Is More Willpower Really What You Need to Acheive Your Goals?
There is something about spring that invites us to the outdoors and to appreciate the natural world. The first few warm, sunny days I see people out walking that I’ve never, or rarely, seen before. Even my eleven-year old son commented the other day, “Wow mom, three people walking down our street at once, I’ve never seen that before.” The landscape suddenly blossoms with color, reminding us of the potential that has been lying dormant through the winter months. Perhaps it is nature’s inspiration that causes many of us to set new goals for ourselves. Spring is a time when many of us look to exercising more, eating better--a little personal spring cleaning. It’s the time--four months after our New Years’s resolutions went out the window--where we set new goals. However, goal setting is tricky because we often set the same goals for ourselves that we have failed at in the past.
What do you do when you fail to reach your goals? Give up altogether? Beat yourself up? Sometimes it might seem that self-criticism is the only way to motivate yourself--yet constant self-criticism often leads to a kind of mental-emotional exhaustion, which can lead to inaction and feeling defeated. Specifically, we often blame ourselves for not having enough willpower when we don’t succeed at reaching a goal, but this line of thinking often leads to a dead end and a feeling of failure.
What we often need in such difficult moments is not more willpower, but rather willingness. The words are similar but there is a subtle and important difference that can help you to shift from self-blame to feeling self-empowered.
Just for a moment now, pause and think of how you experience willpower; how does willpower feel in your body? What does if feel like when you tell yourself that you should just have more willpower? Then think about willingness and notice how that feels in your body. What is it like when you feel willing to do something? Notice the difference between these two states.
Willingness is similar to willpower, but requires that we move into a mode of self-acceptance before we take action. It is a state that balances the masculine feel of “willpower” and adds a feminine, caring quality that can create a more balanced state than when we just try to use willpower.
The problem with focusing on willpower alone is that it can move us away from being attuned to ourselves in the moment. It can go along with abandoning a part of our inner experience. It can lead us to a black-and-white version of life. Either you do “it” (the goal) or you don’t. Willingness, asks us to respond to our goals in a different way. In a state of willingness, you first reconnect with yourself: attune to and accept your inner experience. Second, identify what you are capable of in a given moment For example, if your goal is to walk a 1/2 hour a day, and one day you don’t feel up to it, instead of all-or-nothing thinking (i.e., “I either have the will to do it or I don’t.”), ask yourself what you are willing to do: a 5-minute walk with the dog or 15-minutes of gentle stretching? Looking for what’s possible and doable in a moment leads to action rather than inaction and a feeling of defeat.
Self-acceptance doesn’t mean we give-in and keep doing what’s not working: it means that we say “yes” to what is and breathe into the situation and ourselves with a caring kind of awareness. Did we set goals that were unreasonable (a classic self-sabotaging tactic)? From that place of acceptance of a situation and of all of what we are feeling/experiencing in a given moment, we take action.
The next time you feel stuck trying to achieve a goal, stop and look at how you are responding. Can you notice how you are relating to yourself? Notice if you are focusing on blaming and criticizing yourself for what you are not doing. Once you have observed your response, appreciate your capacity to slow down and break the old cycle of self-blame and defeat. Next ask yourself what you are willing to do in a given situation that will move you toward your self-care goals.
What do you do when you fail to reach your goals? Give up altogether? Beat yourself up? Sometimes it might seem that self-criticism is the only way to motivate yourself--yet constant self-criticism often leads to a kind of mental-emotional exhaustion, which can lead to inaction and feeling defeated. Specifically, we often blame ourselves for not having enough willpower when we don’t succeed at reaching a goal, but this line of thinking often leads to a dead end and a feeling of failure.
What we often need in such difficult moments is not more willpower, but rather willingness. The words are similar but there is a subtle and important difference that can help you to shift from self-blame to feeling self-empowered.
Just for a moment now, pause and think of how you experience willpower; how does willpower feel in your body? What does if feel like when you tell yourself that you should just have more willpower? Then think about willingness and notice how that feels in your body. What is it like when you feel willing to do something? Notice the difference between these two states.
Willingness is similar to willpower, but requires that we move into a mode of self-acceptance before we take action. It is a state that balances the masculine feel of “willpower” and adds a feminine, caring quality that can create a more balanced state than when we just try to use willpower.
The problem with focusing on willpower alone is that it can move us away from being attuned to ourselves in the moment. It can go along with abandoning a part of our inner experience. It can lead us to a black-and-white version of life. Either you do “it” (the goal) or you don’t. Willingness, asks us to respond to our goals in a different way. In a state of willingness, you first reconnect with yourself: attune to and accept your inner experience. Second, identify what you are capable of in a given moment For example, if your goal is to walk a 1/2 hour a day, and one day you don’t feel up to it, instead of all-or-nothing thinking (i.e., “I either have the will to do it or I don’t.”), ask yourself what you are willing to do: a 5-minute walk with the dog or 15-minutes of gentle stretching? Looking for what’s possible and doable in a moment leads to action rather than inaction and a feeling of defeat.
Self-acceptance doesn’t mean we give-in and keep doing what’s not working: it means that we say “yes” to what is and breathe into the situation and ourselves with a caring kind of awareness. Did we set goals that were unreasonable (a classic self-sabotaging tactic)? From that place of acceptance of a situation and of all of what we are feeling/experiencing in a given moment, we take action.
The next time you feel stuck trying to achieve a goal, stop and look at how you are responding. Can you notice how you are relating to yourself? Notice if you are focusing on blaming and criticizing yourself for what you are not doing. Once you have observed your response, appreciate your capacity to slow down and break the old cycle of self-blame and defeat. Next ask yourself what you are willing to do in a given situation that will move you toward your self-care goals.