A few years ago, I used to work through holidays. This was not always by direct choice. Often I would be told to work by the boss. Other times, I was chasing the money. You know the term: Lose the farm? I nearly did. So money was always the elusive chase in exchange for time and lifestyle. You can read my intro to the Mindset Mastery eBook and you’ll get a fair idea what I went through physically and emotionally. This was my motivation to my Easter Message that I posted on this blog.
We are born with the power of choice
At the end of the day, though, it was my own choice to work through the holidays. I have no one to blame than myself for my own decisions and choices. And the news is this: Nor have you! We are all born with the power of Choice and Free Will. That is a powerful thing to have and something to be eternally grateful for. We make decisions every day that affect our own and others lives, for good and bad. So, with that in mind, let’s talk about Willpower or Self Control.
Willpower and your ability to change
Creating the will to change is easy – maintaining it is where most people have problems. We all have things we want to change about ourselves and we’ve been taught that if we just use our willpower, we will be able to succeed. But time and time again, this doesn’t seem to be the best advice. When it comes to making permanent changes in your life, maybe you need to rethink willpower.
When you think about what makes you tick, you need to realize that your free will is what sets you apart from other species. You aren’t acting on instinct most of the time – you’re acting based on your choices and your ability to reason out your choices. That’s free will. So when you want to change something in your life, you need to call upon this free will to make the right decision. And that’s where things get tricky.
Having the ability to choose doesn’t just mean that we should be compelled to make the right choice; it means that we have the opportunity to make any choice – even if it’s not the best one for us. Thus, calling on willpower to help us make better choices isn’t really going to work. Call on willpower only calls upon your ability to make a choice.
So, how do you make the right choice?
What does work is creating a new way of thinking in our brains that will compel us to make better choices that are more in line with our goals. By creating lists of reasons for wanting to reach a certain goal or measuring our progress as we move toward a particular goal, we can begin to see a compelling argument for moving our will into a different direction.
Our willpower isn’t the only tool we have in motivation our personal success – but it certainly can be a powerful one, once you understand how it works.
Have a most outstanding day
Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 – 2008
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello Sean – about 2 hours ago I “stumbled” on your blog and have just finished reading the entire site (I think!). What a fantastic read! I will be comming back from time to time to see if you reach you goals for 2008. You are living your adventure and you have me now thinking about my own!
Thank you
Sean, I appreciate the post. Training your mind to think is one of the most important tasks you can do to change and shape your life. I appreciate you helping people do this. It is sad to me when people go about their days hoping for effects to change, but not changing the cause.
Hi Eric. Thanks for that. Hold me responsible for those goals. That is why I make them public. There is no excuse for failure when you are responsible to yourself. Mind you, I wont feel a failure by falling short. It just means I have improved and fell a bit short of the target. Having said that, in my mind, I’m already there.
I thank you in advance for your support.
Hi Jesse. Yes, I agree. To quote an old saying: “To experience change, you have to initiate change”
Another little pearl of wisdom is this one:
“If you want to see your past, look at your current results. If you want to see your future, look at your current actions.”
Thanks Sean,
If one of your goals is to help people, then you are achieving that goal, even now.
Good on you!
All the best,
Guy
Sean. I like how you bring up the idea of “the right choice.” Its useful to develop an awareness that what seems right for you now will likely differ from what seemed right for you in the past. Both may differ from what seems right for you at another phase in your life. I sense that many “right” (or appropriate) choices exist at a given moment. There is no right or wrong choice. That’s a matter of perception. It makes sense to focus on what choices you sense you’re given, evolve to discern what ‘works’ or ‘doesn’t work,’ and use your thoughts to shape what you will do with the choices in front of you. Since we can learn from everything, and this is the point, we have nothing to regret, or feel badly about. Its all about rising above our own self-limiting behavior.
Thanks Guy. Yes, helping people is a real “feel good” thing
Hi Liara. Welcome back! You have stated some good points there worthy of being in the post. Well said.
Hi Sean,
I’ve always been really aware that I choose how I live my life or what happens to me. Sometimes I made bad choices and sometimes good ones. I just tried to learn from the bad ones and move on.
When you’re talking about making a change though, I agree that relying on willpower is one of the worst ways to make a change. I’ve always tried to make plans to create the habits I want or eliminate the habits I don’t want.
I find it really interesting how you talk about ways to make the right choice. I really like your idea of making a list of reasons for why we want to achieve certain goals. I read this in another of your posts last night and I have to say it’s not one I’ve really done before.
It certainly makes sense though because it would have to help direct your mind towards positive choices. I’m going to have to try this also.
The freedom of choice is a great thing. But with the power to choose comes the responsibility of self determination. It means taking ownership of our circumstances and deciding where we want to end up. There may be various other pressures on us from time to time, but there is always a choice, even if it is the choice of the lesser of 2 evils.
I like they way to suggested making lists of reasons for trying to decide on doing the ‘right things’. It is easy to simply react to circumstances, to follow one’s gut instinct without necessarily having thought things through. Arguing from an evolutionary / biological perspective humans just aren’t adapted to modern society – they are still based on a model of self preservation – the whole fight vs fight idea. Modern society is much more complex than this and it is necessary to analyse big decision at detailed level to ensure I make the right call. It means weighing up options in all their circumstances and not merely trying to avoid short term pain in doing so.
Tom McEwin´s last blog ..Getting Targeted Internet Traffic and a Hungry Crowd
Free will is a great power. There are people in this world who collectively spend billions on psychology research to learn how to influence the free will of humans to influence them to choose their product or whatever. Guess what, it works! At least on some people. That’s why we need to choose to program ourselves to counter non-beneficial programming and influence by others.
Wal Heinrich´s last blog ..Internet Marketing Why? How?
Too often choices are based on what the next person is choosing. Not, of course, in the case of working holidays but the common phrase “if ____ jumped off a bridge would you do it?” is used often for a reason. We need to have the will power to stand on our own instead of following the leader.
Sarah Butland´s last blog ..You Are the Reason I Know It Will Happen
You are quite right, Sean to discern the difference between Free Will and Willpower. We can all make choices, and that is the freedom of the will. Harnessing the power of the choice is the willpower. That is the process of accomplishing. ‘Och lad – why am I telling you this?’ I’m enjoying the reading of this whole blog series and seeing how you are embodying the principles you wrote about in ‘Mindset Mastery’,
Jo Carey-Bradshaw´s last blog ..Empowering Mindset – Mindfulness
I have willpower – I just don’t have the stamina in some areas to maintain it long enough. When it comes to diets I think a lot of people are like this but when it comes to success in the industry I am in I have long term will power of the strongest nature.
Sarah Butland´s last blog ..You Are the Reason I Know It Will Happen
The power of the free will is something really great – and unfortunately not used often enough. I guess because we can be a very lazy species, taking the way of least resistance. Which very often means “I will just do as the others do”, hoping that they made a good decision.
Strangely enough we then want to blame it on everybody else if it didn’t work out for us, denying that it was our own choice to just follow everybody else.
I guess it takes a lot of power to use your free will to your own best, but once we learn that we always do make our own choice (even if it is the one to just trust everybody else more than myself) we have learned something very important.
Renee´s last blog ..10 Good Habits Worth Having
Hi Sean,
I would like to comment about willpower and the power to change. When we don’t like our circumstances and we want to change, we need ‘leverage’, a good enough reason to move from our immobilisation into action. That is the easy part. As you stated, maintaining it is the hard part. Why? because people often think they are going for one thing but underlying that could be a loss which creates self sabotage.
For instance, a person decides they are going to go for that University Degree, get out of their humdrum existence and move up to something more exciting. What they don’t consider is there is going to be a sacrifice to be made in the interim. Their leisure hours will be taken up with study, their extra cash will be spent on fees and books, maybe travel. This could be a 5 or 6 year ordeal. If they have a family, they will require emotional support form their family etc. If they don’t think deeply about what it will take to ‘get there’ it could end up feeling harder than their original state of ’stuckness’ and they throw it in.
Some people can be unrealistic about time frames and when they don’t see instant results they give up.
A man down the road from me has been building a house for 4 years now. He comes up from Sydney every weekend, and in the school holidays. On the outside it looks like nothing much has happened. I went for a look inside the other day, and the house is nearly finished and he is really happy. Often we don’t see the changes, but we need to keep persevering because one day, it has to happen, you will reach your goal, but only if you don’t give up on yourself.
Hi Sean,
I discovered that I did have the power to change not only, the way I thought but the way I did things.
It has often been hard, and have had to refocus on how I was doing a few times as I still keep slipping back to looking for approval from those around me instead of believing in my own power of free will.
Today even those who were skeptical are now seeing me as more confident and determined to get what I want.
“Perception” & “Responsibility” are two words that come to mind for me when I think of Free Will & Willpower.
Our personal perception of a situation guides our free will decision-making process: do we view the situation as a “problem”, or an “opportunity”? We then need to take responsibility for the decisions we make & have the willpower/drive to see them through to the appropriate outcome.
Occasionally we will make “lesser quality” choices, perhaps in the heat of the moment, that don’t serve us well in getting to where we say we want to go. Just use that free will to choose again! As “Right” & “Wrong” are subjective viewpoints on the choices we make, aiming for our “highest” choice or purpose on any topic in life is going to yield the greatest results.
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