Have you gone through the experience of starting with a healthy habit and in no time going back to where you began or worse much further back? Well, do not be surprised as I have gone through this learning curve many times over the years and in the process picked up learning’s on working on my own willpower Muscle.
Will power like every other Muscle in the human body is something which each one of us can condition and strengthen every day. Over the years whilst working with highly stressed out executives and self made Entrepreneur’s as their Wellness Coach, I have realised that when stress levels peak, that is when the willpower crumbles. At this point in time, most of the people go with what they have been used to over the years.Sound familiar, well read on.
This is one of the reasons I highlight the fact that it is critical to ensure that each one of us eats right and exercises, especially when times are stress free. However it is not impossible to break away from a bad habit, if one does know to a certain extent how our thoughts and sub conscious work at one’s will power. Bad habits and reactions are created by doing things repeatedly.
In order to overcome this, one needs to create new empowering habits which eventually help in creating neural pathways in the brain. Some of the things which according to me will give you more than a fighting chance to develop your own will power are –
Pick one thing at a time: when people look at working on some changes, they tend to work on too many things. This is something your brain will reject and ensure you land up at the starting point sooner than later. Therefore look at identifying small things like eating, sleeping on time and other changes in your lifestyle, which your Brain does not perceive as a threat but as an insignificant change.
Once you work on small things there is something called as momentum, which each one of us can ride if we are conscious about it. Some of the biggest & long term changes have happened to me and my clients with this one simple logic.
Be consistent: If you are working on a new habit it always helps to be consistent. I know that you would have heard this before but what I mean by consistent is say you have began going to the gym in the morning, stick to working out in the morning time on a regular basis, till such time you make time for the other things, which you perceive as important and stop giving excuses.
In my experience working with people in helping them ingrain some great healthy habits, I have seen that if one sticks on to a 2-3 week time frame then more often than not it helps in creating new neural pathways in the brain which are nothing but an empowering habit called will power.
Be aware of the social & environmental triggers: Most of the things we do on a default mode are usually through some triggers around us. Say you are struggling to give up smoking and tried @ the conscious level to give up on the cancer stick but failed miserably like me many years ago. Here, being aware of the triggers helps to work around the habit. Once I realised my triggers, I just had to ensure that I do not fall into the trap.
Train your mind: There are quite a few ways one can train the mind to develop an empowering habit and in this case it is developing a strong will power. I am a big believer of the power of the sub conscious level and certain that the biggest changes usually happen at this level.
The only effective language the sub conscious understands is through images and it helps visualise vividly how each one of you are working on your own will power. What this does is that it helps in creating new neural pathways in your brain which the conscious mind just picks up when faced with reality.
Over the years I have worked on my own will power with some of these step by step approaches and it has worked for me wonderfully well. I am sure that you can pick and choose which one works for you and build things around it. I would love to hear from you as to how effective this approach would be in working on your own will power.
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