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CONTENTS:
ITS BASIC POWER AND ITS LIMITATIONS
TACKLING "BIG THINGS"
IT HELPS TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE PHYSICAL MIND WORKS
HOW CAN WE "POWER UP" WILLPOWER?
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The "lack of sufficient willpower", where we feel that we are letting ourselves down, is misconstrued to be a character issue rather than a mechanical reality. Making ourselves "wrong" for this is not a workable strategy or a valid concept. The only solution is to learn how it works and then decide to do the steps, but you'll not engage in the process if you are being barraged by your mind with "make wrongs". The essential understandings that must be gained to correct the misconceptions are: How The Brain Works (it's mechanical!) and Good/Bad, Right/Wrong Vs. Workable - What Is "True"?
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ITS BASIC POWER AND ITS LIMITATIONS
Willpower is often used in the context of "I shall overcome through sheer power!"
It is a good statement of intention, but intention by itself does not get results, it only adds some forwarding power but not "enough". I know so many people who do not understand the process of "transformation" and use incomplete processes and then don't understand why the result is not achieved. Basically, they failed to put enough details in there and did not use enough discreet steps to make it work. (See the useful tool of operating with Doables.)
You can't win a battle just through willpower. Would anyone go into war without all the tools necessary to win the war, while assuming that willpower and desire will win the war? Only in the movies! (See The Power Of Intention.)
TACKLING "BIG THINGS"
Willpower has a certain range of power to cause things. If we try to use willpower on a big thing, it won't stand a chance.
It is imperative in all cases in human endeavor that what is being tackled is small enough to handle. Thus the expression that applies here is in this old saying: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
On anything that is too big, the time management gurus always say "chunk it down" into handleable pieces that can be dealt with and putting them in a sequence called a "plan". Don't tackle "getting mentally healthy", but determine what its pieces are and then do each piece, with the faith that after you eat all the pieces of the elephant the elephant will be all eaten and digested.
This relates to the fact that until something is defined into a doable action (what I call "Doables"), we are just dealing with abstract, non-doables.
I chuckle when I see people aiming for "instant transformation", but at the same time I feel sad because I suspect they will end up disappointed and also end up not being successful.
To be successful one needs to do all the steps, as I've suggested in the section on Success (see the "Steps" piece).
IT HELPS TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE PHYSICAL MIND WORKS
So, we're repeating here some of the explanations for how the mind works, which you must understand in order to be able to properly use (and run) your brain:
"People with poor training do not see that a “discomfort” is just a chemical imbalance and not a threat. They see it as a threat, sending off signals along the danger circuitry, which then fires off more chemicals in an effort to solve the danger. If one is unskilled in identifying these for what they are, one then doesn’t notice early on what is going on and only ends up dealing with it when it is seriously out of whack. Panic and depression are examples of what happens when one takes a small, meaningless thought, sees it as a threat, gets more alarmed as all the other threat signals go off and the chemicals accumulate, in an endless spiraling downward to where the chemicals are so strong that “willpower” cannot overcome them. Willpower is useful, but it only sends out a signal of a certain level of electrical strength that cannot defeat the armada of negative chemicals already running wild – physically, it’s no match."
In other words, willpower only has so much power - and we need to accept that. We also should not give up when it appears to 'not work'. It, if done even partially correctly, does work - it sends an electrical current that is helpful toward adding a positive impetus toward achieving the intended goal. It just isn't "all powerful" so it needs to be melded with other strategies to help accomplish the goal.
HOW CAN WE "POWER UP" WILLPOWER?
Remember, it is a generator of an electrical impulse.
If the objective of it is more clear, as if giving instructions to your assistants (Dumb and Dumber, loyal but dumb), then the task is more likely to get done. This is using a given amount of power more effectively, by not wasting it in vagueness that causes it to be scattered..
If you make the electrical power greater, you're also upping the ability to get something done.
Here the useful items that are often taken tritely or not properly understood are: visualize the benefits (or at least name them) so that the brain puts more charge on it, write it down, express commitment to it, express determination, make a very determined absolutely non-violatable commitment to accomplishing it, bring it to mind more often (refreshing the electrical impulse, increasing the width and strength of the circuit) through reviewing it, saying it over and over, focusing attention on it.
Trite sounding, often "magical" sounding, but one can see why it works (and that it works) if one undertands how the brain works.
(People have such misunderstandings and incredibly naive beliefs around how to use affirmations, willpower, etc. that they waste their lives doing ineffective practices. They attribute "magic", make up impractical methods that are untested but still believed (from some body work and healing to reading the stars in heaven), and fail to use the effective techniques because they didn't understand why they didn't work or thought they took too much effort plus a myriad of other unuseful non-thinking conclusions.)
NOTES TO INTEGRATE
Willpower has the word "power" in it. Power is in the form of "electrical energy", which can be stored or drained.
Based on this "storage" concept, we have what we might call a tank of willpower units - and we can then identify what adds to the tank and what uses it and/or drains it.
Contributors:
Good habits, pride in having done them - Acknowledging yourself for each time you do a good habit and also for building the habit via practicing it until it becomes automatic. Automaticity makes things easier and natural, therefore using up less "energy" or willpower units.
Commitments and declarations - Always have some, even if for little changes. Making them adds strong units. Rereading and repeating them adds units.
Reaffirming - Who we are, what we have (gratitude), opportunities
Any positive conversation, creating a future...
Users:
Every time call on willpower to get something useful done and/or stick to something we've said we wanted to stick to. There is also a return of units based on the pride from following through - and sometimes those can add more units than they use.
Drainers: Reduce units without a useful result or tradeoff.
Tiredness, energy being down - Can block the units and reduce ability to use units
Irregularity - Spiking and crashing energy and sugar system, rest
Negatives take away, with nothing gained
The use of negative language, even if believe it is "harmless"
