until its successful accomplishment. It is the inner power that overcomes the desire to indulge in unnecessary and useless habits, and the inner strength that overcomes inner emotional and mental resistance for taking action. It is one of the corner stones of success, both spiritual and material.
Won’t power is the ability to say “NO, I won’t” eat this or give in to the desire not to go for my regular walk. It is saying “no” and being firm in exercising your personal control to give in to choices that aren’t healthy for you and don’t promote achieving your goal. To quote Nancy Reagan, it is the ability to “Just Say No.” At those times that you are coming up with every excuse to make an unhealthy choice, you say “I WON’T!” and you stick to it.
Self-discipline is the companion of will power and won’t power. It endows with the stamina to persevere in whatever one does. It bestows the ability to withstand hardships and difficulties, whether physical, emotional or mental. It grants the ability to reject immediate satisfaction, in order to gain something better, but which requires effort and time.
Everyone has inner, unconscious, or partly conscious impulses, making them say or do things they later regret saying or doing. On many occasions people do not think before they talk or act. By developing these two powers, one becomes conscious of the inner, subconscious impulses, and gains the ability to reject them when they are not for his/her own good.
Will power/Won’t power and Self-discipline help us to choose our behavior and reactions, instead of being ruled by them. Their possession won’t make life dull or boring. On the contrary, you will feel more powerful, in charge of yourself and your surroundings, happy and satisfied.
How many times have you felt too weak, lazy or shy to do something you wanted to do? You can gain inner strength, initiative and the ability to make decisions and follow them. Believe me, it is not difficult to develop these two powers. If you are earnest and are willing to become stronger, you will certainly succeed.
Here are some tips and techniques for developing these abilities. These simple, but effective exercises, can be performed everywhere and at any time. Go slowly and gradually, and you will see how you get stronger and your life start improving.
There is a misconception in the public mind regarding will power. It is erroneously thought to be something strenuous and difficult, and that one has to exert and tense the body and mind when expressing it. It is a completely wrong concept. This is one of the reasons why people avoid using it, though they are conscious of its benefits. They acknowledge the fact that applying will power in their life will greatly help them, and that they need to strengthen it, yet they do nothing about it. Will power combined with won’t power will get you to where you want and need to be to cross the finish line to achieve your personal success.
Will power and Won’t power gets stronger by holding back and not allowing the expression of unimportant, unnecessary and unhealthy thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. If this saved energy is not allowed expression, it is stored inside you like a battery, and it becomes available at the time of need. By practicing appropriate exercises, you develop your powers the same way, as a person who trains his/her muscles in order to strengthen them.
Developing Will Power/Won’t Power and Self Discipline
An effective method for developing and improving these abilities is to perform certain actions or activities, which you would rather avoid doing due to laziness, procrastination, weakness, shyness, etc. By doing something that you do not like doing or are too lazy to do, you overcome your subconscious resistance, train your mind to obey you, strengthen your inner powers and gain inner strength. Muscles get stronger by resisting the power of the barbells. Inner strength is attained by overcoming inner resistance. Inner strength is built by making the healthy choices in every aspect of your life that propel you forward to reach your goals, successes and dreams.
Remember, strengthening one of these abilities, automatically strengthens the other one.
Here are a few exercises:
1) You are sitting in a bus or train and an old man or woman, or a pregnant lady walks in. Stand up and give up your seat even if you prefer to stay seated. Do this not just because it is polite, but because you are doing something that you are reluctant to do. In this way you are overcoming the resistance of your body, mind and feelings. Do the thing you may not want to do!
2) There are dishes in the sink that need washing, and you postpone washing them for later. Get up and wash them now. Do not let your laziness overcome you. When you know that in this way you are developing your will power, and if you are convinced of the importance of will power in your life, it will be easier for you to do whatever you have to do. You’re also exercising your won’t power by not accepting the drain of your energy you’ll feel every time you look at that sink full of dirty dishes.
3) You come home tired from work and sit in front of the T.V. because you feel too tired to go and wash. Do not listen the desire to just sit and veg out, but go and have a shower. Take care of the things you need to do so you can enjoy and destress from the rest of your day.
4) You may know your body needs some physical exercise, but instead you keep on sitting doing nothing or watching a movie. Get up and walk, run or do some other physical exercise.
5) Make a conscious effort to cut back (or eliminate) excess sugars in your life. You’ll feel better physically AND mentally.
6) Sometimes, when you want to say something that is not important, decide not to say it.
7) Don’t read some unimportant gossip in the newspaper, even if you want to.
You have a desire to eat something not too healthy. For the sake of the exercise refuse the desire.
9) If you find yourself thinking unimportant, unnecessary, negative thoughts, try to develop lack of interest in them, by thinking about their futility.
10) Garbage in/garbage out. Pay attention to the ways you allow garbage into your life and how it comes out in your life. If you have a negative friend that spreads her negativity every time you talk to her, notice what impact that has on you. If you eat a double cheeseburger, fries, and milkshake or other unhealthy food choices, notice how you feel not only physically but mentally, emotionally too. On the flip side, good stuff in and good stuff out. The same examples of a positive, uplifting, giving friend and how that makes you feel. Eating healthfully, and having a healthy exercise/activity level and how those things make you feel…..physically, mentally and emotionally.
Motivate yourself by thinking about of the importance of performing the exercises above, and the inner power and strength you will gain.
Most of these exercises can be practiced anywhere, anytime. You do not have to devote special times for them. Believe me, they are very effective. Practicing them enables you to be strong and exercise will power / won’t power and self-discipline in everything you do. This power would become available whenever needed.
If you practice weight lifting, running or doing aerobics, you strengthen your body. When you need to move something heavy, you have the strength for it. By studying Spanish each day, you will be able to talk Spanish when you travel to Mexico. The same thing happens with will power/won’t power and self-discipline. By strengthening them, they become available whenever they are needed.
It is important to remember not to choose exercises that might affect adversely your body or health. Deny and give up what is not necessary, futile or is harmful, but not what is vital for your well being. Always use your reason and common sense, so that you do no damage to yourself.
If for the sake of an exercise, you stop doing something that you usually do, and overcome the inner resistance concerning it, you may resume doing it, if it is not harmful. For example, if you love drinking orange juice, and for the sake of an exercise you switch to drinking apple juice, after doing so for some time and after it makes no great difference to you, you may go back to drinking orange juice, if you still like it. The point here is to develop inner strength, not making life difficult for you or continue doing things you don’t like to do. You want to always incorporate things into your life that allow you to live your best life…. be the best that you can be!
Combine Will power, Won’t power and Discipline as a trio to promote your best life!
Advantages of Possessing Strong Will Power and Self Discipline
You need both of them in order to rule your thoughts and to be the boss of your mind. The stronger they are, the more control you have over your thoughts, and consequently your powers of concentration get stronger.
When you are the master of your mind you enjoy inner peace and happiness. Outer events do not sway you, and circumstances have no power over your peace of mind. This might sound too unreal for you, but experience will prove to you that all the above is true.
These abilities are essential for self growth, spiritual growth and meditation. They give you control over your daily life, help you improve your habits and behavior, and they are the keys to every success.
Practice the exercises presented here earnestly and persistently, and you will go really far.
Believe In Yourself!
Cathy, ACC-ICF, CLC
Certified Back On Track Facilitator
Weight Loss Surgery Coach
I was looking through some things this weekend that I’d saved on my computer and found this. I saw it, read it and remembered why I kept it. Shine that light inside yourself because you are worth it! I share it with you as a reminder that all of us are worth it!
One of the things I love about coaching and have discovered through working with clients is that every single one of us has a fire in our heart for something. Our purpose, our goal in our lives is to find it. Discover that fire. What is it? After you know what it is, your mission is to keep it lit. Through coaching, this is what we accomplish.
