The last decade or so it got popular to say “will-power doesn’t work”.
Which is a lie.
I bought into some of that hype in early days before I knew much about the will and how it works.
Will-power works just fine when it’s put to use the right way.
Thing is, folks don’t understand what the will is and what they can expect from it. The influencers playing scientist on the internet aren’t clear about the concepts they use, which is hardly a surprise. Confused people love hearing themselves talk more than they love understanding their own rubbish.
This anti-will-power movement appeals to people who want to blame anything but themselves, their choices, and their actions for their situation.
It’s not ME, it’s my environment, my history, my upbringing, socio-economic factors, ray-sism, my family, my friends…
Anything and everything they can point a finger at except the sum of their own choices and decisions and conduct.
There is something right about this. The conditions of our lives do put powerful limits on what we can and cannot do. Not all possibilities are equally available to everyone all the time. There’s some life-courses that I could have taken at age 20 which are forever closed to me in my 40s. Some possibilities are available now that weren’t back then.
The major downside is that pointing the finger to blame someone or something else means refusing to accept responsibility.
If you didn’t get yourself there, you can’t fix it.
Responsibility is the burden of the active cause. You can’t blame an avalanche or a forest fire or a deadly blizzard for any casualties. There’s no question of responsibility when nature’s forces are at work. People can be responsible.
Until they aren’t.
Here’s the lesson as I see it:
Will-power is not an all-powerful force that lays waste to all before it.
The will has to work with what it is given, which resists it.
Failing to get this is the source of the “free will isn’t real” nonsense. The fact that you can make a choice and act on it does not mean that nothing can interfere with the process.
It doesn’t mean that the rest of reality and your life and history and circumstances don’t oppose your will and frustrate it.
The fact that you are a creature with real limits is WHY you have freedom to choose and act.
You can frustrate the will by surrounding yourself with obstacles that make its journey near impossible…
…or you can clear a path so that the will’s work is as easy as water flowing downhill.
We’re all floating down a river with powerful currents that we only see in small slices.
Leaves and flotsam drift with the currents. Animals can move around a little bit by their instincts.
Our will-power gives us humans a canoe with paddles.
We can’t leave the river or resist the drift downstream. But we can navigate by looking ahead and steering within the currents moving us along.
There’s rocks, shallows, rapids, and gators to watch out for.
Sometimes there’s a river-side picnic to stop at for a sammich and a frosty pilsner.
Many of the worst rocks and rapids — obstacles to your will-power — begin inside you. Humans have many competing desires, and our attention leaps constantly from this to that to the next thing as the flow of experience and the greedy self-interest of the ego keep your attention scattered, your will divided, and your intentions diluted.
I preach focus, clarity, and control of attention for this reason.
Nothing good happens without concentration of intentions.
Will-power is fueled by attention. Where attention goes, that’s where the will is.
If you’re trying your damndest to get a result — flab off your bee-hind, a boost to you squat, or even a creative project — and your attention is on all the frustrations, sources of friction, or 100 different “goals”…
…well, you see where that lands you.
Resisting obstacles is one thing. Foreseeing them and navigating around them is a different, vastly more effective, matter.
The will is your friend and ally when it works with the flow of your life, not against it.
Paddle your canoe where you want it to go, as best you can from where you are.
In real life, that means setting up your environment, everything from what is (and is not) in your home to the people and beliefs and ideas in your social reality, as to help or limit your will-power.
You’re always moving down the river, and your will is always working as you paddle along.
The question is whether your will working for you or against you.
That’s the big-picture outline of how you make real changes.
Not by force, by flow.
If you’re sick of fighting the current, want to get unstuck, and make real changes that stick, I want to help you out. That’s what we’re working on, for the few who really want to change rather than whining about why nothing ever goes their way.
If that lands with you, you might want to join us:
Matt Perryman