They say, willpower is all you need. And others complain about how difficult it is to have willpower, and to be disciplined for one thing and weak-willed to resist another. Is to achieve willpower an action that is simple for all of us to accomplish? It can be when you think about how successful people who do have willpower live. When we think about them, we are reminded that willpower plays a major role in our successes. Anything anyone considered to be difficult to accomplish and succeeded had mastered their goals because they had the willpower and motivation to do so.
People with willpower are people that the weak-willed ones think of as lucky to be strong-willed people. It is far from difficult to understand why the weak are envious of close-to-perfect people. Luck has nothing to do with success. Willpower is a choice that people take to get to where they are today. It is the regular use of their mental muscle (which needs to be exercised) that put people on top of success. If we neglect keeping our mental muscle in shape, eventually we lose it.
It's easy for anyone to exist with lack of potential for anything truly significant in life. Perhaps, those people have decided that with the array of products and services, substances and distractions available that promises people and easy and fast, although temporary relief, why bother to have willpower? Generally, they opt to live by the negative instant gratification way of not living than the positive, long-term results.
When it comes to temptation, some people never fail to resist because they get their willpower from self-control, something that cannot be bought over the counter.
Self-control is not a commodity or a magic formula embraced by the strong-willed as some weak-willed folks may like to think. Self-control comes from a positive life force within, an inner energy strong people choose to cultivate, and drive them toward their goals. (We all possess this inner life force. Willpower is available to all of us.) This life force and inner energy are what guides us with the strength and courage to keep going when the going gets tough. This is the difference between self-mastery and undisciplined folks.
Willpower is the belief that you can control your behavior, and the commitment to act on that belief. Those who associate willpower with distasteful tasks are people who never want to break away from bad habits. The effort seems too great. They may have had a mission to accomplish but failed, and instead of starting over, they give up so that failure to try again amounts to weakness.
Feelings of insecurity, worthlessness and low self-esteem are treasures belonging to the weak-willed. Negative thinking prohibits you from reaching your highest potential. If you try to tackle a project and you experience a setback, and think, If I'm going to fail, why bother to move forward? This is negative thinking.
Each time you say you will but do not, you think less of yourself. You confirm that you do not have what it takes to get what you want. And if you think this way, you probably do not deserve it. And if you think you do not deserve it, of course, you will not rush out and try again.
This sort of negative thinking trashes willpower, and makes it almost impossible to start any action that might increase self-confidence and improve self-esteem. If you think you do not deserve to receive any more than what you have, you have no willpower or ambition to aim for something richer in life.
For instance, people who are clinically depressed have zilch willpower. They let their depression and weaknesses to immobilize them and to control their lives. Often the negative messages that run through their minds derive from wounds of the past. We all have them, but some people remember the past more than the present, therefore, too weak-willed to try to heal old wounds, and stop repeating the same failures.
Negative thinking is oftentimes associated with gambling, sex, alcoholism and drug addictions. The moment someone becomes addicted to a substance or compulsive behavior, willpower is ineffective, and without support, medical or psychological help, education and direction from someone experienced to help with such addictions, the addict will not change.
Moreover, willpower may be undermined by what is going on in people's lives. Emotional distress, sadness, fatigue, loss, anger, anxiety, disappointment and other negative emotions are the biggest threats, and the culprits that will only weaken your sense of willpower if an individual refuses to deal with the negative emotions.
Focus on what you are getting rather than what you are giving up. Take pride in considering yourself a doer and not a rabble-rouser. Whatever your goals may be, tackle one goal first and then another. Pay attention to what you are doing and forget how much further you have to go. Take time to explore alternatives and plot out strategies for reaching your goals.
Spend time executing the power of will and you will accomplish more than not.
