You could continue to work effectively, but that’s so annoying. You could get up and work out, but that’s so exhausting. You could cook something healthy and delicious, but that’s so difficult. Why not just take the easy route? Good question — jokes, you very well know why. Continuing work moves you closer to your goal and keeps your mind fit. Working out builds muscle and strengthens your body. Cooking healthy provides the nutrients your body needs — all of them keep you healthy.
But what keeps us from taking the obviously better way? Laziness? Ignorance? Indifference? All and none of these, disguised in the form of temptation. It has been and will always be one of humanity’s greatest opponents. How do you defeat it? Well, there is only one thing capable of that: willpower.
What exactly is willpower? Let’s look at the core traits related to willpower:
Willpower describes the inner strength to resist short-term temptations for long-term goals, the ability to control impulses, and stay focused on achieving specific objectives.
- Willpower includes high self-discipline and self-control to be able to resist different temptations.
- Determination is a core trait of willpower that keeps you motivated.
- Patience is necessary in order to reach goals that might take a lot of time.
- Willpower is the confidence to believe that you are capable of achieving whatever you want.
- Resilience to temptations that get you off track, that keep you from reaching your goal, and resilience to keep going after failure.
- Focus is a core trait of willpower that prevents distractions and navigates you towards the most effective way of working.
- Willpower is a form of commitment. When setting a goal, people with high amounts of willpower fully commit to doing anything to reach that goal.
- Grit, a combination of passion and perseverance, is present in willpower, keeping you committed even after failure or setbacks.
- Diligence is the careful and persistent effort to accomplish a task. It involves being thorough, attentive, and conscientious in your work, ensuring that tasks are completed with accuracy and attention to detail.
Now that we know what defines willpower, let’s look at some of the benefits that come with it.
- Improvement: Willpower is key to improvement. Surely, there are many small achievements you can reach without containing willpower, but the ones requiring it are the impactful goals. Therefore, strong willpower will lead you to move forward in life.
- Health: Willpower is the strength to reach any goal you set your mind to. If that goal is to be healthier (which, in our opinion, should be your leading guide), willpower is the one helping you to maintain healthy habits.
- Power: Improved self-control is a part of willpower, but it’s not only important to reaching long-term goals. Self-control is crucial in every aspect of life as it holds power. Your strength rises within yourself, and having control over yourself equals having control over the power within you.
- Success: Willpower is indispensable for success. Being connected with the entire world holds a lot of potential but is also a breeding ground for endless competition. Therefore, the demands for success rise, resulting in the necessity of extremely hard work to be successful. Willpower will keep you motivated and determined to keep going during tough times.
- Time: Willpower leads to focus, which results in effective working behavior. Through that, you are able to save a lot of time that would have been wasted sitting around thinking about not wanting to do what you have to, sitting around thinking about what else you could do right now, sitting around not achieving anything. Willpower realizes the importance of your tasks, and the time you save through working on them efficiently is the one you can then use to actually do the things you otherwise would have only thought about while procrastinating.
Hopefully, you realize the strength of the weapon of willpower. If you don’t recognize yourself in the above and fear you will never be able to accomplish such tasks requiring willpower, don’t worry. Of course, some individuals naturally hold the power of will, but even if you’re not one of those, there are certainly some things you can try to improve your willpower. After all, this is a strength that arises in your mind, meaning you can decide whether there’s space for it in yours or not.
Here are some strategies that should help to develop or improve your sense of willpower:
- Start small: Willpower does not conquer the comfortable. It affects the tasks we do not want to do, but it gets us to do them anyway. To start working on your willpower, give yourself a small task you don’t want to do but you want the result of—I know we all have one of those. No matter whether it’s accomplishing a skincare routine, doing sports, keeping your room clean, cooking once a day or even just once a week. No matter what it is, just make sure your task is clear and achievable. Continue with giving yourself new goals and gradually take on bigger challenges over time.
- See achievements as a treat, not a punishment: This might sound controversial at first, but let me explain. Let’s say, for example, you want to eat less chocolate. Now you’ve accomplished not eating any chocolate the entire day. Sounds good? Yes, it does, but instead of being happy, you’re sitting on your couch sad because you’re craving a piece of chocolate. This is, one, an example of not overly restricting yourself with your goals as happiness is equally important to health, and two, it shows how easy it is to focus on the wrong thing. Work on looking at the bright side of yourself.
- Motivation: Further than just seeing achievements as a treat, they are also a great source of motivation when it comes to tough times. Preserve the feeling of achievements and recapture it during difficulties.
- Maintain consistency: Consistency is crucial to developing willpower. Consistency does not necessarily refer to a certain time or day. Consistency describes regular effort. To start, you can combine consistency with specific times to remind yourself to keep going. But, if you aren’t able to keep up with your original schedule, don’t harass yourself, and even more important, don’t leave your task out completely! Simply accomplish it at a different time. See, it’s not that bad, just take life as it comes and be spontaneous.
- Time: Give yourself enough time and practice patience to reach your goal. If you overwork in the beginning, you’ll get burned out and stop. Just think of someone running a marathon—no one would start with sprinting, knowing they have miles to run afterward.
Ultimately, strong willpower affects your character and behavior in a positive way. You will find yourself being more resilient, and self-disciplined, living a healthier lifestyle, and accomplishing greater personal achievements. Willpower leads to personal growth. It is an incredibly powerful trait able to not just transform, but to shape your life completely.
Develop willpower to be a natural and fundamental part of your life, as grounded as your second word.