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Development of will power
banned_crab
Veteran
Im sure all of us have had a problem with controlling ourselves at times. Maybe you cheated on a commitment or you didnt do something as planned because you were lazy. I often find myself breaking small commitments to myself and although they are small I still feel weak after I go against my self the way I do. It really is the smaller commitments that we need to keep because that habbit and willpower grows. This is important to me because how can I improve myself when I cant even control myself?
So the purpose of this topic is to ask you guys to suggest some exercises that you use to stay strong/committed in times when you dont really want to. Any type of personal excercise or just something you say to yourself to stay in control. Id like to set goals for myself that nobody can stop me from completing, before I do that I have to stop myself from stopping myself. Were so worried about what others do to us that we dont even realize what we do against ourselves. If we want to dictate our thoughts and mind (something most of us have little or no control over) than we should first be able to dictate our actions (something we have complete control over but still have trouble dictating).
So the purpose of this topic is to ask you guys to suggest some exercises that you use to stay strong/committed in times when you dont really want to. Any type of personal excercise or just something you say to yourself to stay in control. Id like to set goals for myself that nobody can stop me from completing, before I do that I have to stop myself from stopping myself. Were so worried about what others do to us that we dont even realize what we do against ourselves. If we want to dictate our thoughts and mind (something most of us have little or no control over) than we should first be able to dictate our actions (something we have complete control over but still have trouble dictating).
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Comments
http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/willpower-works/
Or maybe you just want to read something.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/willpower.htm
However "will power" to work on passions, positive attainments is much easier...thus I suggest using "will power" to do naturally "good" things and the "negative" things will naturally drop away.
Example in my case...
will power to resist potato chips = failure....verses
will power to eat a healthy salad = win
how...buy salad stuff first and walk pass the potato chip isle
Do more, a little more of what you can achieve. Great efforts for a short while is why diets are so counterproductive. You should eat more, a big salad or veg or a smoothie or drink water before eating . . . More is less . . .
Element meditation I use specifically for concentration
http://yinyana.tumblr.com/post/31454196568/elements
:om:
A.A. teaches that will power only ever gets us so far.
If we're talking about using will power to break negative habits (over-eating, drinking to excess, chasing woment, gambling, etc), I think the trick is to find some inner peace. Buddhism has an eightfold path for that. Find that inner peace and the problem just falls away.
I don't need to drink today; I have enough inner peace to ensure that I'm not constantly thinking "Tosh, a drink would sort that out, mate, a drink would sort that out, repeat, etc!" So drinking just aint a problem to me.
But it did take some will power to get to that point, and a lot of stuff which is 'Buddhist' in nature.
then....
screen and act on allyour intents according to whether they support that "thing" or not.
repeat endlessly.
1 . Anapanasati. This will strengthen your grasp and understanding of yourself and your mental limitations and in the same time make you stronger in willpower.
2 . Mindfullness practised both in seclusion and in real life. Just like you learn when your mind is drifting in secluded meditation you must be as alert when your mind is drifting from your goal in real life.
Use an alarm several times a day and at those times be mindfull to if your are following your goals or straying from them.
3 . Every eavning think about the day and note three things that you did that you are satisfied with and three things that you could have done better. Repeat this in the morning and resolve to do the things you could have done better the previous day better today and to keep doing the things you did well equally well in the future!
4. learn how to pick yourself upp when you are sluggish and lazy. This is best done by inspiring yourself.
5. learn how to calm yourself down when restless. For instance using samatha/samadhi.
But above all what you need is mindfullness,mindfullness and mindfullness...
Good luck.
Here are some suttas about striving:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.076.than.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an02/an02.005.than.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.3.02.irel.html
Now for a different take on the subject.
There is no such thing as "will power". That's why we struggle trying to find what doesn't exist. There is only sufficient motivation.
When you stop to think about it, the success of trying to keep from doing something the mind craves is only possible if that craving is balanced by an equal desire not to do it. It's all about motivation. Find the motivation and anything is possible. If you're not really motivated, it's almost impossible.
I used to smoke. I knew it was unhealthy and hated how much it cost me each month. I tried to quit numerous times but failed. I wasn't really motivated so when the craving wore me down, the reasons not to smoke were not sufficient motivation to grit my teeth and endure it. But one day my wife was told she either quit smoking or with her diabetes and emphysema she'd be dead in five years. She had to quit, there was no way she could do it with me lighting up around her, so I quit also. My motivation to resist every time I wanted to light up was thinking about the woman I love in a hospital bed.
So we quit together when we couldn't quit separately, and our motivation was not letting the other one down. No will power involved. Only sufficient motivation.
You'd think survival would be sufficient motivation to do anything, but sometimes it's not. A suicide bomber is motivated enough by the passions of hate and anger to kill himself. Did it take "will power" to push a button that is going to blow you into bits? No, only sufficient motivation.
So what's your motivation? Find that, and will power will magically appear.
Early last year a friend and myself were due to run a marathon which was cancelled at the last moment due to a heavy fall of snow.
I wasn't that bothered, but he, since he'd collected a lot of money for charity didn't want to let the people down who had donated, so was desperate to run another, which he did, and I didn't.
I'm great at doing stuff for others, but doing something solely for myself is another matter.