How To Develop Your Will Power
Rajendra Sagolsem *
Will Power has to do something with our inner power that requires inner control and inner discipline.
Suppose you want to do something today and you have done it successfully. Your Will Power is working in your favor. But if you procrastinate till other time like tomorrow or day after tomorrow, then something is wrong with your Will Power.
Suppose you are a smoker and you want to quit. The moment you think of quitting, you light up another stick of cigarette saying to yourself, "I will quit from tomorrow." Here you are acting against your desire. And your Will Power is not supporting you. This happens most of the time with chain smokers.
Same is true with hard drinkers. You want to quit but you lack the Will Power to quit immediately. You keep on postponing and go on drinking as if the quitting day may arrive on its own. The moment you think of stopping, you go out to buy another bottle.
What goes on actually? You are just disobeying yourself. Your self esteem is not so high that you can respect yourself. I want to remind you that if you don't love yourself, nobody will love you.
We all have some kind of addiction that we wish to overcome. The best examples are smoking, binge-drinking, excessive eating, laziness, or lack of assertiveness. To overcome them all what we need is our Will Power. And Self Discipline works together with Will Power. Together they make a great difference in our life.
What Actually Is Will Power
Will Power is our ability to do something we want to do. You may want to do something immediately or in your life time. If you want to quit smoking, you should be able to quit immediately. If you want to stop drinking, you should be able to stop right away. That's Will Power. Procrastination is the greatest enemy of our Will Power.
If you think you will stop drinking from tomorrow onwards, your Will Power is not properly working. Tomorrow again you may say the same thing. There will be so many tomorrows and none of these tomorrows will ever come to you.
Will Power is the ability to control oneself. If you don't want to do something, don't do it. If you want to do something, do it right away. If your Will Power is strong enough, you will act right away.
If you want to build your own house or buy a beautiful car, you should be able to do that. If your Will Power is strong enough, you will keep on trying to find possible ways to build your own house or buy your own beautiful car.
Self-Discipline
As I have pointed out already, Will Power works along with Self-discipline. If we are self-disciplined, we will have the stamina and the patience. We will be able to persevere in whatever we do under all circumstances. We will be able to withstand all sorts of hardship and difficulties. So in order to develop a strong Will Power, we have to develop Self-Discipline.
If you are self-disciplined, you will feel more powerful. You can take charge of yourself and your surroundings. You will live a very happy and satisfied life.
A Few Tips
My questions for you here are how often do you feel you are too weak to do something you want to do? How often do you procrastinate?
If you really want to develop your inner strength and inner control, here are some tips. If you have the strong desire to develop them, follow these tips sincerely. It may take time but you will see the changes in your strength. I am guiding you from the easiest to the most difficult practices.
- Try to do something you hate doing. Take bath with cold water in the winter. Try to eat something you hate to eat. Try to avoid eating your favorite dishes for a week or so.
- Laziness is one cause for procrastination. If you want to do something, just get up and do it. Don't allow your laziness to control you. When the alarm bell rings, don't put it off. Just get up and do whatever you wanted to do at that time. Why did you set the alarm anyway?
- Make a general routine for your common activities. It should however be flexible enough to add new activities. When you make the Time Table, make it with a promise to follow. Never break your promise.
- Eat well, sleep well and do some physical exercises. Walk, jog, and skip. Let there be lots of sweats when you do the exercises. If you are healthy and physically fit, you will have the stamina to do anything you want to do.
- Try to think positive. Develop positive mental attitude. I want to remind you that all the people with a positive mind may not become great. But all the great people the world has ever seen had positive mental attitude.
- Set your goals. What do you want to achieve in life? Those who have nowhere to go will reach nowhere. Those who have something to achieve in their life are the people leading the society. Think of your life. You have a long way to go. Do you want to rot like vegetables or do you like to roar like a lion? It's your choice.
- Sit down in front of your TV. But never switch it on. Instead, take up some work you want to complete immediately. They call TV an Idiot Box. But I will call it an Idiot's Box. I hope you understand my point. Don't waste your precious time watching TV.
- Try to be stubborn. There is something good when you are stubborn. It's closely related with your Will Power. But don't try to use your stubbornness for doing something against your well-being. You are one unique person in this Universe. Your finger prints and your retina show that. Show the world you can do something others can't do.
- Your life is in your hands. Whether you want to live a comfortable life or a miserable life, you have to decide. It's your choice and nobody else's.
* Rajendra Sagolsem (Director, SAFE Group of Instirutions, Bangalore) writes to e-pao.net regularly
The writer is a counselor, motivator and educational advisor serving at present as a Director in the SAFE Group of Institutions, Bangalore. He has writtern many eBooks on motivation and counseling.
You can visit the writer's blog here or email at razensag(at)gmail(dot)com
This article was webcasted on December 23, 2010.
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