Something Wrong With Willpower
Willpower is something people often talk about when we talk about change. When there is a large gap between our current state and desired state, we must take action to reduce the gap, and this involves making changes. Because if you want to achieve something, you need to move towards your goal, and to move towards your goal, you need to take action and change your attitude.
Making changes can be difficult and uncomfortable because it forces us to leave our comfort zone and enter the uncomfortable zone. However, it’s necessary to change ourselves if we want to change our situation. In most situations, we must endure discomfort and slow progress, which can be frustrating and make us want to give up. But if we quit, all the progress we’ve made will be lost, and all the effort we put in will be wasted.
How high your motivation is?
Before we talk about willpower, we need to talk about motivation. Motivation is the most common driver of one’s action. Motivation rose from how we perceived our goals; the more appealing the goals looked, the more it gave us motivation and reason to take the necessary action.
Motivation plays a crucial role in achieving our goals, but it can differ depending on the complexity of the goals. For simple goals, motivation alone can provide enough drive to take the necessary actions and reach the desired outcome. However, bigger goals require more than just motivation to overcome the challenges and setbacks that may arise.
In most cases, working towards our goals consists of various emotions and experiences, ranging from excitement to desperation, from small achievements to setbacks. There may be times when the desperation phase is longer than the thrilling moments, and there are also times when your hard work amounts to nothing. In these moments, your motivation may begin to dwindle, which makes your goal seem less appealing. You may even contemplate giving up, thinking that you have had enough of all these sacrifices, struggles, and suffering and cannot take it anymore.
Fighting on that rollercoaster journey and relying solely on motivation can be risky because setbacks can quickly drain our motivation and leave us with no reason to continue the fight. It’s not a sustainable strategy for achieving long-term goals. When you have long-term goals, you need to stick to your plan and finish what you have started, no matter how high or low your motivation is. Remember that there are jobs that need to be done and goals to be achieved.
The role of willpower
Before pursuing a goal, you need to be honest with yourself and ask how important the goal you want to achieve is. If you see your goal as something essential and mandatory to have, then you will be more determined to do whatever it takes to achieve it, and you are more likely to remain committed to your goal despite struggles that arise along the way. If you see your goal as something good to have but not essential, you may not be willing to give it all. and you may quit after facing several struggles, and in the end, you only waste your time and energy.
Some goals you pursue in your life may take you a long time — more than one or two years. And in that long journey, your motivation may diminish, and you won’t have enough reason to push forward. This is where willpower comes into play. Willpower is the mental muscle that allows you to push forward when you have no motivation left. It’s the willingness to give everything it takes, to train on hard days, and to get back up after being knocked down. However, willpower has limitations, just like a physical muscle. It can only be used so much before it becomes exhausted, making it unsustainable in the long run.
Faced with the limitations that willpower has, we need to change our approach to pursuing our goals. We need to use a method to achieve our goals that requires little willpower and is simple to implement.Because by doing that, we are most likely to stick to our plan for a long period of time, and the longer you stick to the plan and the more persistent you are, the higher the chance is for you to achieve your goals.
Why don’t we only do what we like?
Life is short and unpredictable, and unfortunately, not everyone gets to see their dreams come true. Many people leave this world without seeing the fruits of their labor and without seeing their ambitions fulfilled. It’s impossible to guarantee success in anything we do, no matter how hard we work. But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The more we work towards our goals, the greater our chances of succeeding, but it’s important to keep in mind that success is never a guarantee no matter how hard you work on it.
We need to work towards our goals like our lives depend on it, but we should also remember to live in the present and enjoy the little things. Even if we don’t achieve our goals, we can still find joy in the journey and improve our quality of life. We shouldn’t be so focused on the future that we forget to live in the moment and experience all the joys that life has to offer. We don’t want to be someone who sacrifices everything for a future that never comes.
We need to change our approach to pursuing our goals the way we like. Because you enjoy the things you do, you don’t seem burdened by all your missions; you are enthusiastic about all of that because you like to do it. and even if in the worst case you never reach your goal, you don’t lose yourself because you like to do it in the first place.
Monitoring is what separates you from pursuing a goal and messing around.
Choosing the easy way to reach your goal does not indicate that you are not serious about it or that you cannot achieve it. It is simply a matter of finding a way that you enjoy the most. Similarly, taking the hard way does not guarantee success, and taking the easy way does not necessarily mean you have a low chance of achieving your goals. One of the most important factors in achieving a goal is monitoring your progress. Without monitoring your progress, it is impossible to reach your destination. Just like driving on a highway, you need to monitor your position by checking the kilometer signs on the side of the road. Working without monitoring is like driving blindfolded. You may push the gas pedal hard, but unless you can see your surroundings, you do not know where you are heading. You may feel like you’ve pushed the pedals, and the gasoline may have reduced a lot, but actually you never move forward because, unconsciously, you’re just driving sideways or backward. That’s why you have to keep your sight forward and watch carefully for the progress you make.
You cannot eat the whole big cake in one bite; you have to slice it into small pieces and finish it one piece at a time. You also cannot reach a big goal without breaking it into smaller goals and working resiliently from one small goal to another. As you finish each goal, you see your progress and see yourself moving towards your goal.
-> Conclusion
There are many ways to work towards your goal; it can be the hard way or the easy way. Working the easy way is more enjoyable and sustainable than working the hard way. And just because you work the easy way doesn’t mean you cannot accomplish your goal. No matter what approach you use, the deciding factor in whether you reach or fail to reach your goal relies on your ability to monitor the progress.
