Enhancing Willpower: Expert Tips for Personal and Professional Development
Willpower motivates you every day to get up and start your day. It provides the desire, energy, and enthusiasm that propels you and your inner self to accomplish goals with flying colors.
Charles Bukowski writes in Factotum:
“If you’re going to try, go all the way.
Otherwise, don’t even start.
It could mean not eating for three or four days.
It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail.
It could mean derision.
It could mean mockery–isolation.
Isolation is a gift.
All the others are a test of your endurance,
of how much you really want to do it.
And, you’ll do it,
despite rejection and the worst odds.
And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
If you’re going to try, go all the way.
There is no other feeling like that.
You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.
You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.
It’s the only good fight there is.”
Introduction
Enhancing one’s willpower can be difficult but can have tremendous benefits for personal and professional development. In this article, various experts provide their thoughts and tips on how to improve one’s willpower. Let us hear in detail.
Expert Advice
“To enhance willpower, you must believe in yourself, your abilities, and your uniqueness. Believe anything is possible and take small steps each day to improve. If we improve ourselves by just 1% each day, then in 100 days, we are a completely different person. An improvement could be getting up earlier, preparing for the day, and taking a deep breath instead of attaching to doubt, anger, or fear. Keep believing in yourself and your potential. A kind act each day, a compliment to a friend or work colleague, a smile, a positive sentence each morning to yourself in the mirror!! You are amazing; believe that is true. There are a million tiny things you can do each day to improve.
Self-doubt is an enemy of humanity; if it is allowed to creep into our minds, it will destroy any opportunities or dreams we ever had. It takes over to the point we don’t see opportunities. We just see obstacles that will cause us to fail. Self-doubt limits our lives and keeps us in a state of misery. Our behaviors and actions are driven by our beliefs about ourselves and the thoughts we choose to attach to, self-doubt produces mediocre output in the world, and belief produces world-class output and copious amounts of willpower.
Believe in yourself, enhance your willpower, and become the best version of yourself; you are unique and have magic inside waiting to be expressed to the world; start believing today, and willpower will show itself to you.”
“Our willpower aligns with our true Higher Self, our Soul. Our heart is the critical focus to generating willpower that will self-sustain for a long time. The heart is where our passion is. The heart is connected to our Souls. Our true self emerges when we quiet our mind’s chit-chats (mainly conditioned/ programmed by our human societies/ traditions/ cultures/ shoulds and have to).
Finding that True essence of ourselves free from the nay says or conditions of external influences becomes the main task of your willpower. That is just the first step. Our heart/ passion/ true joy pinpoints the direction of our will. If the direction is right/ suitable to our Soul, the will free flows.
Our wills are nurtured by patience. We do not need to race. We are programmed to race against others by competition. There is no competition. There is only a natural unfolding of who we are from within. Much like a Jacaranda tree’s blooming and growing. When a tree grows, it does not care whether other trees around it grow faster than itself.
When the season is correct, the timing, weather, temperature, and needed five elements ( fire, air, water, earth, and love ) are present, the tree has it is innate knowing deeply encoded into itself, its buds stretch, its branches expand, and it blooms. It expresses itself and evolves.
If you are a jacaranda tree, enjoy and embrace being a jacaranda! Do not worry about racing against a wattle tree for blooming. Always look within first. Be proud to be a jacaranda tree, even if the whole world knows nothing about the jacaranda tree. When we do things because we express the highest version in the grandest vision of who we are, our will flow endlessly and joyfully!
“What you don’t know, you can’t love. Spend time in self-reflection. Whether it is journaling, practicing silence, or meditation. Invest time to understand yourself better. Permit yourself to tune out from the external chaos and go within yourself; stay quiet long enough to hear your inner voice. It will help you build your willpower exponentially.
Be mindful of how to speak to yourself. If the thoughts about yourself are critical, condescending, and hostile, you don’t need an external source to break your spirit. You are doing an excellent job of it yourself. So, be kind to yourself first.”
“Take one small task or a goal as simple as drinking a glass of water…and ensure you do it the same time every day for at least ten days.
Observe your resistance and do it anyway.
Willpower is a muscle to exercise. Train your mind to listen to you with simple tasks that you consciously believe are simple.
The next step is to increase the intensity of the task.
This is if you can master five simple to medium tasks. You developed a great working relationship with your mind rather than being controlled by your mind.
Tame your mind. It’s your best friend.”
“Use the anger and frustration that is emotionally built up inside of us to access a new way of thinking and having the set destination to where you see your life going. Always speak positively over your life and hold that integrity to yourself and no one else.
Do not doubt. Take notes and see if you can fit them into your life if you don’t make them fit. I’d also suggest leaving whatever no longer serves a purpose in your life.”
“Celebrate the little things, and don’t wait until the end. We often fear celebrating the little things because we think it will jinx the outcome or make us look like we are not focused on the primary goal. Celebrating the little things gives us the energy to get through tough times, increasing our ability to stay strong.
Don’t get fixated on a plan or outcome, and not be prepared to change. Too often feel we have failed if we don’t achieve what we set out to do initially. In reality, we learn as we grow and know more as we progress. By being flexible and open to change, we get better outcomes and more incredible willpower to succeed.”
“Willpower is your belief in your self-construct. Your belief in “no matter what.” Willpower is what you commit yourself to. So how do you hold on to that?
Surround yourself with people who believe and encourage you, not people who bring negativity to the table, second guess, or steer you away from a goal. Because it takes courage and strength of conviction to hold on to what you believe in.
The reason Alcoholics Anon works so well is the person surrounds themselves with people.
a) who are going through the same battle and therefore get it and
b) create a positive resonance around each other that uplifts and doesn’t pull down.
What you don’t do, is allow your limiting beliefs to talk you down from your goal. Be with people or put yourself into situations that negate what you’re trying to do and achieve. Most of all, self-affirm every day why you are exercising willpower. No matter what, you don’t lose sight of your goal. Put it on your mirror and fridge to remind yourself of your goal.”
“When you talk about Willpower Enhancement, I am looking at it from a goal attainment perspective. So whenever we set a goal, there is always a timeline we need to accomplish it within. And sometimes, the goal might take an extended period. And not every one of us is dedicated enough or patient enough. And people get bored or lose interest when we don’t see the results (because they will be seen after that timeline).
Always break down your big goal into smaller ones. Always. If something has to take, for example, six months to achieve, break it into the monthly smaller goals of the same thing. This will keep the pace consistently higher when you see those smaller goals getting accomplished. You channel the fuel you get from the smaller goals to keep sticking to your bigger ones. This keeps the willpower going!!
Don’t go to extremes. Especially if you are not even breaking down your primary goal. Because if we set huge numbers, it can overwhelm us. And even before starting, one already starts to feel the fatigue!! Which makes the willpower drop.”
Will and power when we talk about both these words; generally, Will is associated with the mind. Power is associated with the body. But let me give you a secret both these words are connected to both mind and body. And willpower enhancement is better coordination of mind and body.
Whenever any action, mental or physical, requires willpower, for example- leaving your favorite food to lose weight or learning a new language for promotion, or being able to tackle a difficult situation, whether on the personal or professional level.
Our subconscious brings our deep-seated fears, conditioning, and triggers which do not exist in the present but seem to, and this hijacks our brain and body.
We overthink, become indecisive and get stuck. Now in this situation, we react by “fight-flight-freeze or fawn. “
How to break this loop of going into past failures or experiences which just bring us into lower emotions? And this breaking helps enhance willpower as even little action becomes a dose of enhancement. How to come to this action?
Address: Address your fears and failures with the angle of learning and curiosity. Just ask: - what are you learning from the situation? How can I do something different in this situation? What and how always shift us from reaction to response. And being “response + able = responsible” gives us the courage to decide and enhances willpower.
Breathe: The first thing that happens in case of any overpowering thought is that our breath is shortened when we breathe fully from our belly, and the situation’s impact starts diluting. So when our body breathes, the brain cannot make a big fearful picture of the event, situation, or feeling. And this gives us a little dose of will to handle the situation.
Celebrate: Your goal may be significant and may take a long but even if you took one step towards it, “celebrate.” The celebration can be taking a nap eating food of your choice, to listening to your favorite music. Just anything, but the idea is to celebrate. Conscious Celebration creates a sense of acknowledgment and happy/victory memory in our subconscious brain and muscle memory.
You can remember these three as ABCs of willpower enhancement. "
“Willpower is the drive to resist short-term temptations to meet our long-term goals. Some describe it as a battle between logic and emotions. Maybe it’s turning down dessert to help us look better in the new dress we have bought. It could be studying for the test we must ace rather than watching several episodes of a favorite Netflix series.
No doubt it’s a challenge because you long for the temptation, and when we are told to resist it, our mind simply throws in a sad face or an upset mood, and then the longing grows even furthermore.
We immediately start to justify to ourselves how to compensate if we give in to the temptation. What exactly is the test of our willpower? Will you be able to sustain the power of staying away, or will you give in?
Willpower is usually backed by consistent mindfulness practice, strong mental self-worth, and positive self-talk. And that kind of willpower will not make us feel bad, sad, or upset for resisting the temptation; instead will make us feel more empowered.
One thing to avoid while practicing willpower enhancement is to take less at a time. Don’t make every moment a testing moment. If we put ourselves to the test for every temptation, then the success rate may be low, and the rate of disappointment may be higher. Instead, taking one temptation at a time and feeling confident about successfully resisting the same is healthier practice. It’s OK to be afraid, but it’s not OK to not try.
Conclusion
In conclusion, enhancing willpower is a journey that requires a deep connection with oneself and the heart. It is about believing in oneself, building a positive mindset, persevering with patience, and taking small daily steps toward personal and professional development. By practicing self-reflection, focusing on the heart and passion, and celebrating the little things, one can unlock their true potential and achieve their dreams.
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