How to cultivate willpower? This is a question that worries everyone who wants to develop their volitional abilities. Willpower is needed by every person who has a goal, to which the path lies through trials that require patience and character. The education of volitional abilities is influenced not so much by the methods that are used to achieve it, but by how weak-willed a person is. Some people need quite a bit of time to cultivate these qualities, since they do not have significant problems that would become barriers to developing willpower. For example, they do not have bad habits that negatively affect the development of volitional qualities and inhibit this process.
Weak-willed individuals who have problems that have become barriers to character development will find it much more difficult to cultivate willpower. They will have to work on themselves for more than one year to cultivate these qualities. When a person makes efforts, then he will achieve what he wants. It is impossible to develop willpower based on feelings of self-loathing and negative attitudes.
Willpower, which is formed on hatred and violence against oneself, leads to personal suffering and self-destruction. The cultivation of volitional abilities, in which the personality will only develop in a better direction and will give a long-term effect, should be based on positivity, proper motivation and personal awareness, and not irresponsible fanaticism.
The will, which opens and gains strength, cannot suppress, block or displace other components of the personality. Developed willpower should not conflict with a person’s intellect or feelings. Everything should be in harmony, so you should use only effective, proven methods in the question of how to cultivate willpower in yourself.
How to develop willpower and character
To develop strong-willed abilities, you need to cultivate leadership qualities. Leaders always achieve their goals, they are always optimists, it is the attitude towards optimism and positivity that adds confidence and helps to develop strong-willed qualities when achieving a goal.
How to cultivate your willpower and character? The strength and will of character are determined by the qualities through which a person can exercise self-control over passions and instincts that allow him to resist temptations.
It is easier to cultivate inner strength when you are a courageous person. Sufficiently courageous individuals can take risks. A person who gives up victory deprives himself of happiness in achieving his goal. There is no need to be afraid to start something new; this is what will help build character and courage to dare in the pursuit of perfection.
To develop strong qualities, you need to have strong confidence to go straight to the goal, without allowing someone to impose your will. Staying calm helps build confidence and inner strength. A person who remains calm, does not succumb to instant impulses of passion, can more easily restrain his desires.
You can cultivate will and strong character through patience. A strong person, when faced with failures, will not retreat; he will overcome obstacles, learn to wait and endure. A person who is weak in spirit and does not know how to wait always gives up without achieving his goals and dreams.
To build your character, you need to free your mind from distracting thoughts. When thoughts again try to overcome and undermine a person’s strength and faith, you should protect yourself from them and do something exciting or very important. You should always be honest with yourself. So, if a person wants to save himself from an obsessive action, but suddenly he is overcome by passion, and secretly from everyone he does something that he should not have done - he does not deceive others, he deceives himself. Often after this, my conscience torments me. Therefore, it is necessary, first of all, to be honest with yourself, to understand the possible consequences of your actions.
It takes a lot of work to develop willpower. If it doesn’t work out right away, you need to repeat these actions, rethink why they are being done, think about the ultimate goal, and this will give you the strength to move on and try until you succeed. Just making an attempt strengthens the will and can build character.
How to cultivate willpower in a child? This is a question many parents ask. For a child to have willpower, he must have confidence. It is necessary to stimulate and encourage his confidence, support him verbally, and cultivate self-esteem. For example, when a child says that he is tired of walking, there is no need to scold him, you need to transform the perception of his action - praise him for going so far. It is likely that the baby will simply continue to walk calmly.
To develop willpower in a child, you should develop his understanding of reality. There is no need to educate him in such a way that all actions are performed at his command. To cultivate strong-willed qualities, you should tell your child that there are situations in which he will have to fade into the background, although this is often unpleasant. But in fact, this demonstrates that a child can develop willpower, and therefore become an adult and reasonable. It is very good to cultivate this quality from an early age, it will help the child in developing his personality when he grows up.
In the question of how to cultivate willpower in a child, you need to show your own patience. He must understand that he cannot gain everything at once; there are situations in which he must wait. This must be taught, referring to everyday situations, and for serious purposes. You shouldn’t always run at the child’s first call, you should say: “wait,” otherwise the child will learn to use this and begin to manipulate his parents.
It is advisable to cultivate patience in a child even before starting school; it will be easier for him later, since many children find it difficult to keep up with the lessons. School discipline can also develop willpower in a child. He will learn to be patient and understand that he needs to wait until the break to eat.
It is advisable to tell your child about possible failures; he should accept their existence as a natural phenomenon and always strive for the best. The child should be told that the difficulties that have occurred are tests on the path to developing a strong character. It must be said that it is often worth sacrificing something and being patient in order to see the desired result later. You can use images of strong heroes whom the child respects as a motivator.
What is willpower
What is this mysterious willpower that you absolutely must have? Willpower is a character trait that allows a person to control his behavior and actions, his ability to act under the influence of reason, control himself and not be led by his feelings, desires and whims.
The famous thinker Carlos Castaneda said: “Will is what makes you win when your reason tells you that you are defeated.”
When we say that someone is strong-willed, we mean purposeful, self-possessed, strong, able to overcome difficulties, and therefore worthy of imitation and respect. A person with a strong will has developed thinking, a reasoned opinion and the ability to concentrate on performing complex actions.
And vice versa: weak-willed people evoke pity, neglect and even contempt. And whatever they call them: rags, wimps, amoebas, suckers, mattresses, spineless, soft-bodied! They easily succumb to the influence of others and allow themselves to be manipulated. They are rarely taken into account because they are not responsible for their words and actions, do not fulfill their obligations and do not complete the work they start. They are said to go with the flow.
Many talented but weak-willed people were never able to fully reveal their talent and realize themselves due to a lack of will to fight and the inability to overcome even minor difficulties, often breaking down under the influence of criticism.
Education of will
Will is expressed in overcoming difficulties, and a person can overcome difficulties only if he knows why he is doing it. Therefore, the first and decisive condition for the education of the will is the formation of a worldview , the development of social feelings and, on this basis, the cultivation of a sense of duty.
The second condition for cultivating the will is mastering the ability to want . As long as a person's aspirations take the form of sluggish, vague and inactive desires, there can be no question of developing a strong will. In the notebook of G.I. Kotovsky, a hero of the civil war and combat commander of the red cavalry, there is the following entry: “To want is to be able.” For people of great will, to which Kotovsky belonged, desire is a powerful force for which there are no insurmountable obstacles. But this can only be a desire that arises from a person’s basic life attitudes, and not from fleeting impressions and changeable moods. This is the “passionate Bolshevik desire” that Comrade Stalin spoke about, emphasizing its decisive importance for achieving success (speech at a meeting of business executives in 1931).
The third condition for cultivating the will is not to make decisions that cannot be implemented and not to arm yourself with intentions that will not be realized. No one makes decisions as often and has as many good intentions as weak-willed people. A person who strives to cultivate a strong will in himself must treat each of his decisions and intentions as a responsible matter, remembering that failure to implement a decision corrupts the will.
The fourth condition for the education of the will is the formation of the habit of evaluating one’s actions , being aware of their consequences, and looking at them from the outside. Without developing a critical attitude towards yourself and your actions, you cannot cultivate a strong will in yourself. Great demands on oneself are one of the characteristic signs of a person of strong will.
Finally, the last condition for the education of the will is constant training of oneself in overcoming internal and external obstacles, constant exercise of volitional effort. That peculiar state of internal tension and activity, which is called “volitional effort,” is a characteristic feature of any volitional action. Where no effort is required, there is no reason to talk about a serious volitional task. But the “capacity for volitional effort,” and therefore the ability to overcome obstacles, develops as a result of practice. “Even a small victory over oneself,” Gorky wrote, “makes a person much stronger.” The will is formed in action. Only he is capable of demonstrating a strong will in big matters who has tempered it through hundreds of small matters through long exercise.
The possibility of a person developing his own will is limitless. Each student must consciously work on developing his will. Courage and perseverance in work, discipline, a high sense of duty - these are the requirements that our country makes of young people.
What does it take to develop a strong character, a strong personality?
1. As unpleasant as it may be to say, you will first have to start “studying the microcircuit”. That is, find out how things are:
- with the conditionally “ childish ” part - do you easily and accurately satisfy your desires and needs?
— with the conditionally “ parental ” part — what exactly do you think about yourself? What do you think you are like? How much do you think this coincides with the assessments of others?
2. After this, you will have to “ring” another “chain” - namely, the choice function, the Ego function.
Very often one of two options happens here:
— She “dies” under the unbearable weight of the “upper floor”, flattened and mutilated:
- moral values
- family settings
- ideas about “what an ideal person should be”
- self-flagellation, self-criticism - they say, “I should have achieved this, that, be this, that, by the age of 20, but it didn’t come true - that means I’m a rag!”
— She “drowns” in childhood impulses, desires, needs.
A sudden outburst of feelings, the feeling “I’m carried away and I can’t help it,” sudden falling in love, catastrophic changes in place of work, study, new and new hobbies, diets and exacerbations of “eating”, shopping to the last penny can indicate that that instead of the selection function comes the unclouded children's Id.
Where do I want to go?
Where am I going?
I am a free crow!
(c) Brownie Kuzya
This does not happen from lack of will or “to the end of obsolescence”, but only from the fact that from the very beginning the quiet requests of the “inner child”, our needs, are pointedly ignored. And only when they not only ripen, but when “the fuses burn out”, desires break free. Either a riot or a tragedy is unfolding. But you can “have time to pick up in the wild” what was forbidden in everyday life.
- Weakness of ego function.
Sometimes this option also happens when it seems that authorities and moral principles do not dominate, and more or less everything is in order with the satisfaction of needs. But there is still no “willpower”. Then we can talk about the weakness of the ego function. Just an untrained muscle.
If you didn’t have to work especially hard to achieve something, if it was always enough “we’ll live anyway”, “we’ll have enough for our lifetime,” then indeed, it may turn out that there’s nothing to choose from.
Moreover, when there is no introspection, periodic return of “what am I?”, “why did I do this?”, “and who am I after this?” - then the ego function does not develop - there is no need.
Well, have you more or less identified your case out of three?
Then let's move on to the next, urgently practical problems.
How to lose weight if you have no willpower
One day, over a cup of coffee, my friends and I were discussing the importance of willpower for the process of losing weight. The conversation was constructive: each of us gave reasons and examples to support his point of view.
In short, friends believed that willpower is the core of weight loss. I took a different point of view: it does not play a leading role in the weight loss process. Moreover, relying on willpower alone is a recipe for failure.
And so, when the weighty arguments were exhausted, my friends said a phrase that radically changed the essence of the conversation:
— And we know one strong-willed person and he is an example for us in achieving our goals.
- Who is this? — I asked skeptically.
“It’s you,” the friends laughed, “you were able to get out of that situation and lose excess weight .”
I was taken aback: “- Me?.. Then I want to upset you a little... I almost didn’t use willpower in my weight loss...”
And I told them how I lost my weight. If you think that you lack willpower to effectively lose weight, then this article is for you.
My weight loss story
There was one unpleasant story in my life: I suffered a serious illness. In order to save me, the doctors used decent doses of hormones. For those who don’t know what it is, you can type on the Internet the phrase “prednisone therapy, complications.”
The side effects of this treatment were not long in coming: I recovered. That's putting it mildly. My face and body were flabby, my cheeks hung on my shoulders, my movements were slow and painful. Naturally, in addition to the physical shortcomings, there were also psychological ones: I hated my reflection in the mirror. It seemed to me that everyone was looking only at me, pointing fingers and laughing behind my back. It was a difficult period of my life.
Thank God, my search for a way out of this situation was successful. But it was not easy and fast as I wanted. Slowly, step by step, consciously observing my body , I walked towards my goal - losing those hated extra pounds.
I want to make a reservation: throughout my life I always had to maintain my weight within certain limits. But this time, everything was much more serious. Imagine the moment when within a week you gain an extra 10 kg for no apparent reason. Introduced?
I am writing this so that you understand that there is no way to talk about any positive thoughts and attitudes in such a state. You're desperate... Period.
You have no time to set yourself up and motivate yourself. You understand perfectly well that you must take certain steps. Whether you want it or not. Do you have willpower or not? Moreover, you need to find those effective steps that will allow you to lose weight, even if you have no willpower. Otherwise... you will forever remain the same as you are now. Forever.
I knew how hormones “worked”. One of their side effects is changes in metabolism . This means that no matter what you eat (even an apple), everything will affect your weight.
This knowledge formed the basis of my first strategy. It goes like this: tell yourself “STOP.” Tough and principled. Without any excuses.
It is worth mentioning that this strategy was very useful for my situation. I believe that in milder cases, it may not be very effective. And even harmful due to traumatization of the psyche. Therefore, before using it for your own purposes, try the 4 strategies described below.
However, I have used it in my life. It consisted of the maximum actual and real refusal of food. I only ate very low calorie foods. This strategy allowed me to stop gaining weight - I did not gain weight. But, unfortunately, I didn’t lose weight. For a year I “didn’t eat” and didn’t lose weight.
A year later, I was in a state of despair and on the verge of a breakdown. My brain kept looking for a way out:
You yourself know that this is the wrong diet. You must eat. You have to somehow speed up your metabolism. In addition, you will soon break down, because the body's reserves are limited.
I started introducing higher calorie foods into my diet in small portions.
And a miracle happened: despite the fact that my diet expanded, I did not gain weight. I really thought this was a big plus. Gradually, portions of nutritious food became larger. And my weight began to fluctuate - I either lost a couple of kilograms or gained them. True, all the time, there was a tendency towards weight loss.
My experiment continued: on the one hand, I had to start eating normally, on the other, I had to lose weight. I made sure to have a healthy breakfast and took a normal lunch and snacks with me to work. Dinner was very light. Thus, I adhered to the rules of healthy eating . My weight began to decrease quite quickly, considering that the day before I had been in a torpid phase for a year.
In addition to the rules of healthy eating, I gained experience and developed several of my own strategies. I owe my appearance to them today. And these strategies are in no way about willpower.
What to do if you don’t have the willpower to lose weight (5 strategies that work)
Strategy 1: Avoid Unhealthy Food Temptations
This is the best prevention of overeating and excess weight gain.
The most effective action in this regard is to remove such (unhealthy) food somewhere out of your life. This step will save your nerves and strength, because as soon as such food comes into your field of vision, you immediately have to fight.
I used this strategy wherever I could. My supermarket (close to my house) has a baked goods and prepared food section. When you go home hungry, those smells... I avoided these two departments, knowing that I did not have the willpower to fight these temptations.
I understand that for most people this step is somewhat difficult. It is especially difficult for women who need to prepare food for all family members to resist temptations.
But still, if you have a sincere desire to lose excess weight, take note of this strategy.
Here are my two examples of using it:
- I learned to cook food without tasting it;
- I go to the store with a list of necessary products.
So, the first strategy is to try to remove all temptations from your environment.
But the truth is that you cannot completely avoid temptations...
Strategy 2. Learn to distract yourself
When you come across something very tasty to you, the last thing you should think about is that this food is strictly prohibited for you and you should under no circumstances eat it.
In such conditions, you really can’t do without willpower. It is a trap! Have you noticed that what we think about, even in a negative way, attracts our consciousness. So it is here. As we continue to think about forbidden foods, we will feel that our thoughts will stimulate our appetite and the temptation will increase.
In addition, at this moment we turn on the “victim” in ourselves and this turns our life into a real hell.
Therefore, it is better to focus on something else that is important, pleasant and emotionally attractive to us.
For example, when I went to dinner with friends (with goodies, of course), I concentrated on conversation, pleasant communication, trying to take my mind off food.
What else could be a distraction?
- Creation;
- Upcoming vacation;
- Nice day;
- Thoughts about your loved one, mother, child, dog;
- Music, etc.
Create your own distractions. And here, too, there are little tricks: distractions must be invented in advance and they must be changed periodically. Because addiction develops. And at some point failures may begin...
Strategy 3: Become aware of foods that whet your appetite.
It is very important. When such products appear in your environment, you will be ready to turn on strategy No. 1 or 2.
For example, I care about sweets. I always felt like I couldn't resist them. Moreover, whenever I start eating them, my appetite only intensifies.
But appetite is our desire for tasty food, and not the feeling of hunger. A true feeling of hunger is a physiological reaction to a lack of calories, microelements, and water.
When such products appear on your table, you must learn to consciously stop, be aware of your feelings and desires.
There is no need to be afraid that you have these feelings. You need to live with them. They don't need to be suppressed. Awareness of them will make it easier for you to give up foods that cause them.
Also, try to have foods on hand that not only will not harm your weight, but will also help you lose excess weight.
Strategy 4. Move
Really. Just move. I'm not sending you to the gym. You will be surprised if you start walking 3 times a week for half an hour.
Strategy 5. “STOP”
I described this strategy in my weight loss story.
Sometimes you still need to be able to say “STOP.” And out loud. Tell yourself strictly and categorically “STOP” when you feel you need it. This action interrupts your eating behavior. Dear friends, I know for sure that this works. Yes, the quick result is not described here. But here are real, working weight loss strategies that will help you lose weight without resorting to willpower.
For those who were able to finish reading - video motivation for losing weight.
I wish you successful weight loss.
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Tags: effective weight loss
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Discussion: 2 comments
- Sophia:
October 17, 2020 at 10:59 pmJust thank you. I'm sitting here freaking out right now. I don’t have a problem with taking medications that affect hormonal levels, but I’m tired of dieting , and trying to eat right leads to CONSTANT stress and breakdowns. It’s even more difficult because in my family both parents have completely different nutritional principles, so in life there is always the temptation to eat flour and sweets. Lots of flour and sweets. After every breakdown I hate myself more. In a fit of despair, I simply typed the phrase into a search engine: what should I do if I’m tired of dieting and have no willpower? Thank you. Thanks for the article and advice. I will be distracted, I will avoid the bakery and candy aisles, I will cook myself healthy meals and find healthy snacks.
Answer
- Arina:
March 9, 2020 at 6:42 pm
I liked the recommendations. Although a nutritionist helped me at one time. This made my life a lot easier!)
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