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 as follows. Willpower is a measure of a person’s ability to translate his intentions into reality, dictated by considerations of rational planning, contrary to momentary impulses (desires, habits, weaknesses, emotions, fears, etc.).
For the task of developing willpower, ideally suited, those methods that, in their basic purpose, serve completely different purposes, but by the way contribute to the development of the aforementioned quality.
This may seem to be a difficult, cumbersome definition, but, in fact, if we look at specific examples, it becomes clear what I'm talking about.
Theory
What is willpower needed for?
For example, you decided to quit smoking (you can put in a place to "stop smoking", any other goal: to lose weight, stop drinking, work more, start playing sports, etc.). You have an intention (to give up cigarettes), which is based on a reasonable desire to lead a healthier lifestyle, live longer, spend less money on cigarettes.
This intention is opposed by the habit of smoking, the desire to indulge one's weakness, positive emotions associated with smoking. It depends on your will power whether you can neglect the momentary desires for the sake of achieving a long-term goal, whether you can quit smoking and keep yourself healthy.
This is like tug of war, on the one hand, long-term plans that reflect the natural aspirations of the individual, on the other - momentary desires and instincts. Roughly speaking, it is a struggle of the mind with the body.
Reason says: smoking is harmful from dying. We must get up early to keep up. You need to eat less to be healthy and beautiful.
The body responds: there is nothing more pleasant than a morning cigarette with coffee, maybe you will allow yourself such pleasure? Why get up so early? Get some more sleep! Eat this delicious cake, you're hungry! So what if the clock is 2 am?
This is a confrontation of the desires of the lower and higher levels My wife, when asked if you want to go to fast food, sometimes answers: I want, but I don't want. She means that, on the one hand, her brain wants pleasure associated with the absorption of affordable and tasty (because of nutritional supplements) food, but on the other - she does not want to spoil her health with fatty foods and get fat.
The more developed willpower, the easier we overcome our body, winning the highest desires over the lowest, in each of our business, in each undertaking. The weaker the will, the more difficult it is to resist the weaknesses, habits and lower needs of the body.
Lack of willpower is lack of freedom.
A person with weak will power risks falling into the eternal slavery of his body, his habits. Driven by blind instincts, he will no longer have any right to choose.
If the body is ordered to sleep before lunch, then this person will do it, even if he has some important things to do at this time.
If the body has ordered to eat, then the person will shove the third hamburger into himself, even if his ass no longer fits into the elevator, and he cannot climb the stairs because of shortness of breath.
If the body orders to drink, then it drinks until it turns off, and its liver does not burst.
This person can be well aware of their problems and where they lead. Perhaps he even passionately wants to get rid of them, start a new life, find freedom from desires, but he does not succeed. He lacks the power to tell his wishes: “No, today I decide what to do, the more you do not command me!”, Because a person has not developed willpower.
Therefore, he suffers: his intentions are not realized, and plans are not carried out. This, you see, is not the most enviable position.
Does willpower give in to development?
The good news is that willpower evolves. Every person, no matter in which a neglected situation he is, no matter how weak he may be, can gain control over his desires.
Only a few years ago, I myself suffered from a complete lack of self-discipline. I was unorganized, absent-minded and lazy. I could not do any work for a long time, as she quickly bored me. It was difficult for me to cope with laziness: I wanted absolutely nothing to do. I could not cope with my habits: I smoked and drank a lot.
This negatively affected the quality of my life. Internal confusion creates external.
Several times I was on the verge of being kicked out of the institute. I did not take the exams badly, because I did not prepare for them. Just could not make myself. I could do any nonsense: sitting on the Internet aimlessly, drinking beer, watching TV shows, just not to learn.
I didn’t work with the work, because everything fell out of my hands, I couldn’t force myself to do something.
Health problems were observed: panic attacks, attention deficit, overweight. I did not have enough willpower to start playing sports, to put my own body in order.
Now everything in my life is much better: my health is good, the work also suits me, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke or use other drugs. All this is in the past. In the end, you see this site, on which I spent a lot of time and effort.
It cost and cost me great willpower. Almost every day I force myself to work, stepping over laziness. Willpower gave me the opportunity to achieve my goal.
I want to develop this site, I want to help people and I do it.
I wanted to quit smoking and drinking - I did it.
I want to develop, so every day I work on myself: I meditate, do sports, yoga, read books.
I am implementing my plans now, and I don’t put them on hold due to laziness. I want to do it, I can do it and I do it.
This formulation expresses the great freedom that willpower gives us. Will-power can provide a good basis for good health, strong relationships, personal happiness and well-being.
Why is it so difficult to gain power over desires?
Our body is a stunning example of design solutions of nature. The body promptly informs us of the needs that have arisen, supports tissue metabolism, processes some substances and produces others, like a large laboratory.
And all this works automatically, we do not have to regulate, for example, the process of delivery of nutrients from the stomach to other parts of the body. All this happens by itself, without affecting our consciousness.
All of these processes were with remarkable thoroughness “developed” by evolution and encoded in the genetic code.
The automatic, unconscious mechanisms of the body are very smart and complex, like a supercomputer. But, like a mindless machine, they are severely limited in capabilities if they are not supported.
human mind.
No matter how clever a computer is, you can infect it with a virus that forces it to perform the same operation in a circle until all the memory resources are used.
Only a person, a machine operator, a programmer can solve this problem. The computer does not think about the fact that it launches the execution of a malicious program once again, it does so without thinking, because it lacks consciousness.
The wisdom and stupidity of our body
The same happens with our body. No matter how complicated it is, his work requires the intervention of the mind. For example, you are a smoker. The action of nicotine provokes your brain to produce substances that are responsible for the feeling of pleasure.
If the body becomes accustomed to nicotine, then without its participation these substances release less, and you feel the urge to smoke, as a response to the body's need to resume chemical exchange.
Everyone knows that smoking is harmful, everyone is well aware that smoking leads to illness and death. Nevertheless, the body continues to blindly demand a new dose of a substance that is unnecessary to it and harmful to it, just as it requires water or food, what it really needs for life.
The body performs mindless malware at the level of chemical exchange of the brain, like a normal computer infected with a virus. The mind can give the command to stop this program. Whether it will be fulfilled or not depends on your will.
Another example of such an unreasonable body behavior can be found in the reluctance to get up early and do exercises. Charging is good for the body, awakens it, fills it with tone.
Why, then, if it is so useful, does the body resist it so much, and are it necessary, sometimes, incredible efforts of the will to force yourself to get out of bed and move?
Again, the point is in the unconscious algorithms of our body. The body is accustomed to reacting to danger. Why would he set himself in motion when nothing threatens you, you bask in a warm bed in the safest environment!
Then, to cheer up and bring health benefits, you say. But the body does not know about it, it is guided by the present moment, considerations of momentary necessity, the invariable algorithm of work!
Only the mind possesses a sense of mental perspective, knowledge and experience, which knows that sport is useful and smoking is harmful. Reason dictates that it would be better if you stop smoking and play sports.
The mind is on the other side of the unconditioned, blind reflexes of the body, and the will realizes its plans.
Willpower allows you to do what you don’t want to do (lower level desires), but what you need to do (higher motives).
Why do I need to train the body?
Constantly indulging your body, your lower desires, eventually turns into a habit. The more you go in the wake of your momentary weaknesses, emotions and laziness, the more power these forces gain over you. It looks like a drug addiction.
That is why it is so difficult for lazy people to pull themselves together. Even the thought of starting to move somewhere, stepping over yourself inspires fear in them, because they are too attached to the desires of their bodies.
The body must be kept under constant control, trained; only then can one become independent of his base desires and cease to be held hostage to the present moment in time!
I am sure that many people do not eat meat not because of the exaggerated feeling of pity for animals, but because the desires of the body for them do not have such a key role as for the rest.
And if so, then the highest needs (considerations of a healthy lifestyle, ethics, religion) begin to prevail over the lower ones (to get pleasure from the usual food, to fill the stomach). But this is the goal of developing willpower, self-discipline and one of the goals of self-development in general!
I am not a vegetarian, for the reason that you can not get all the necessary vitamins (B12, D) from plant foods. But, more recently, I have severely restricted the consumption of meat for reasons of healthy eating. I use only fish and, at the same time, I eat it not every day. (Read more in my article: “Vegetarianism Pros and Cons”)
But before I had eaten meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and could not imagine a different order of things.
I am not a passionate advocate animal and not a fanatical preacher of a healthy lifestyle. I do not eat meat, because it is easy for me to do this, for me it does not pose any difficulty to deny myself this pleasure, for the sake of the principles of healthy eating and just for the sake of experiment. Because I have trained myself to say no to my body and say yes to my mind.
The pleasure of eating meat is not an essential criterion for me to eat if I pursue some long-term goals. It is easy for me to refuse from the pleasure that brings alcohol, I can get up early and do exercises, as if I did not like it. For me, this is not a big problem, my body is listening to me.
Are the desires of our body so important?
To some of you who are reading this article right now, it may seem that every day it is incredibly difficult to deny yourself any pleasures. This is not true. In order to refute this belief, I described my experience.
Now, for many of you, the small pleasures of the body can seem significant and great. You may think that you cannot live without your habits. I assure you, this is an illusion.
As a child I thought that driving a car and, at the same time, navigating in the city is very difficult. Now I drive a car without difficulty and know where to go and where to turn.
Once you raise your body, all his desires will no longer be so significant and important. Do not think that I am preaching to some monastic way of life, I urge you to get rid of attachment to the body and become a pure spirit. It's impossible. I just want you to become the masters of your body, not his 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 minute desires, this muscle grows and strengthens. If you stop doing this, the muscle becomes flabby and weak.
Start small
This is the motto of my site - "start small." If you go to the gym for the first time, then you will not lift a heavy barbell, because in this case, you will break and throw this sport.
It is better to start with light exercises. Muscles should slowly get used to the load, if you have not really loaded them before. You should not 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! Make it very difficult for an unprepared person. Therefore, adequately assess their own capabilities.
Implement these principles in life gradually, start with something one. For example, enter morning exercise in your daily routine to begin with. Try to meditate every day for at least 10 minutes. Then go on to follow the other tips, as you are ready.
Organize your daily routine
Start getting up early
No need to sleep until it stops. Try to get up every day at the same time. Your day begins with awakening, if you go on about your body and sleep further, then the muscle of the will is not set in motion, it does not warm up.
If on waking 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 and force yourself to rise, even if your body desperately resists, you will activate the will, knead this “muscle” at the very beginning of the day. In this, any of your activities on this day will be made easier and more productive. Physical activity is much easier if in the morning you have flexed all your muscles. The same thing happens with willpower. You need to bring this muscle tone.
Sleep and wakefulness is not only an element of discipline, it is very good for health.
Plan your business and follow the plan.
Teach yourself to follow the plan. Set yourself daily, weekly, monthly or perpetual guidelines and follow them. For example: write 3,000 words today about self-development, finish reading this book to the end, read one book per month, wash dishes after each meal, clean up the hard drive monthly, etc.
So that you do not have the temptation to invent a reason to not do something, then make it a rule that the case should still be done and the plan should not be disrupted.
For example, if you plan to do jogs three times a week, you can arrange classes by day, as you wish, the only requirement is that the plan should be completed by the end of the week.
If you have never run today, and today is already Sunday, you will have to run three times this day.
Do not postpone to “later”
If you have no objective reasons for not doing what you promised yourself to do - do it. Let you be lazy and do not want to - still make a promise, learn to step over your "I do not want." Develop your volitional muscle.
It is better to do something while you can now. Who knows what will happen next? We do not know how to look into the future. Suddenly there will be a lot of cases, and then we will not have time to do anything at all? If you do everything in time, life becomes much more comfortable and the load of unfinished business does not put pressure on the psyche. I know this by myself.
Go in for sports
Sport perfectly disciplines and develops the will, because physical exercise is a constant overcoming of laziness and resistance of the body. During each session, you have to step over yourself, through muscle fatigue and discomfort.
Many people do not play sports: because they lack willpower. But it is a self-contained process. To lift the barbell 100 times in a row, you need physical strength, but if you lift this barbell every day, your strength will increase and sooner or later you will make 100 lifts.
If you do not do sports, then start doing simple exercises in the morning. These exercises must obey the routine, for example, do exercises 5 times a week. Как заставить себя заниматься спортом?
Упражнения с утра способны зарядить тонусом «мышцу воли». Если вы сделаете зарядку, то потом, весь день, вам будет легче бороться с искушениями и делать то, что вы запланировали.
Меньше занимайтесь ерундой
Ограничивайте время, которое вы проводите за бессмысленной, отупляющей деятельностью, вроде просмотра сериалов или работы в социальных сетях. Читайте больше художественной и обучающей литературы, проводите время на свежем воздухе. Развивайтесь, совершенствуйте свои навыки, узнавайте новое из книг и из других источников.
Давайте себе обещания и выполняйте их
Превращайте «надо» в «даю слово». Например, вы думаете, «надо убраться дома». Часто бывало у вас так, что дальше этой мысли дело не шло? Целый день вы страдали ерундой, а порядок дома так и не навели, несмотря на то, что подумали, что неплохо было бы это сделать. Поэтому превратите «надо» в «даю слово» или «обещаю». «Обещаю до конца дня навести порядок в квартире!» Пускай выполнение обещания станет для вас делом чести. Обещания помогают поддерживать самодисциплину.
Превращайте любое свое намерение в обещание. Вы решили, что проводите много времени перед компьютером? Хватит ругать себя за это! Лучше пообещайте себе не сидеть в интернете вечером дома после работы!
Читайте об этом более подробно в моей статье сила данных себе обещаний.
Соблюдайте гигиену и поддерживайте порядок вокруг себя
Гигиена - также элемент дисциплины, который подчиняются строгому распорядку. Чистите зубы два раза в день, умывайтесь, мойтесь и брейтесь регулярно. (Надеюсь, это все итак делают, написал это на всякий случай)
Поддерживайте порядок дома и на рабочем месте. Убирайтесь, мойте посуду, чистите мебель. Организуйте порядок в ящиках своего стола и на жестком диске своего компьютера. Удаляйте ненужные файлы из папок, избавляйтесь от неактивных контактов в списке QIP или Skype, чистите свою электронную почту от спама. Создайте логичную структуру директорий на своем компьютере.
Сдерживайте свои гастрономические слабости
Реже питайтесь в фаст-фудах. Учитесь готовить. Ешьте больше полезной пищи. Попробуйте приготовить питательное и вкусное блюдо на ужин без использования мяса, хотя бы один раз в неделю. Этот опыт может оказаться новым и интересным для вас.
Исключите, хотя бы частично, из рациона сосиски и прочую гадость. Почитайте статьи о здоровом питании и попытайтесь следовать данным там рекомендациям.
Если вы много едите и у вас проблемы с лишним весом, ешьте меньше. Учитесь терпеть легкий голод. В таком случае организуйте распорядок в питании и следуйте ему. Питайтесь три раза в день и ничего не ешьте в перерывах.
Работайте над избавлением от вредных привычек
Реже пейте алкоголь, меньше курите, а лучше, вообще бросайте. Каждая сигарета, каждая бутылка пива - это маленькая слабость. Эти слабости веду к деградации воли и торжеству низших потребностей над нашим разумом.
Занимайтесь медитацией
С медитации можно начать развитие силы воли. Введите эту практику в свой распорядок дня. Медитация помогает расслабиться, привести в порядок мысли. При помощи практики можно научиться контролировать свои эмоции и свое тело.
Именно медитация дала значительный толчок для моего личного развития. В те времена, когда я только начал медитировать, я пил, курил, не занимался спортом, не мог планировать свои дела и доводить дело до конца. Все это пришло потом, но начиналось все с медитации.
Эта практика очень хорошо дисциплинирует, так как занятия подразумевают жесткий распорядок: вы должны медитировать два раза в день для достижения нужного эффекта. Следует отложить все свои дела и сидеть в одной позе до конца сеанса и стараться удерживать внимание чем-то одном. Если внимание уходит в сторону, вы его возвращаете в исходную точку. Это отличная тренировка для силы воли.
В книге Келли Макгонигал - The Willpower Instinct написано, о том, что научные исследования выявили, что медитация увеличивает содержание серого вещества в префронтальной коре головного мозга. Именно эта зона мозга отвечает за силу воли, тогда как импульсивными решениями руководит центральная его часть.
"Со временем их[тех, кто занимается медитацией] мозг начинает работать как отлаженная волевая машина" - утверждает автор книги. И это действительно так. Именно регулярная медитация помогла мне укрепить силу воли, когда мне так ее не хватало. Для меня все началось с этой практики, а уж потом последовало все остальное: спорт, отказ от сигарет и алкоголя и дисциплина. Медитация сделала из меня, ленивого и неорганизованного человека, более собранную и дисциплинированную личность.
Даже один единственный сеанс медитации способен зарядить вас «резервом силы воли» на весь оставшийся день. Я замечал, что если я не помедитирую с утра, то моя «мышца силы воли» не будет в тонусе. Тогда дела будут идти тяжело и с сопротивлением, я мне будет сложно преодолевать соблазны и искушения. Но когда я медитирую и делаю зарядку с утра я перевожу силу воли в тонус и в полную готовность. Дела идут легко, а планы выполняются!
Это далеко не самое сложное упражнение, зато, крайне эффективное. На мой взгляд - медитация самый лучший и результативный способ развить силу воли. Рекомендую с него начать. Вы можете узнать о том как правильно медитировать из статьи по ссылке.
He медлите, начните действовать с завтрашнего дня!
Начните работать над развитием силы воли прям завтра: встаньте пораньше на пол часа и сделайте зарядку! После этого скажите себе, что теперь вы будете вставать каждое утро на полчаса раньше и делать упражнения. После этого сходите в книжный и купите себе хорошую, познавательную книгу, начните ее читать.
Пускай это станет вашим первым шагом навстречу развитию силы воли.
Где-то я читал, что хождение на двух ногах очень сложная для мозга задача. Когда вы идете вы находитесь перманентно в состоянии контролируемого падения, ваш мозг посылает огромное количество сигналов, чтобы ваше тело сохраняло баланс.
Именно поэтому так сложно научить робота передвигаться на двух ногах, пока, насколько мне известно, это непосильная задача для науки. Эту задачу давно решила природа.
Также сила воли оберегает вас от падения в пропасть развращенности и лени. Пока вы бодрствуете тысячи мелких желаний атакуют ваш мозг, и вы рискуете свернуть с намеченного курса, упасть на пол пути: "поспи побольше", "сделай потом", "ты не сможешь, это очень тяжело", "остановись и передохни, работа не уйдет" и т.д.
Движение к цели - это постоянное контролируемое падение. Чем меньше вы падаете, тем скорее вы достигаете того, что хотите. Но стоит начать постоянно валиться с ног, ваш хрупкий баланс превратиться в вечное падение неизвестно куда…
