How to Strengthen Your Willpower
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Strengthen Your Willpower
Willpower is what keeps you disciplined. It is that voice in your head that tells you not to have that big dessert and instead to go for a walk. It is what tells you to get moving towards your goals and to stay away from things that may deter from bettering yourself. If you are going to venture on the road towards personal development, then you need to consider strengthening your willpower. No different than working your muscles, when you keep your willpower strong, it stays strong and the stronger your willpower is, the better off you will be to reach your personal development goals.
1. When your mind tells you that you don’t need to do something, do the exact opposite. Your mind is acting like a child so just use reverse psychology and do what you know is right for you.
2. Look at when your willpower is the strongest and then focus on using your willpower during that time of day. If you find your willpower is stronger in the morning, then focus on your goals during that time of day. Otherwise it could be an exercise in futility if you try to focus on your willpower at night.
3. Willpower has a lot to do with patience and delayed gratification. Instead of getting what you want now, you wait and hope that the outcome later is better. Well, you can strengthen your willpower by making yourself wait. If you bought yourself a video game, you will want to play it right away. Instead, put it next to the television where you can see it and do not play it for five hours. Then, once that time has passed you can play it. You can do the same with a piece of cake and a 15 minute egg timer.
4. One of the most important things you can do when you are building up your willpower is to step out of your comfort zone. Your comfort zone is where you want to stay because you like it, but to push yourself, you need to step out of your comfort zone. If you are shy, start talking to random people. If you are selfish, start lending a hand at charities. You will be surprised by how much this can help you when you are trying to build your willpower.
5. Remember the carrot and stick approach. Think about the goal you have in mind and how great it will be to reach that goal. Use the goal to fuel your willpower to stay on track and before you know it you will have reached your goal and strengthened your willpower at the same time.
Willpower is very important when you are trying to better yourself, and that is why you need to keep it strong by constantly working with it. If you do not work with it, you will not have strong willpower and you will not reach your goals. Do not underestimate the power of willpower in your quest for personal development.
To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Nov 5, 2010.
