Willpower is Overrated
by Gene Anger
Does it seem like your willpower is non-existent? Are you having difficulty eliminating bad habits, such as smoking or overeating? If you are discouraged with your apparent lack of willpower, this article may be the most important information you could get your hands on.
Tests done on human subjects prove we think in six areas of our brains simultaneously. While we are asleep, our minds still function in five of these areas. This means our conscious thinking is actually only 1/6th of our brain power and the non-conscious portion is 5/6th.
Trying to achieve success or make personal changes is like having a tug-of-war with your non-conscious beliefs, thoughts, and habits. One of you is pulling for self improvement, change, and positive outcomes. On the other end of the rope five of you have hidden, pre-programmed subconscious beliefs keeping you stuck right where you are now.
Which side do you think will win? It’s obvious your pre-conditioned subconscious programming will be victorious.
No matter how strong your willpower, more than likely you will fail since scientific research has proven the odds are against your success. However, don’t give up hope just yet. There are simple solutions, as I will explain.
Exerting Self-Control Creates Weakness
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 74, 1998) published the results of an interesting experiment. Just one act of self-control depletes your ability to have self-control in another unrelated area.
For example, when subjects were told not to eat chocolates sitting right in front of them, their persistence in puzzle solving deteriorated. When they were told to suppress an emotional reaction to a movie, they had problems solving a solvable anagram.
This experiment proves that trying to effect positive change using willpower is limited by our conscious ability to consistently focus on only one (or two at best) areas of life.
You are not a “failure” simply because you broke a New Year’s resolutions or can’t seem to get past unwanted negative behavior. You are, after all, being human and operating with the same limitations as pretty much everyone else.
How To Accomplish Goals Without Willpower
Imagine automobile traffic speeding along an eight-lane super highway that funnels into a one-lane city street. Can you see the traffic backed up, sitting idle on the super highway, trying to get access to the single lane city street?
Good – now you see exactly what happens inside our brains. The subconscious is processing information over 200,000 times faster than the conscious mind. However the conscious mind, like a single lane street, slows everything down to a crawl.
It’s great you want to make changes in your life. However, unless you change the subconscious programming to focus on the same goals as your conscious desires, you are effectively reducing progress down to one lane. To accelerate achievements (in any area of your life) you need to initiate change at the source – your subconscious mind. Then willpower is not even an issue.
When programmed with new beliefs, the non-conscious mind will work 24/7 to make these new beliefs become your reality. Hypnosis and/or self-hypnosis has been a blessing in helping me eliminate unwanted habits to make permanent changes. Another amazingly effective tool is visualization.
But understand this: your old habits and beliefs created strong neural pathways that repetition has reinforced. Various “triggers” can initiate your thought patterns to travel along these pathways, resurrecting old beliefs you believed to be vanquished. You therefore need to remain persistent if you plan to successfully remove or neutralize self-limiting beliefs.
Affirmations are also a great way to change the mental programming. However, there are a few tricks you need to learn before they are a viable technique.
Do you still think willpower is the way to go? How has it served you so far? Give yourself a fighting chance and begin using some of the mind tools which have been proven to work.
You want your non-conscious mind working in harmony with your conscious desires. Hypnosis, visualization, and affirmations are three of the many effective techniques available to re-program the subconscious. In today’s busy world, willpower is not a practical option for self improvement as it is unlikely you will be able to consistently remain focused on one specific goal until it is achieved.
About the Author
Gene Anger has a passion for self improvement which led him to helping others overcome self-limiting beliefs and self-sabotage. You can connect with Gene at A Free Self Help Tutorial.
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February 17, 2010
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Tags: affirmations, changing habits, hypnosis, visualization, willpower В· Posted in: self improvement
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