Sometimes I feel like I don't have any willpower, or rather very little willpower. I work only on the wave of inspiration, I do only what I am fascinated by, even refused to get up early after the children began to rise with me in a friendly manner at five in the morning:) And yet sooner or later I manage to achieve almost everything that I have planned. And far from being at the expense of willpower. And at the expense of what? What do you need to "rock", how to motivate yourself to keep up with everything? This is my competitive position today.
Will power, as it may seem at first, is easy to use - the more often you use it, the stronger it will be. This is true, but only in part. If you start taking a contrasting shower in the morning, then after a week each subsequent shower will be easier to give. But here it is not a matter of willpower, but of habit. Will power helps us in the first stages, and then it is depleted. And it becomes depleted very quickly. They didn't eat chocolate all day, and in the evening they were so tired that there was no trace of NZ?) Don't worry, it happens to many people. You have to treat the willpower with care, despite all its power:) This was the conclusion reached by the German scientist Baumeister after the experiment in 1998.
The experiment about will power and the speed of its depletion.
Oatmeal cookies In 1998, Professor Baumeister decided to test how strong people's willpower was and how it could be strengthened or weakened. A group of severely hungry subjects were invited to the premises and told that they were participating in an experiment to determine the taste of food. Half of them were asked to eat cookies, but not to touch the radish and the others the radish, but not the cookies.
Right After that, both groups were given a puzzle that had no solution. And what do you think? The first to surrender were those who had to eat radish and at the same time fight the temptation to eat cookies. Their average result was 8 minutes. The cookie group was much more persistent in achieving its goals. They surrendered in an average of 19 minutes.
The experiment showed that willpower only works well for a short time. If you don't develop it, don't strengthen it, it will ever give up if you don't give it cookies from time to time. If you feed the willpower "only radish", then it is exhausted. That's why, for example, most people gain weight as soon as the diet expires.
My way from "radishes" to "liver"
About 15 years ago, I had a planning book in my hand, and I was happy to take over my life. I planned it back and forth, and I must say, I have achieved everything I had planned. Even two boys turned out as I wanted to:) But gradually I realized that I was becoming a hostage of my goals, that in my life there were no "cookies", but only "radishes" left. It was no secret that it was getting harder and harder to reach new goals. All basic needs, which usually move a person through life, were satisfied (family, apartment, food). And it was then that I thought about whether the goals I set for myself were right and whether the path I choose was right. Usually, between the ages of 30 and 40, each person's values are re-evaluated. That's what happened to me. I put "cookies" as my life's "happiness" rather than "radishes" of purpose. It would be wrong to say that now I do not set goals. I set goals, but these are goals that I am deeply convinced lead me to happiness, not just to material and non-material values. So my blog about happiness and my passion for energy appeared. A breakthrough in this regard was the book by Loehr and Schwartz "Life at Full Power" and a description of their experiments with the world's leading tennis players.
The authors of the book found that the best tennis players have the quality of maximum tension and concentration during the ball play and maximum relaxation between games. In this way, they are able to quickly restore strength and prevent the body from quickly becoming exhausted.
Concentrations is the principle of energy that I use today, and which allows me to do a lot of things with minimal effort: the MAXIMUM of Concentration at the right time and the MAXIMUM of RELAXATION after that. These skills, of course, do not come at once. It's a daily workout and a little willpower, of course:) Why are concentration and relaxation (the right rest) so difficult? Because in this case the body, mind, emotions and soul should work as a whole. What do you need for this?
Our soul "sings" if what we do meets our deepest needs (the desire to help people, to lead them forward, to show them the best way of life - for everyone it is individual). The needs of our souls are absolutely altruistic, i.e. they are not aimed at acquiring something. On the contrary, to help others. For me, this is my family, my blog and my course on raising the level of energy.
The mind gives the maximum return, if the brain is trained to be concentrated on the person creates the best opportunities for it. Time management (the ability to take time and turn off all distractions) and simple meditation skills (the brain gets used to not being distracted by "left" thoughts) are great here.
THE BODY. The body helps us when all its needs are met and there are not many of them: effective sleep, healthy food, clean water, sufficient exercise, fresh air, daylight.
EMOTIONS. Positive emotions give us energy, negative emotions take away. Inspiration, inspiration helps us to go forward, the absence of such stops us. I personally have been using music for a quick mood boost lately.
I suggest you to be inspired today by John Lennon's song "Imagine" performed by a young singer Manuel Kelly from Australia. He and his brother were found in a box with him 17 years ago in a military zone in Iraq. They were later adopted by an Australian family. Manuel sang all his life and when he found out about the singing competition, he decided to take part in it. Watch this video and you'll be charged with emotions for the whole day.