You can dream endlessly and make bold plans, but if your willpower is not developed, it is very difficult to achieve your goals.
A weak-willed person will always come up with a lot of excuses to put off until tomorrow what can be done today.
Psychologist and author of the book on self-development “Inevitable Happiness” Anna Zhustal told us how to develop this quality in yourself.
Why do I need willpower?
Motivation is the engine of everything. Ask yourself - why do I need willpower? How will it help me?
For example, to force yourself to pull yourself together and implement a difficult project and earn money. And why do I need money? To buy the house of your dreams.
Why do I need this house? To feel safe, happy and free. Where else do I need willpower? To make sports activities systematic. For what?
To become healthier and feel better. The more vividly and precisely you visualize the end results, the higher the motivation.
Ways to develop willpower
Discipline is the main thing that pumps up willpower. Start with building a daily routine. Try to wake up and go to bed at the same time. Step by step introduce useful habits that need to be done every day.
For example, drink at least a liter of water a day, put away gadgets an hour before bed, do 20-minute exercises in the morning, etc.
Make a to-do list for tomorrow, try to stick to it strictly and praise yourself at the end of the day if you managed to complete 100% of the tasks. But the list should be feasible. Otherwise, constant failure to complete will demotivate and weaken your will.
If you can make these habits permanent, you will already feel how your self-control has increased and you have become more confident.
But your willpower can falter when it comes to implementing a large and complex project. “I’ll think about it tomorrow,” your brain might say in the style of Scarlett O’Hara. The reason is that you see the peak somewhere in the fog, but you don’t see the path to it.
And the mountain seems unattainable. To find the path, you need to look at your feet, that is, define tasks for the near future, setting clear deadlines. As soon as you break the goal into specific steps, you will clearly imagine the "path", and the "summit" will no longer seem unattainable.
When training your willpower, it is also important to learn how to prioritize. There are many techniques that allow you to separate the important from the unimportant.
For example, the Eisenhower matrix. This will teach you to immediately see the main thing and not to be distracted by unnecessary things both in business and in life in general (hanging out on social networks, watching a TV series, chatting with a colleague, etc.), which often weakens willpower.
Meditation is another high-quality, but not the easiest way to train your willpower. But if you learn to meditate, you will increase your level of self-control and concentration ability several times.
And your willpower will already be completely under your control.
