What exactly is willpower and why is that some people appear it have it in abundance and others don’t have any?
As a coach who has helped a lot of people not only change they way they eat and give up bad habits I have had this conversation
with a lot of people and its also something that I discuss in my consultations with my clients here in Manchester.
Here is my take on it.
Will Power doesn’t exist, it’s a myth.
Let me give you a personal example.
My mum was a smoker 40 years, she must have smoked 20 cigarettes a day, every day I can even remember when i was a kid, (probably about 10 years old) she used to send me to the shops on my bike to get her 20 Lambert and Butler as that was her brand.
Anyway she knew what she was doing to her body wasn’t good but she couldn’t quit and she had tried many times. She had even tred
to quit using medication prescribed by her doctor but that just made her feel really ill.
“I cant quit” she used to tell me “I don’t have the will power”
Now my mum is obviously from a different generation and is a bit set in her ways. She doesn’t really understand the power of mindset and how you can change it. She also wasn’t willing to explore how to change it but something happened that changed her life and her mindset forever
It was Christmas just over 2 years ago and she had just come off tehe phone with one of my cousins.
He sister (my aunt) had just been taken into hospital suddenly and diagnosed witn lung cancer. iT was all very sudden and the pace of wht was happening was crazy.
She too had been a smoker for around 40 years. It was actually pretty advanced as well and the prognosis was that she only had
around 12 weeks left to live. It was a complete shock to everyone in our family.
She sadly passed away just 4 months later.
Now I’m not telling you this to scare you or put you off smoking if you you do smoke buy xenical malaysia because you already know all that stuff.
The reason why I’m telling you this is to explain the power that bad news can have on someone who self admittedly had no will
power.
Since the day of that phone call my mum has not smoked a single cigarette.
She quit right there and then.
How was this possible without will power?
Well firstly because will power doesn’t exist. Most people can achieve anything they want when they have a big enough reward or a big enough fear.
What had actually happened was that the the consequences of her actions just became very very real to her. She could see at close hand what would happen if she kept smoking.
It was an easy decision for her in the end. It didn’t require will power. She just quit. Instantly.
The connection in her brain between her actions (smoking) and the consequences (cancer and dying) became enhanced and closer to
her own future.
When we smoke, drink alcohol every night, eat processed food, take drugs or dont exericse or whatever else people do that harms their bodies it’s a slow process.
We might put on a lb here and there but the connection is way in the future. It’s so slow that we dont notice and
we think that “It won’t happen to me”
You might also try and convince yourself that you can quit, or eat healthy or exercise more in a years time or in 5 years when
you are older. What will actually happen is that the damage will be creeping up on you slowly and you won’t notice it
The chances are though that the damage may have already been done and it will be too late
My mum was one of the lucky ones, her sister wasn’t.
Liam
