We all want to increase, what has been referred to, as our “will power”. What actually is this much talked-about skill? We know that we often succumb to our desires and do not complete our desired wishes. But do we have to wait until the beginning of the year (New Years Eve) until we can make resolutions or declarations of various sorts. Is there a method that we can use to increase this mysterious skill?
First of all, we have to discover what exactly is the will and from there, we can formulate different ways in which we can overcome our resistances in order to recover our will. What is the Will? The formal term for the will is Volition. Volition is the act of carrying our any motivation. In fact, we do it every day. Just reading this short article from start to finish is an act of Volition, and thus and act of Will.
Actually, only a person with Frontal Lobe damage can physiologically not complete tasks. In fact, even activities that are considered “addictive” are acts of Volition, although they disrupt other more appropriate tasks. For example, smoking takes “Will” simply because of the task of finishing the cigarette. If a person did not complete a particular task by leaving the scene in order to smoke a cigarette and could not even finish the cigarette: now that is a loss of Will!
You may say, so what? I say, it is a big deal. Why? Because the same method you use to finish an ordinary act is the same method you use to finish a so-called extraordinary act. What occurred when you finished a simple activity, such as cleaning up your workspace or your room? There are three major processes that occurred.
* You made an intention to carry out a particular action program
* You eliminated as much distraction as you could and selected various smaller functional motor sequences which allowed you to carry it through.
* You then, verified it that it was, indeed, correct and completed.
These are the three process of ”Will”. You make an intention, you eliminate distraction at the same time, carrying out all the appropriate smaller sequences of actions and you follow it through. Finally, you verify that you finished the intended action. We do that all the time; so it is not any kind of new ability.
What is the problem, then? The answer to this question is profound, and until we recognize what is going on, we will be stuck in our old patterns and habits. The answer to this is two-fold:
* We do not have confidence that we can escape the conditioning pattern, and
* We do not believe we have the ability to overcome the distraction
In other words, let us say that I have a problem with desserts. I eat a healthy meal and then I go ahead and wolf down a large dessert which makes me feel lethargic and undisciplined. When I finished the meal, I could have stopped, but what got in the way?
Those two skills mentioned above: I believed I could not do it and, secondly, I believed that the distractions would overwhelm me. What we do not realize is that we do have the same ability to carry out these so-called difficult actions, because we use the same processes in our simple actions. We know how to clean up our workspaces, we believe we can do it, and we know we can eliminate the distractions that would potentially short-circuit our motivations.
So then how do we “recover” these skills from simpler actions and transfer them to more arduous ones? The answer is three-fold.
* Keep applying the three processes of Volition mentioned earlier in many areas of life, which will cause you can gain confidence.
* Learn other trainings, such as being in the moment (attention regulation), which assist in your recover of the Will.
* Learn the art of self-observation and watchfulness, so you can ”catch” those particular modes of distraction that lead to the disabling of the Will.
You will find that the another key to expanding Volition or Will is to train the other important structures, centers or faculties, such as attention, instinct, emotion and thought. All the structures are connected, so if you work on one, you will have to account for the others.
The key is to not be obsessed with one center or structure, but to work on all the others, to a sufficient degree and then, “put them together”, as it were. We do this in our daily life, since we intend something, we attend to it and we encounter thoughts and feelings while we are doing the activity.
To integrate all these structures is to integrate the activity. However, we need to work on each one on their own, and volition is a great place to start, because we are always “doing something”.
Notice that there is no such thing as a “non-activity”. We are always, during our waking hours, in some social activity, even though it appears that we are doing “nothing”. There is no such thing as doing nothing because there is always some social process - externally to our self. Therefore, we are always functioning, and if we are always functioning, then there is some action that is taking place.
Even if we are sitting in our room and staring out the window, that is still an activity. Meditators do nothing, but “sit” and that is definitely doing something (engaging spiritual culture). Therefore, since we are always doing something, we can always apply our volition.
Know what you are doing; recognize the activity and see if you can ”intend” it. In other words, pretend as if it is an important activity that needs completion. Then follow it through. Finally, check to see if it was correctly done; if not, attempt to correct it.
If you do not finish it, intend to finish it another time and actually do it. This actually strengthens the Frontal Lobes, the most evolved area of the central nervous system. This area is the seat of the Will, because the three processes of Volition are the main processes of the Frontal Lobes.
William Edwards
Author, Trainer
The Skill of Wisdom
This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 8:23 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.