Week One Hundred: Developing Will

One of the skills that can really make a difference in changing your quality of life is a developed will. The capacity to make choices and then follow through allows all kinds of things to happen, and I haven’t talked much about this aspect of learning to be more mindful and living with intention.
This morning, as I worked out with a Tae Bo exercise tape, I realized that the only thing that kept me going was my determination. It is a rainy morning – perfect for lazing about. But, I had made a commitment to myself to stay on top of exercising, so there I was – kicking and punching in rhythm to the music. Was this a use of will that would make an extraordinary difference in my life or anyone else’s? No. But, it was an exercise in making a choice and following through.

A friend of mine spent a recent weekend cleaning out a closet and some drawers that had been calling to her for attention for months. Again, this wasn’t an earth-shaking activity that would ultimately mean anything to anyone else, but accomplishing the task she set for herself made a difference in how she felt. And, again, it was an exercise in will that helped her strengthen that particular psychological muscle.

How many times do we make decisions about things we say we want to do, achieve, or accomplish and then never follow through? Building the muscle of determination, of being able to use our will as an important tool in creating the quality of life we seek to have, is a gift to ourselves that only gets better as it gets stronger. Now, this is entirely different from the kinds of compulsive behaviors that sometimes kick in, where we have to do something or we can’t stay in our skin. That kind of determination comes from an internal unsettledness that needs our attention. The kind of will I’m talking about is the quiet, determined follow-through, even when we would rather be doing something else. It is the fuel that allows us to achieve what we seek to accomplish.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to take on some small thing – sending a card to someone you’ve been meaning to contact, cleaning up some pile or mess you’ve intended to tackle, doing some small kind of self-care you tend to overlook but want to have as part of your daily routine. Make sure it’s something small and that you don’t need to go anywhere or get anything in order to accomplish it. Then, once you’ve made your choice, focus the experiment on your internal experience of following through on your decision to exercise your will.

The purpose of this experiment is two-fold: First, it allows you to exercise your muscle of will and determination in a constructive way that will make this tool more available to you as you need it. Secondly, it allows you to discover where you fight yourself and refuse to use your will, even when you want to do so. Because of this, be sure to allow for mixed feelings, and notice what happens when you bring your determination to the project. If you feel you just can’t, or don’t want to, finish – or even start, notice that. What is the internal dialogue you use to convince yourself either to follow through or not to follow through? When you choose not to exercise your muscle of will, are you responding to beliefs you learned growing up? Or were you told what to do so much of the time that you simply refuse to tell yourself what to do? There are an infinite number of possibilities as to why we choose not to exercise our will. This experiment can help you uncover those that may get in your way.

As with all the experiments, there’s no way you can do this one incorrectly. If you follow through with using your will, then you’ve had a chance to exercise that muscle. If you don’t, then you’ve had an opportunity to discover something you need to know. Either way, there’s no right or wrong here, and I encourage you to remember the benefits of non-judgment as you work with these experiments. They are intended solely to bring your awareness to the ways in which you move through the day, and awareness always offers the opportunity to make new choices along the way.

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