Willpower and self control for success

Willpower and self-control for success in life

Willpower and self-control for success: Anything worthy of achieving in life always lies upstream to reach it requires effort, discipline and self-control. If anyone promises you that, just take it easy apply the scream on your face and you'll wipe out twenty years from your looks. You spent two hours a day on the internet, and you will earn two hundred thousand dollars a year. I just wait for that lottery to open for you. That should not be believed, as they say, the person who waits for the jackpot is a crackpot. We need to utilize the proper path to success which is based upon practice, discipline, and slow growth. So the one quality that is essential for success in any aspect of human endeavour is willpower or self-control, and unfortunately, this is also the one quality that people find they are deficient in a survey was done asking people. What they felt were their strengths someone said, interpersonal relationships someone said, logical thinking and so on. Nobody named self-control and willpower as their virtue subsequently. When they were asked what virtue do you feel? You are deficient in invariably people felt, that they did not possess enough. Self-control and that relates to the inability to follow diets, the inability for daily exercise, the inability to focus, the mind on the task at hand, the inability to bring out our best in the work. That we do each of these endeavours is based upon that one quality of self-control in modern day living. That test of self-control is even more severe our ancestors. A few centuries ago, were probably not tested as much as us 90% of them were leading an agrarian life. So after a hard day of work in the field when they came back, probably the only self-control required was in regard to the bottle. But today on the click of a mouse, even while doing your work in the office you can take your mind away distracting it from the work. At hand and that is why he self-control has become such a big challenge.

Many decades ago a scientist called Walter Michel, conducted an experiment in Stanford. This experiment was called the toddler's torture, he tested the willpower of toddlers. Now how do you test a toddler's self-control? You cannot say okay you do this and five years down the line you will achieve these rewards. So he set up his test very simply, he put a marshmallow in front of the toddler and said my child if you like enjoy it, but if you hold on for twenty minutes, you will get two marshmallows. There is a reward for self-control 500. Toddlers were tested by the researchers for some of them, it was a no-go the moment. The researchers turned their backs, that toddlers reached out and put the marshmallow. Enjoy while you can who cares about the future, some of them contemplated the dilemma for two minutes but then gave him some toddlers held on for seven to eight minutes and it was very interesting. How they distracted themselves? Squirming looking the other way but finally, they gave in and some toddlers held on for the full 20 minutes to receive the additional reward. In the end, now an interesting thing happened, subsequently Walter Michel's gutters were a part of the survey, and as they grew up the other children grew up with them. The daughters went to Stanford college and that was when Michel got a chance to see, how these toddlers are faring in life. He was amazed to see, that self-control of the toddler, correlated to success in every sphere. Those toddlers who had displayed the highest self-control had far higher SAT scores. They were far better students, they had fewer anger problems. They were free from vices, they were more sincere in their work. They had better health less weight, and so on and those toddlers who lacked the most in self-control had developed vices. They were overweight, they had relational problems, and so many of them had gotten convicted been to prison and come out of it. That was when it was highlighted, that self-control is such an important virtue for human life.

So let us delve further into it where does this ability come from. Whenever we engage in any physical or mental work, our brain fires of neurons in different regions. The cortex, the neocortex, the sensory motor region overall the human brain is far more developed than the brain of the creatures. But there is one distinguishing aspect to it, and that is the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal lobes of the neocortex this gives us humans the ability to trump the lower desires to do things. That is beneficial even though they may be hard, the prefrontal cortex enables us to desist from the pleasure that is harmful. As somebody said, what prevents us from reaching our highest goal is not difficulties along the path, but an easier path to the lower goal and thus prefrontal cortex gives us three abilities in us humans. 

1.   I want it enables us to keep sight of what superior goals are.
2.   I want it enables us to not do the things that would distract us.
3.   I will it empowers us to do things that entail austerity that until discipline.

That discipline comes from this prefrontal cortex. Now the good news is that this willpower is very much like a muscle, and like a muscle, it tends to get exhausted with use. Some researchers conducted an experiment half the students in the simple survey were taken to a room, where they were radishes and hot cookies cooked in butter. But they were instructed, you will not eat the cookie, you will eat this bland radish, and the other group of students were allowed to face to their heart's content. On the cookies subsequently, their Willpower was checked. How is the willpower checked? One standard test is you give them a solvable puzzle, but they do not know it's a solvable puzzle, and they keep on trying until the willpower says enough. This group that had its willpower tested seemed to have gotten drained, and they gave up in the tests within eight minutes. The other group that had feasted to its heart's content continued for an average of 20 minutes. So willpower is like a muscle that tires out and that is why you will observe that your willpower is the highest in the morning. That is the time to do tasks that are difficult, that require, the engagement of the brain. For example writing, spiritual, practice meditation, etc. And then through the day, the willpower wins out, and often in the evening, people find that they are willpower failures. That is why, if in a household both the husband and wife are working in the evening. It is often found that they start fighting with each other because while working they drained out their willpower. They were engaging their mind in a task, that the mind did not enjoy and that is why by the time. They came home they did not have the ability to tolerate to be patient and the conflagration point was very low. However, just like the muscles willpower can also be developed. This is the nature of this brain, if you apply it to math problems, again and again, it becomes better at them. If somebody engages in juggling that portion of the brain, which is engaged in juggling tends to develop. And similarly, we can develop our willpower by exerting it. So a few willpower exercises simple exercises, for example, the body says you need to scratch but you desist. I will not now it may seem like a small thing. But if you do it you will discover that the willpower has started increasing, and an even more powerful way of developing the willpower what is that meditation. What happens in meditation, you sit down to meditate, I will think of God or whatever is the object of your meditation, and the mind says no I don't enjoy this. I would rather think of so-and-so, now the intellect controls the mind come back here. So every time the mind wants to wander off, you pull the mind back by exerting the muscle of self-control. What is the consequence in three hours of meditation? You will find that your willpower has jumped many rungs. Try it and do it and it is not even necessary that you succeed in your meditation, because even if you are not succeeding, you are still exerting your willpower. You are every time practising that, focus that, concentration is an application of your self-control and self-control developed in one area of life. Will stand you in good stead in all the other areas. So endeavour to enhance this muscle of willpower through practices. Such as meditation and even after such practice it is possible that you may find you are still a willpower failure. What do you do than tap into another power that God has given us? What is that power? This is the Y power.