Can you develop a strong will, or is your life and accomplishments determined only by your innate willpower? And if you can, how should you train to get the results you want? Let’s find out!
What is willpower? To better understand what we are talking about and to get rid of any superstitions, we better start by defining the term “willpower”. The Oxford dictionary says, “[Willpower is] the ability to control your thoughts and actions to get what you want”. It also gives an example, “He’s intelligent, but he doesn’t have willpower”. Quite ironic that the very first example talks about lack of willpower. Kind of hints at the problem, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, we now know what willpower is. It is not something ethereal or profoundly philosophical. Willpower is basically being able to do what you want to do in spite of your emotions, your feelings.
It is also important to remember the difference between willpower, your inner power over yourself, and power in society. To be able to impose your will on the outside world, on other people, while overpowering their will, would be a definition of social power, power that higher authorities have, power that an armed person has over an unarmed person. But it is not will power, although it takes one to get one.
So, to put it simply:
Willpower is your ability to control yourself, nothing more, nothing less.
Is it possible to improve willpower? Well, why not? As we can see, by definition there is nothing mysterious about willpower. The best way to think of it is as a muscle. Can you train muscles? Yes, you can. But is it painful, uncomfortable? Also yes. That is why willpower is so difficult to train. It takes discipline, you have to really want it and understand why you are doing it in order to succeed. Otherwise, you will just back out too soon and then think that it is impossible to do anything with your willpower. So, yes, it is possible to improve it, but you have to be prepared for it to be a little painful.
Now, how exactly do you train willpower? Again, it is very similar to muscle training. When you train your muscles, you go to a place specifically designed for muscle training, which has special machines to do it properly, and use special methods that are ideally suited to your needs. Also, you have to remember to do it consistently and not overtrain, because your muscles and your brain can malfunction.
When it comes to willpower training, there is basically no difference. The first thing is consistency. You have to get used to it. This is the best way to improve quickly. But you must also remember not to overtrain. It would be unwise to start your willpower training with six hours of hard work in a row when you usually work one hour a day. It would be excruciatingly painful for you, and you would simply break in a few days. You must start with easier exercises, such as doing chores consistently, or perhaps working half an hour more each day. It will take a little longer to see results, but you will have the best chance of success and you will feel better in general. Also, remember to reward yourself for being disciplined. Rest is part of the work process, as my philosophy teacher says. The main thing is that you have to get used to doing some uncomfortable things. Something you do not like. It can even be sitting in an empty room, staring at a wall and doing nothing, or maybe meditating for half an hour or more. It has to be bearable but uncomfortable. And it is most uncomfortable for our brain when it sees no reason for what you are doing.
By the way, going to the gym can also be extremely beneficial for willpower training. First of all, you have to go to the gym several times a week, which builds up your discipline. Then you have your muscle training, which is hard, painful. You know you are doing this to become healthier, more beautiful and/or stronger, but it still takes a lot of willpower to force yourself to experience pain. If you want to simplify your willpower training, you can just go to the gym, that will work for sure.
So to train willpower, you have to force yourself to do something unpleasant. It is as simple as that.
In summary, willpower is your ability to force yourself to do something you don’t want to do. It is possible to train it, but you have to be consistent and careful not to overdo it in the beginning and to make the exercises progressively harder, think of it as muscle training.
