“Just as we should seek joy by engaging in enjoyable pursuits, we can receive the benefits of willpower indirectly, by removing the need to expend it in the first place. Instead of focusing on willpower, we should look to the power of will.” *
Right on!! Love that. Power of Will. We know that sometimes whatever it is just pours out of us. We could use willpower (no good) to force ourselves to do work, let’s say, but the work won’t be nearly as good as work we really feel like doing because it is propelled by nothing more than some idea from who knows where that we were supposed to do it.
We just don’t want to do it. So maybe we shouldn’t because forcing it is bound to deplete us, maybe even make us resentful. Now we have to deal with that too, being resentful. And maybe we want to make it up to ourselves, to feel better whatever it takes, let’s say by mindlessly overindulging in some feel good in the moment no good person, place, or thing – like a bag of potato chips, I mean the whole thing. We know we do all kinds of things we know we shouldn’t to ourselves when we are tired or mad or both. People I know do this.** What Kelly McGonigal, PhD calls the “What-the-Hell” Effect. Once we have fallen already somehow, what-the-hell, and then there’s hell to pay for that. Excess drinking, eating, spending, couch surfing… So what’s a better way?
Well, what if every time we felt like we were forcing our will instead of being powered by it, we paused to ask ourselves how we would rather spend that moment of our lives – and go with whatever that is instead. Wouldn’t life be grand? Wouldn’t work that way all the time though. Sometimes we have to do the thing we don’t feel like doing. For those times, what if we gave ourselves choices. What if we did a breathing exercise (in through the nose, out through the nose, belly out on the in breathe, belly in on the out breath) to kick the thing upstairs to the higher brain for clarity, focus, creativity, calm ––and then added two alternative courses of action to the one we felt pressured (and potentially drained) by. Then we could pick the one that turns us on the most, and use the power of that will to take us where we decided to go – like a magic carpet ride.
It’s a New Year. I am going to try this myself on a couple of fronts, and believe that it will work, which raises another point of the article for this post. Belief matters. People who believed humans run out of willpower felt depleted and performed less well on tasks they were assigned. So here’s to you and your own Power of Will to help you create the life you want to live. Practice, practice, practice…and see what happens.
To work on this or something else (including new program on Mindful Emotional Eating: Jump Start to Effectiveness) would love to hear from you:
Email: Madelaine Weiss
*“Have We Been Thinking About Willpower the Wrong Way for 30 Years?“ Nir Eyal https://hbr.org/2016/11/have-we-been-thinking-about-willpower-the-wrong-way-for-30-years
**Examples and illustrations are fictional composites inspired by but not depicting nor referring to any actual specific person in my practice or life experience.
Copyright © 2017. Madelaine Claire Weiss. All rights reserved.
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