How to increase willpower | Mohanji
The question was how to increase willpower?
When you start being conscious of your life, your willpower will start increasing. When you are unconscious, it is very difficult. When you start becoming conscious, slowly being conscious of your thoughts, conscious of your words, and conscious of your actions, if you consistently start being conscious, the willpower increases, purpose increases, determination increases, and life becomes better.
Willpower
I always believe that it takes willpower to have a great life. Willpower can be stabilized only when we have clarity of purpose. Ask yourself one question, “What do I want out of life?” Don’t think that we have a great, long life. If you live for 80 years, it’s only 29,000 days, so it’s not too many days. We must ask ourselves, “What do I want out of life? Is it eating, drinking, sleeping, dying?”
We need to align ourselves for what we want to get out of life. And we should be totally fearless about it and unapologetic about it. But I always recommend no violence – no violence in thoughts, no violence in action, no violence in expression because it leaves regrets. Violence leaves regrets, so avoid regrets so that you can be lighter. But you need to understand what you want; otherwise, you cannot hold on to willpower.
Clarity of purpose
Willpower happens provided you have clarity of purpose. If you know, “Okay, this is what I want to achieve in this life”, you will automatically go towards it. We are a bundle of inclinations and tendencies, plus desires. Our whole life rotates around this – inclinations and tendencies, plus desires, and in life, we are chasing this. Imagine inclination is like your car and desire is the driver; our life is moving like that.
Inclinations
Inclinations mean what? Imagine you have the inclination for a pizza! That drives you to the pizza shop because you will not go there if you don’t have an inclination. If you have an inclination for that thing, you will go. This is exactly how our life is working- inclinations, tendencies, and desires. This is what is our driving force. But please remember, most of it is unconscious, not that we are consciously deciding; it’s just happening.
We get up in the morning, brush our teeth, and have our coffee, things like that. It’s just happening. We’re not thinking. When something is not there, we think. Otherwise, we don’t think. It’s just flowing, happening. This is exactly where we are going wrong. Wrong in the sense we are not experiencing anything. Our life is rotating in a kind of cycle where it’s happening without our effort, without our attention, unconsciously.
Try to make it conscious. Just try to make it conscious. Take one decision, “Without my mind being present, I won’t do anything. Without my mind being present, I’m not talking or thinking.” Thoughts happen, but you be present. Just bring your presence back to your life. Conscious, being conscious, being mindful, suddenly life changes. Life changes.
Reduce your unconscious activities to the minimum. A hundred percent is very difficult but minimal. Suddenly, life becomes meaningful. You start feeling you’re in control of life. Everything becomes easy, visible, aware. Life changes.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Padmini Ravi Kumar