The "Will Power" secret !!

Dear Readers,

Here goes the secret about will power, but before I reveal it to you, tell me haven't you heard the following statements in your life so far,

• You have to have will power to get yourself through a difficult situation!
• You have to increase your will power, you give up too early!
• People with strong will power succeed!
• You can overcome any challenge in life with strong will power!

All in all will power is touted as the one stop solution for life's all problems, but is it really the solution, brace yourself for the obvious answer.......

A resounding NO!!!!! 

What do you mean no, so whatever we have been told so far is a farce, one might ask, and answer to that is a definite YES!!

But there is no point busting a myth without giving appropriate logic behind it. So here goes.......

There is a story doing the rounds on the internet, about "putting the glass down", here is a link to that,

Put The Glass Down. 

Essentially what the story tells us is that we cant carry the stress, tensions, pressures and frustrations for a long time solely base on our will power, and we need to take breaks in between to keep us going, but the question is why is it so?

Well just as we cannot use the muscles in our shoulder to hold the glass up for a long time (refer the story), we cannot carry our stresses, tensions, pressures and frustrations for a long time with our will power only, because will power is like a muscle, if you repeatedly use it or as in most cases abuse it, without appropriate rest, for long, it is going to fail.

And how does the failure look, well it might be any one of the following scenarios,

• Someone who decides to exercise for next year on new years eve, but fails to go to the gym for more than a week or two, once the pain of the efforts set in.
• A student deciding to study regularly for a predecided time, say a couple of hours, but only to quit at the first call by a friend to go out, or favorite TV program coming on at the same time.
• An avid smoker managing to stay away from the butt for a short period of time.
• The examples can go on and on, ranging from alcoholics to workaholics,  from chain smokers to students who cannot keep their commitment to studies.

Some of you might have stronger will power like someone who works out regularly in a gym might have stronger shoulder muscles, but however strong you might be eventually time will have its say and thwart your efforts at anything which is not comfortable for you.

So what is the solution to this, we have discussed the problem enough, and solution is just one word, HABITS!!!

Yes habits are the solution, and a long term one, if you do not believe it, just ask a chronic smoker, how he manages to smoke a cigarette every hour or couple of hours. Ask an alcoholic how he cannot avoid that glass everyday. It is because there body and mind has developed a habit of smoking or drinking and now it is beyond their control to change it.

Ok, the solution is Habits, but how do we implement it, and cultivate good habits. The recipie is a simple 3 steps solution,

1. Break the goal you have to achieve (quit smoking, study 2 hours daily outside of college) in small parts, eg: If you want to quit smoking altogether, start by quitting for half a day once a week, if you want to study for 2 hours a day start by studying for 15 mins a day for a week.
2. Celebrate the successes, however small they might be, it reinforces good feelings about your goals in your mind.
3. Gradually ramp up effort and increase your duration in the above cases till you reach your goal, eg: if you want to work out 7 days a week, start with 2 days a week and gradually add one day a week every month.

The key to above process is patience (be gradual in your approach), consistency (keep initial goals small to avoid relapse or quitting in between) and perseverance (depending on your step size this might take a long time to achieve your ultimate goals so you have to keep at it).

But be assured that this process works! This process has its root in human psychology, and is just the tip of the iceberg, we are eventually going to explore here. 

So if you have read it until here, I say you are definitely committed towards achieving your goals, and I promise I will definitely help you reach there.

I am no professional writer, so all of you who have a suggestion for me and my writings please come forward and suggest it, so that I can improve my posts here on wards.

So keep at it.

Regards

DeAn