Willpower and Its Importance
Willpower refers to the strong determination to do something that is considered difficult. It is required to get over difficulties and temptations.
A strong-willed person is able to carry out his decisions. He has full control over his thoughts and behavior.
We all know what is right, and we are eloquent in preaching it to others; but in the practical doing of right, we find ourselves weak and powerless.
Morality depends greatly on power of will. Not ignorance but weakness is the cause of a great deal of the immorality that prevails in the world.
Whenever we wish to do a thing there are difficulties in the way of doing it, and temptations for not doing it. The higher and nobler the object we wish to achieve the greater are the difficulties, the stronger the temptations.
Weakness of will may be due to several causes. It may be due to physical weakness or ill-health. Neither a very little child, nor a very old person, can be expected to be strong-minded.
In some cases weakness of will may be due be weakness of understanding, to your not being convinced of the rationale of what you are required to do. But most cases it is due to being easily led away by passing feelings.
Every temptation, in fact, resolves itself into an appeal to a sense of immediate pleasure or immediate avoidance of trouble. We should not be guided by feelings of the moment. They are so fluctuating and unsteady.
Appearances are often misleading, even where the feeling has any real basis. The struggle is between the tempting pleasure of the moment, and the greater happiness of the future. The weak will is enticed by the former, but the strong discards it.
A lazy person does not wish to put himself to any trouble even though he is told that the benefit in the long run will be great. Every wrongdoer looks simply to the immediate gain or loss; he ignores or wants to escape from the later results or consequences; he looks only to the pleasure or pain of the moment. A young person must train himself or herself to give up immediate pleasure for the sake of later greater benefit.
If you see how great actions were ever performed in the world you will see that they have been only through the renouncing of temporary gains and transient joys.
Importance of Willpower : We can understand the importance of willpower in the following points:
At work. Difficult project to work on? Just apply your mind and you will get there!
Saving money. Seems impossible? Where there’s a will there’s a way.
Relationships. Worried you cannot work things out after an argument? Just remember that a strong willed person can overcome the obstacles and heal relationships.
Studying for an exam. Feeling like you can’t cram all that knowledge in? Just remember to stay determined.
It is often said that ‘willpower is the key to success’. A person, however, whose will is strong has no difficulty in carrying out his wishes, or in doing what, he considers, is his duty.
How to cultivate willpower? Willpower has, in fact, to be steadily cultivated, just as power of understanding has to be. Very few people are born with great talents or with extraordinary strength of mind. Both faculties, however, can by steady exercise be developed to a remarkable degree.
The first thing for a child to learn is that he or she must at any cost go through what work is set for the day. Rigid adherence to a routine of work, in spite of the difficulties of the work itself, and of the temptations of bad companions, is the basis on which boy’s a future character and happiness will entirely depend.
Be slow to make up your mind; but once it is made up allow nothing to come between you and your resolution. He really triumphs in the battle of life who is endowed, not with dazzling to intelligence, but with dogged perseverance.
