Building your Personal Will

For those of you, like me who have had to learn how to focus your Will the hard way, here are a few ideas you can use.

1. The easiest method I've found to train one's will is to do exercise. This is easy because it is outwardly focused and you can see results. I don't mean, losing weight results (although maybe you do), I mean each time you do your exercise, add just a little complexity or distance or challenge to what you are already doing. When I started biking again, the first day I went a certain distance, probably 3 miles on flat road, not hard but enough. When I turned around at 1.5 miles to ride back, I looked at where I turned. The next time I rode, I rode to that same spot, then 150 feet further and turned around. Each ride went a little farther. The point isn't to get in shape, it's to work your Will, your determination. As you increase the distance, you will need more and more determination to get past your resistance. And each time you succeed, your Will increase in strength.

The important thing is specifically choosing an activity that you don't usually do and is not easy as pie. Make yourself work a little. That's the key. When you make yourself work a little, you exercise your Will.

It is your Will that pushes you when you hit that little (or big) voice in your head that says, "I just don't feel like it." Each time you push yourself, your Will becomes a little stronger.

Gymnasts and military people usually have very strong Wills because they've trained themselves to get past the voice, to keep going. I dated a gal who was an athlete in the martial arts. She ignored pain and pushed past it. I actually thought she was a little nuts when she wanted to keep playing raquetball after breaking her toe. It wasn't too hard to beat her at that point...alright I'm not proud of it, but she wouldn't agree to stopping!

2. Building Will through external measures is a great starting point, but it is your internally motivated choices that really need Will.

Examples of internal choices are: What do you believe? Are you willing to stand up for those beliefs? If so, how far? At what point do you cave? Do you only stand up for your beliefs if your life is threatened?

Life threatening situations are less Will and more survival instinct. It could be said survival instinct is just Will at it's most potent. I would have to agree after a fashion. Fear is a great drug to get one's Will moving, but I wouldn't want to have to conjure up fear each time I decided I believed x, y or z.

The difference between building your Will doing an external activity and building your Will for internal choices is reinforcement. It is easy to see physical reinforcement with external activities. Internal activities however, are much more slippery to grasp.

Many of us are lost in knee-jerk responses to outward situations; I need this...He said that...She did this.

We bounce around like pingpong balls because we don't have the Will to hold firm on our position.

Sometimes we don't have a position (I can't help you with that one), but an amazing thing happens when you build Will. You start to identify what is important to you and what is not important. Then you start to feel the power you innately have and start to use it to stand up for your best interests. This doesn't mean you screw everyone else, you just stop being slapped around in the breeze.

Many Life Coaches or Motivational Coaches teach you all kinds of external steps to build your Will without ever realizing Personal Will is the target: Face your Fears, Feared things first, Do what you have to do, then do what you want to do. The list goes on and on.

Personal Will gives you that feeling of Power their advertisements claim to bestow.

more on Will later:^)