PRAY IT OFF: June 2013

Monday, June 10, 2013

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Pray It Off 05/30/13 Beware of Willpower

BEWARE OF WILLPOWER

by Scott Gingrich

I must forewarn you: This is one of the single most important success concepts you can live and it goes directly against what most teach in today's success industry. If I had to tell you the number one reason why people in my personal coaching practice come to me, this is it. When they come to understand this one concept, they experience an entirely new level of self-empowerment. They are propelled forward in the fulfillment of their dreams.

The concept is: Long-term use of "will power" leads to ultimate failure. The use of will power is why diets don't work in the long term. The use of will power is why many salespeople burn-out. The use of will power is why so many people fail to achieve their goals. These are big claims, I know. Let me show you clearly why the long-term use of will power in life leads to ultimate failure.

Let's start with an explanation of what will power is. I'll define it first through an example and then a more clinical definition.

The Example: A dieter uses will power to not eat the foods she's craving. She uses will power to get herself to exercise when she wants to sit in her favorite chair reading. The dieter is using will power so that one desire wins over an opposing desire, whether that opposing desire is wanting potato chips or wanting to sit reading.

The More Clinical Definition: Will power is the suppression of one part of us by another part of us in order for us to do something. In the case of the dieter, she suppressed one part of her-the desire to eat potato chips-with another part of her-the desire to exercise or eat another carrot stick.

To say the least, we are highly complex systems with many parts and facets. Each part or facet is interconnected with all the others like one huge, complex, and wonderful web. It's this complex system (with a bit of magic sprinkled in!) that gives rise to who we are, how we behave, what decisions we make. If you look at a spider's web, you'll see what I mean.

If you put a slight pressure on any part of that web, it disturbs the entire web (this is how the spider knows supper has arrived!). If you stop applying force to the web, it goes back to its original form. Just like with the spider's web, if the dieter stops applying force to herself to exercise, she reverts back to her original form (no pun intended). She stops exercising and starts eating like she used to and puts the weight back on. She fails.

This brings up a VERY important point and this is WHY the long-term use of will power leads to failure. Will power causes us to act in unnatural ways. When we stop applying will power to override other parts of us, we go back to the way we were. We go right back to where we started and we have failed. Will power doesn't change who we are! If we want to achieve something we need to become the kind of person who has that in their life.

If we want to become healthy and fit we need to become a person who's natural state is eating healthy and exercising. We need to become the kind of person who eats healthy and exercises without giving it a second thought.

I cringe when I hear expressions like: "Fake it 'till you make it", 'act as if', or 'Just Do It.'. The people who say such things either don't understand human behavior or do understand human behavior and are capitalizing on keeping people going through a try-fail loop.
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Realizing that the long-term use of will power leads to failure is only the first step to truly achieving your dreams. This is when the real work begins. Bottom-line, when we connect with our burning desire, we just naturally begin to Achieve.
For some of my clients, the process of changing the structure of who they are (not just their behavior) is fast and easy. They don't have much work to do. For other clients, the process is more involved. For these people, there are many limiting beliefs, internal conflicts, destructive programming, etc. to sift through. However, the final result is always worth the effort. The final result reveals us at our purest and most beautiful level.

Steer clear of approaches that advocate "Just do it" or will power; embrace approaches that involve transforming yourself at the deepest levels. The best achievement is the achievement that comes about as a natural expression of who we are and reveals our unique gift for the world.

"When we connect with our burning desire, we just naturally begin to Achieve."