How to stop straining your willpower and start living?
Willpower is a myth. It does not exist. But you can do fine without it.
I wanted to discuss this today after reading the article “How to develop willpower . ” Maybe I won't even tell you anything new. I just pereles from empty to empty, so that you see that in fact there is nothing.
I want, as usual, to immediately make a reservation: there is no single right opinion in this area, because we are talking about intangible concepts. There are different ideological models, and they can work for different people. Everyone eventually chooses what suits him personally. However, different worldviews are not equally close to objective reality. The further our idea is from reality, the more difficult it is to put together all the models so that they do not contradict and work without fail in most cases. For this reason, I choose such points of view that find as much evidence as possible in real life, not only for me, but also for others. I will share one of these points of view with you today. I am sure that there will be much more educated and well-read people who will complement and correct me, and we all, as always, are happy to read the comments. But someone has to start the topic ... So, let's begin.
')
I look forward to sighs in the style of “well, again!” The resource is IT-friendly, and some philosophical themes scoff. I believe that this problem will be relevant for people of mental labor for a long time, and therefore there will be demand and supply on Habré.
Why are such questions rarely asked by the working class? Mental work is much harder than physical work, and there are plenty of rationales and evidence for this. Firstly, this was repeatedly stated by scientists who counted the amount of energy burned by the brain during intensive work. Secondly, a simple analysis of human behavior confirms that most people prefer physical work. On the proposal to think, they groan and gasp, sigh heavily and respond in style: “Oh, this is very difficult for me!” Thirdly, every person, at least sometime seriously and long strained brains, will confirm that this is very exhausting. Fourth, fate gave me a wonderful opportunity to compare mental work with physical work, and I responsibly declare that working physically is a damn thing, if only my health cannot be ruined!
I have always been amazed how people can work physically whole days, it's so painfully boring and uninteresting! True, it turned out that working mentally is even more painful, but that later. So, I had the opportunity to try myself in such wonderful professions as a builder, carpenter, salesman and taxi driver. Work from the series "do not hit a man lying down!" Physically - hard, of course. But mentally, such work is a little annoying, if the conditions are acceptable. When you do a routine work, the brain as it falls into a trance, at this moment you can be mentally anywhere and do anything. In this mode, working days fly quietly and effortlessly. All that is required of you is to come to work, i.e. The hardest part of this job is to get up by the alarm clock. If it was possible to earn in a taxi comparable to programming, without deceiving passengers, I would have worked as a half-bet taxi driver with much more pleasure than a programmer.
Many people from the working class envy office workers who get more money without being physically straining at all. Obviously, they have no idea what we are dealing with. Try to teach the carpenter to program, and most likely you will see how quickly he gives up. I had such an experience. In my case, everything was to blame, including myself, except himself, who did not want to work independently for his own "happiness."
What is going on? Work is, in general, a form of slavery. Slavery - bondage, akin to the conclusion. Physical imprisonment is the imprisonment of the body. But the mind is still free to do what it pleases, even though being somewhat cut off from an external source of information. Therefore, they say that it is possible to plant the body, but not the mind. The same thing happens in work. Physical work absorbs the body, but not the mind. Therefore, a person can easily stand it. And he doesn’t worry about procrastination, doesn’t bring up willpower to drag more bags of cement, and doesn’t write stupid questions on the forums “how to make yourself work 8 hours a day”. In the worst case, he just gets drunk after work, and again, he doesn’t worry about anything. Much more difficult for people of mental labor. If the hobby has turned into work, the interest has disappeared, but it is still necessary to do it, we are confronted with a kind of mind confinement. If the prisons were forbidden to think, it would be like a death penalty. So it turns out that many every day go to the next small penalty. In such a situation it becomes very difficult with motivation. From here all this rubbish begins with laziness and willpower.
Not that at all. The concept is still there. Moreover, it works. But not as an internal mechanism, but as an external instrument of influence on us.
Well, look, I explain on the fingers. We think that we have some power inside — something like a muscle that produces will. Will allows us to make a (volitional) decision. There is a will, of course. We call our decision our will, which determines our future behavior. That's our will, to do something, or not to do. Well, strength (will) - where is she? The muscle, as such, is absent. There is an explanation of will power, as a set of strong synaptic connections in the brain, or a large number of "gray matter". But that's all, I'm sorry, nonsense. Scientists have just come to a thorough study of the brain, just started trying to simulate it. Current knowledge of the brain at the level of "here we see some bursts of activity, when we shine a light bulb in the eye, then it is somehow connected." It is not surprising to find a correlation between the intensity of the manifestation of the will and the presence of "gray matter" in the skull. But the whole human body, and the brain in particular, is much more complicated than the amoeba studied up and down (and there are still open questions with those). Literally the other day on Habré, he left a link to the most interesting lecture about dreams - this is so to understand how weak our knowledge about the brain is. Therefore, “willpower” is only a model that has only indirect evidence of credibility. And if so, it is worth questioning the existence of such a force.
Willpower was invented long before scientists began to approach the secrets of the brain. Those. it was always a rather philosophical concept. And only now, when we began to have an idea that inside the box, there appeared more or less distinct attempts to tie theory to practice. But this, notice, violent attempts. There is an idea of willpower, and there is an idea of the brain. Both works. What then does a man do? Tries to find an explanation of how this is related. And finds, of course. You can explain, by and large, anything and somehow. For example, the ancient people explained the origin of natural phenomena, linking them with the gods. It seems everything is slim and beautiful: God is riding a chariot across the sky. But, such a theory gives us nothing but calm, which means it is unsuitable.
If the force was invented, it means someone needs it. To understand who needs it, you need to find who benefits. And it is beneficial to anyone who is going to manipulate someone in an open-forced form. Take for example the child. Try to make him eat what he does not want to eat. Usually in this situation, many are faced with a problem. We understand that this “must” be done, but the child does not want and does not do this.
Then, running to the front, I will say that, generally speaking, I still have to ask the question "who needs it." First of all, we need this, because we don’t want to face the problems of the child’s health in the future, and don’t want him to face them, which is why we are active. Why does such a situation arise at all? After all, the child's instincts very well tell him when he needs to eat, and what he needs to eat. The problem may be that we put the child in unnatural conditions for him: fed chocolates (where did you see candy trees in nature?), Made you eat not at that moment when he got hungry, but strictly according to schedule (have you ever seen so that the dog would say “do not come out until you finish everything”?), etc. etc. The problem, in general, is not at all in the child, but in us: we have an installation that we need to feed the child, but our need does not coincide with his own. This is called “conflict” (interests, desires), this is the very basis of the problem, and I will return to it even later.
Ok, and what about our child who does not want to eat? Usually they save some tricks: motivation, teeth spelling, compromises. But the child grows, getting closer and closer to adulthood, where he NEEDs to learn, work, take care of his neighbors, and a lot more then, and we all understand why (at least we think so). In the end, you need to make the child independent in order not to live his life instead of him, and so that he himself does everything that he does not want. How to do it? Here is the answer: to bring up "willpower"! More precisely, to instill in him that it is, that it needs to be developed, and it needs to be actively used. This is a very convenient and easy way to answer the “why” and “why” questions that children love to ask. After all, adults themselves often do not know the answers. Thus, the complex process of finding motivation is replaced by a simple “must have willpower” pattern. Look at dad, at mom, they don't want, but they work, they work. What for? It is clear, because it is necessary for survival and existence. And why do not want, but still do ??? Because they have willpower! Dad is strong (obviously), and he has great willpower. Thus, “will power” is transmitted as a stereotype, often through imitation, and acts as a universal solution to a problem. And the problem, remember what is called? CONFLICT! It turned out great. We resolved the conflict by an effort of will! That is, in fact, we did not allow it, we just do something contrary to it, ignoring one of the desires. That desire we neglect is our own. And then, by whom we are guided, perhaps by anyone, not only ours, but more often even public ones, including the opinion of parents, wife, children and all other close and not very close people. But if we neglect someone else's desire in favor of our own, this is also a manifestation of will, but they call it egoism.
What they got: to neglect their desires in favor of the public is a manifestation of willpower (good), on the contrary, selfishness (bad). Who benefits? Society! Who is, what does he need from us? Some scholars who study society view it as an organism, and give analogies. Indeed, society is also growing and developing. And he needs to survive. And we are his bricks. It is beneficial for the society that we work not only for ourselves, but also for it, otherwise it will crumble, and other more viable kinds of societies will take its place, since in society, people are much more likely to survive than they are alone.
How does it happen that what does not work? As I said, “willpower” is absent as an organ that can be pumped. But this concept is. Concept is information. We are all our lives guided by information coming from outside and inside. One phrase that establishes a logical connection between the key concepts in our life can drastically change our behavior. The simple conviction “willpower is good” leads to the fact that we begin to act according to the pattern of willpower so that we can feel good. And if we achieve a positive result, this connection between “willpower” and “good” will be strengthened, and we will more often practice disregarding some desires in order to fulfill others. This is, in general, a typical learning mechanism. But in fact, no willpower is not here. There is a motivation to be good, and it makes us neglect the lesser good. In this particular case, this concept will work perfectly and smoothly. It would seem to work - well, wonderful! But there is great importance in how we call things, whether we call them by their proper names.
The concept of will power mixes completely different goals: meeting the needs of our own and public ones. Often, both are intertwined with the same action right away, which makes it much more difficult to figure out what we really need and what doesn't. The same work is a great example, it seems that we and the community need it. And society, perhaps, will thank us in return, and that means that we need it again. Or maybe not thank. It becomes very difficult to figure out whether we want it or not, or we want it, but not us. There are erroneous decision-making that does not do us well, the communication is weakened, we begin to intuitively doubt that willpower is good. In such cases, it is said that willpower is lost. In general, many of you know that a large number of failures weaken willpower, and good luck strengthens it. But this is not similar to how muscles are trained. The latter, on the contrary, train at the limit, sometimes even on failure. It is the lack of strength and the inability or difficulty to perform the required amount of work that stimulates the development of muscles. But the unfortunate manifestation of willpower does not strengthen it in any way. And even the work of willpower on the limit, when you give all the best, and the result is scanty, is unlikely to positively affect its growth. After all, an increase in willpower means not so much a potential increase in remuneration as a guaranteed increase in the size of your victims. If you feed the dog on a call, and suddenly stop doing it, it will cease to show the willpower to lift your ass from the mat and drag it to the kitchen. In general, our “willpower” also works. But there are other factors.
Psychologists (including Eric Bern) divide our mental states into different types: child, adult, parent, sage, and more. Of course, our behavior depends on the state we are in. The capricious child is repelled by “I want,” and the strict parent says “must.” If a person is in the right state, then he can easily force himself to do what he does not want to do. Not because it is profitable for him, but because he has such a mood. In this case, the motivation will be working out the desired behavioral template, the desire to feel in a certain role, in relation to himself. And these templates, again, are usually laid down to us in childhood. If adults papa and mama showed an effort of will, then this is how we will imagine what it means to be an adult. In the end, even a banal desire to feel like a full-fledged individual will push us to work out those templates that we associate with the word “full-fledged”.
As with any intangible concept (love, friendship), it is rather difficult to unambiguously determine what will power is. But if there is a manifestation (if not strength, then at least will), then, if desired, you can get to the bottom of its sources. I am sure you will find other instances of the manifestation of this mythic power.
How to live without it, because you need to do something, but otherwise - kirdyk!
To begin with, that (of course, in my personal, albeit deep, conviction) we are not very strong, but very weak-willed people in general. Probably, not everyone got used to the idea that there is no willpower, but I already assert that there is no will as such.
We are interested in qualities first of all when we look at other people, or at ourselves through the eyes of other people. Or on items. Now, if there is a strong pillar - its quality tells us that it will not fall. If a pillar has cracked - this is a weak pillar, it can harm us from falling from above, caused by the influence of an external wind and the reaction of a weak internal structure. The presence of some qualities, of course, does not make this pillar strong-willed. Everything that happens with it depends solely on external and internal factors that are relatively easy to calculate. It is more difficult with a person because of the complexity of his inner state. It is difficult for us to evaluate it, and therefore it is difficult to predict a person’s reaction to external events. However, his actions in the same way are a reaction to external and internal factors. Under the same conditions, having the same thoughts, a person will almost certainly perform the same actions. If there is a choice, then what should be the reason for changing the solution in completely identical conditions? Is that a random component. Thus, on the modern understanding of physics and the psyche, man is essentially not much different from the post. We still do not take into account the phenomenon of feeling of our own “self” that has not yet been explained, since esoteric explanations will not give us any practical benefit, and the very fact that this feeling is present also does not give us anything useful in practice. As for the complexity of predicting human behavior, complexity does not mean impossibility. In fact, we all every day deal with such predictions many times, and quite successfully. And the better we know a person, the better we predict his behavior. In general, it turns out that will is a myth just like willpower, just an abstract concept describing a set of actions to make a decision, but which has nothing to do with freedom of choice.
How can one live with the thought that we control nothing in our life?
First, we do not forget that lack of will does not mean inaction, and the lack of willpower does not mean the inability to achieve goals. If you are thinking about the influence on yourself, then this means that the most important idea has climbed into your head: control over yourself and your life. We have no effect on whether we have such a thought or not. And not everyone is lucky in life, really. But such a thought has already come to us - aliluya, we are saved, because this thought automatically clings to all other useful thoughts, which entails the desired behavior aimed at improving your own life. We just continue to play the game “I make a volitional decision”, but remember that ideas come under the influence of external factors, so you need to draw as much as possible from outside, and not dig inside. This is another idea that automatically follows from the first, and begins to cling to even more useful ideas. Some understand the lack of will, like what you need to lie on the bed and do nothing. Their problem is not the lack of will, but the lack of a useful idea, or even more likely the presence of a harmful idea. The mechanism of action is the same, just another fundamental idea.
Secondly - to treat yourself like other people. After all, we are not much different from others, why should we make an exception for ourselves? And other people need to be perceived as they are, remembering that everyone uses his own unique experience, each has his own idea of the world, his own strengths and weaknesses, and so on. And most importantly - the re-education of a person without his desire - a thankless task. Learn to get along with others, and apply exactly the same approaches to yourself, and then you will get along with yourself. And it is possible and vice versa - it does not matter.
Well, how can you still solve the problem in order to do what you do not want to do?
At one time I tried several psychologists on the topic of fighting with my own laziness. The answers were frustratingly useless. In general, the essence was that if I did not do something, I simply did not want to do it. Attempts to prove that I really really want to, just for some reason I can not, led the conversation to a standstill. It was very strange, because it seemed that they did not hear me. And it was completely incomprehensible why then all this psychology is needed at all. In the end, I also came to the conclusion that I simply did not want to. Just the concept of "I do not want" has become much broader. In general, psychologists are a strange and completely irresponsible people. Contrary to my views, none of several psychologists have ever given me simple, working advice. But, as it turned out, they can do very funny tricks: with the help of very standard procedures, they are able to bring you to a state where you yourself understand everything, answer all questions, thank you and leave satisfied. But a psychologist may still not understand what you thought of yourself there. Helped - well, okay.
In general, in fact, you just need to figure out what you want and what you do not want. If you want, but you do not, then there is some opposite desire or unwillingness. The very conflict that we forget to resolve, stepping over us by the “effort of will”. We can solve the problem by stepping over the opposite desire. However, this way we can create another, even bigger problem. The ideal option would be to find a compromise to meet all their needs. For this you need to resolve the conflict. And to resolve it, you must first see it.
We are with you (most probably) already adults who have embarked on an independent path, and conflicts with parents should be kept to a minimum. Therefore, I will only talk about internal conflicts arising within ourselves.
The difficulty is that conflicts are not obvious. Otherwise there would be no problem of willpower at all. We have a desire, often primitive and simple, and we are aware of it and want to achieve it. For example, a lot of money, good health - many want it. But it does not work out a lot and go in for sports, something apparently interferes. What do not you understand. Why it happens? In addition to consciousness, humans also have a subconscious mind. Consciousness allows you to build a very long chain of conclusions, very accurately calculate the options. But it is terribly slow. It is a matter of the subconscious! They say it is able to process a huge amount of information in an instant and produce a result. Only accuracy is lame. But the subconscious uses a maximum of incoming information for decision making. Using our intuition, we often can not be aware of why we made such a decision. As a result, we get a solution without justification. On the one hand, the consciousness that is trying to justify, on the other, the subconscious mind, which simply wants or does not want, but does not comment on it in any way. When the conscious mind and subconscious mind have different desires, an internal conflict results. This can happen simply because the mind and subconscious use different sources of information and a different approach to analysis. One such case deserves special attention - this is when your desires are imposed on you by society, and in fact are not yours. Here we wished for a birthday of money and health, year after year. We begin to believe in this, we even find an explanation for this desire (after all, people tend to look for explanations) and convince ourselves even more. The problem is that the desire is not really ours, we were simply forced to believe that we want it. Consciousness is easy to fool. It is more difficult to turn this trick with the subconscious, it is primitive and clearly knows that, for example, we just want to eat, sleep, drink beer and watch TV. You can have more “high” subconscious desires, just more often get stuck at the first step. I do not want to say that money and health is bad. But if no one told you about this year after year, from where would you know about it? Probably from his own experience, comparing his condition with money and without, with health and without. And those who are smarter would have analyzed the experience of others.
This process of comprehension is very important for real conscious desire to be born. For example, the experience of walking in hospitals is much more eloquent than the warning of parents that “you cannot buy health”. Here, of course, an even greater role is played by the ability to learn, to draw conclusions, and it is desirable, nevertheless, on the mistakes of others, and not on our own. Many simply do not learn to learn and draw conclusions on their own, for them only the program “willpower” then works. The second example is much clearer the experience of owning a large amount of money and the experience of complete lack of money than talking about money between people who know nothing about them.
Not always available to us the opportunity to gain experience, even a stranger. In this case, fantasy plays an important role. Experience can be experienced by thinking about how it will be.There is even such a self-motivation technique: to imagine the result as bright and detailed as possible. In the end, you need to very thoroughly figure out for yourself why you need it or not. The more justifications - the harder the desire.
What this gives in the end is that our subconscious can be imbued with the idea of consciousness, and agree with it. We kind of bring our conscious desire to the level of the subconscious, which now, being able to compare both wishes, is inclined to the same thought as the consciousness. Everyone agrees, everyone is happy. But this, in general, is not such a problem, because in any case, we often think about what we want, visualize the goal, and the subconscious has every chance to evaluate it. And it happens that you want it very much, but the subconscious mind still resists. This, as I see it, is the most difficult problem, with which basically they struggle, applying incredible efforts.
The subconscious mind can also have good reasons to want something or not to want, and you should not forget about it. If you transfer a conscious thought into the subconscious mind, rather simple techniques allow you to take the desire out of the subconscious mind into the consciousness more problematic. And this is very useful to do to find out the nature of resistance. There is a high probability to agree with your subconscious, including to detect the imposed desire. Extraction of information from the subconscious, in particular, and deal with psychologists, using various methods and techniques. There are very different approaches, from simple dialogues to immersion in the hypnotic state in order to get your stumbling block out of the subconscious. If any indecision is tormenting you, I advise you to turn to such practices, and it is very desirable with the help of a psychologist. True, psychologists saythat you need to be very careful, and generally digging into the subconscious is a very dangerous thing, since it is not known what we will get out of there and how it will turn out later. My opinion is that a person striving for self-knowledge should not stop it. The main thing is that there is no risk of harm to health. As for the simpler cases - generally speaking, it is worthwhile to train the habit of analyzing yourself, studying yourself as some kind of third-party organism. Attempting to look at oneself as an object of research helps one to look at one’s self-bias and objectively evaluate the motives of one’s unconscious behavior. Mistakes, unpleasant patterns of behavior are easily recognized, and admission is the first and most important step on the road to change. The vast majority of our actions are controlled directly by the subconscious, and we carefully consider only a few actions.Therefore, the ability to analyze the result of the work of your subconscious is an important thing in general as a whole, and not just for resolving conflicts in your desires.
I never helped the willpower, except in physical exertion. It was only through careful awareness that I managed to:
- stop smoking,
- stop drinking,
- refuse junk food,
- go in for sports,
- change jobs to the one that likes and brings the desired result,
- make a lot of other, major and minor pleasant changes in of life.
The bonus is that such changes do not strain. No conflict, no problem. There is only satisfaction. Of course, not everything is perfect, and there is always room for development.
I do not have a single friend who would have done any of these endeavors. But there are many examples of failures on all counts. At best, there are enough people for several months.
- Increase the level of self-awareness, analyze yourself more often and admit your mistakes.
- Never stop learning.
- Who has problems with procrastination - use the opportunity not to work, and read Vladimir Levy's “The Cure for Laziness”. IMHO, tricky to read, but useful thoughts, and nothing like that, I no longer saw.
- Who seeks to understand himself, others and relationships - read "Introduction to Neuro Linguistic Programming" (Joseph O'Connor, John Seymour) - this is not at all what people usually think when they hear "NLP".
Thank you all for reading. I would appreciate fidbek in the form of participation in the vote. I want to understand whether it was worth writing all this. :)
I wanted to discuss this today after reading the article “How to develop willpower . ” Maybe I won't even tell you anything new. I just pereles from empty to empty, so that you see that in fact there is nothing.
I want, as usual, to immediately make a reservation: there is no single right opinion in this area, because we are talking about intangible concepts. There are different ideological models, and they can work for different people. Everyone eventually chooses what suits him personally. However, different worldviews are not equally close to objective reality. The further our idea is from reality, the more difficult it is to put together all the models so that they do not contradict and work without fail in most cases. For this reason, I choose such points of view that find as much evidence as possible in real life, not only for me, but also for others. I will share one of these points of view with you today. I am sure that there will be much more educated and well-read people who will complement and correct me, and we all, as always, are happy to read the comments. But someone has to start the topic ... So, let's begin.
')
1. Why is this topic a place on Habré?
I look forward to sighs in the style of “well, again!” The resource is IT-friendly, and some philosophical themes scoff. I believe that this problem will be relevant for people of mental labor for a long time, and therefore there will be demand and supply on Habré.
Why are such questions rarely asked by the working class? Mental work is much harder than physical work, and there are plenty of rationales and evidence for this. Firstly, this was repeatedly stated by scientists who counted the amount of energy burned by the brain during intensive work. Secondly, a simple analysis of human behavior confirms that most people prefer physical work. On the proposal to think, they groan and gasp, sigh heavily and respond in style: “Oh, this is very difficult for me!” Thirdly, every person, at least sometime seriously and long strained brains, will confirm that this is very exhausting. Fourth, fate gave me a wonderful opportunity to compare mental work with physical work, and I responsibly declare that working physically is a damn thing, if only my health cannot be ruined!
I have always been amazed how people can work physically whole days, it's so painfully boring and uninteresting! True, it turned out that working mentally is even more painful, but that later. So, I had the opportunity to try myself in such wonderful professions as a builder, carpenter, salesman and taxi driver. Work from the series "do not hit a man lying down!" Physically - hard, of course. But mentally, such work is a little annoying, if the conditions are acceptable. When you do a routine work, the brain as it falls into a trance, at this moment you can be mentally anywhere and do anything. In this mode, working days fly quietly and effortlessly. All that is required of you is to come to work, i.e. The hardest part of this job is to get up by the alarm clock. If it was possible to earn in a taxi comparable to programming, without deceiving passengers, I would have worked as a half-bet taxi driver with much more pleasure than a programmer.
Many people from the working class envy office workers who get more money without being physically straining at all. Obviously, they have no idea what we are dealing with. Try to teach the carpenter to program, and most likely you will see how quickly he gives up. I had such an experience. In my case, everything was to blame, including myself, except himself, who did not want to work independently for his own "happiness."
What is going on? Work is, in general, a form of slavery. Slavery - bondage, akin to the conclusion. Physical imprisonment is the imprisonment of the body. But the mind is still free to do what it pleases, even though being somewhat cut off from an external source of information. Therefore, they say that it is possible to plant the body, but not the mind. The same thing happens in work. Physical work absorbs the body, but not the mind. Therefore, a person can easily stand it. And he doesn’t worry about procrastination, doesn’t bring up willpower to drag more bags of cement, and doesn’t write stupid questions on the forums “how to make yourself work 8 hours a day”. In the worst case, he just gets drunk after work, and again, he doesn’t worry about anything. Much more difficult for people of mental labor. If the hobby has turned into work, the interest has disappeared, but it is still necessary to do it, we are confronted with a kind of mind confinement. If the prisons were forbidden to think, it would be like a death penalty. So it turns out that many every day go to the next small penalty. In such a situation it becomes very difficult with motivation. From here all this rubbish begins with laziness and willpower.
2. Willpower does not exist.
Not that at all. The concept is still there. Moreover, it works. But not as an internal mechanism, but as an external instrument of influence on us.
Well, look, I explain on the fingers. We think that we have some power inside — something like a muscle that produces will. Will allows us to make a (volitional) decision. There is a will, of course. We call our decision our will, which determines our future behavior. That's our will, to do something, or not to do. Well, strength (will) - where is she? The muscle, as such, is absent. There is an explanation of will power, as a set of strong synaptic connections in the brain, or a large number of "gray matter". But that's all, I'm sorry, nonsense. Scientists have just come to a thorough study of the brain, just started trying to simulate it. Current knowledge of the brain at the level of "here we see some bursts of activity, when we shine a light bulb in the eye, then it is somehow connected." It is not surprising to find a correlation between the intensity of the manifestation of the will and the presence of "gray matter" in the skull. But the whole human body, and the brain in particular, is much more complicated than the amoeba studied up and down (and there are still open questions with those). Literally the other day on Habré, he left a link to the most interesting lecture about dreams - this is so to understand how weak our knowledge about the brain is. Therefore, “willpower” is only a model that has only indirect evidence of credibility. And if so, it is worth questioning the existence of such a force.
Willpower was invented long before scientists began to approach the secrets of the brain. Those. it was always a rather philosophical concept. And only now, when we began to have an idea that inside the box, there appeared more or less distinct attempts to tie theory to practice. But this, notice, violent attempts. There is an idea of willpower, and there is an idea of the brain. Both works. What then does a man do? Tries to find an explanation of how this is related. And finds, of course. You can explain, by and large, anything and somehow. For example, the ancient people explained the origin of natural phenomena, linking them with the gods. It seems everything is slim and beautiful: God is riding a chariot across the sky. But, such a theory gives us nothing but calm, which means it is unsuitable.
3. Who needs to invent a non-existent force?
If the force was invented, it means someone needs it. To understand who needs it, you need to find who benefits. And it is beneficial to anyone who is going to manipulate someone in an open-forced form. Take for example the child. Try to make him eat what he does not want to eat. Usually in this situation, many are faced with a problem. We understand that this “must” be done, but the child does not want and does not do this.
Then, running to the front, I will say that, generally speaking, I still have to ask the question "who needs it." First of all, we need this, because we don’t want to face the problems of the child’s health in the future, and don’t want him to face them, which is why we are active. Why does such a situation arise at all? After all, the child's instincts very well tell him when he needs to eat, and what he needs to eat. The problem may be that we put the child in unnatural conditions for him: fed chocolates (where did you see candy trees in nature?), Made you eat not at that moment when he got hungry, but strictly according to schedule (have you ever seen so that the dog would say “do not come out until you finish everything”?), etc. etc. The problem, in general, is not at all in the child, but in us: we have an installation that we need to feed the child, but our need does not coincide with his own. This is called “conflict” (interests, desires), this is the very basis of the problem, and I will return to it even later.
Ok, and what about our child who does not want to eat? Usually they save some tricks: motivation, teeth spelling, compromises. But the child grows, getting closer and closer to adulthood, where he NEEDs to learn, work, take care of his neighbors, and a lot more then, and we all understand why (at least we think so). In the end, you need to make the child independent in order not to live his life instead of him, and so that he himself does everything that he does not want. How to do it? Here is the answer: to bring up "willpower"! More precisely, to instill in him that it is, that it needs to be developed, and it needs to be actively used. This is a very convenient and easy way to answer the “why” and “why” questions that children love to ask. After all, adults themselves often do not know the answers. Thus, the complex process of finding motivation is replaced by a simple “must have willpower” pattern. Look at dad, at mom, they don't want, but they work, they work. What for? It is clear, because it is necessary for survival and existence. And why do not want, but still do ??? Because they have willpower! Dad is strong (obviously), and he has great willpower. Thus, “will power” is transmitted as a stereotype, often through imitation, and acts as a universal solution to a problem. And the problem, remember what is called? CONFLICT! It turned out great. We resolved the conflict by an effort of will! That is, in fact, we did not allow it, we just do something contrary to it, ignoring one of the desires. That desire we neglect is our own. And then, by whom we are guided, perhaps by anyone, not only ours, but more often even public ones, including the opinion of parents, wife, children and all other close and not very close people. But if we neglect someone else's desire in favor of our own, this is also a manifestation of will, but they call it egoism.
What they got: to neglect their desires in favor of the public is a manifestation of willpower (good), on the contrary, selfishness (bad). Who benefits? Society! Who is, what does he need from us? Some scholars who study society view it as an organism, and give analogies. Indeed, society is also growing and developing. And he needs to survive. And we are his bricks. It is beneficial for the society that we work not only for ourselves, but also for it, otherwise it will crumble, and other more viable kinds of societies will take its place, since in society, people are much more likely to survive than they are alone.
4. It is not there, but does it still work?
How does it happen that what does not work? As I said, “willpower” is absent as an organ that can be pumped. But this concept is. Concept is information. We are all our lives guided by information coming from outside and inside. One phrase that establishes a logical connection between the key concepts in our life can drastically change our behavior. The simple conviction “willpower is good” leads to the fact that we begin to act according to the pattern of willpower so that we can feel good. And if we achieve a positive result, this connection between “willpower” and “good” will be strengthened, and we will more often practice disregarding some desires in order to fulfill others. This is, in general, a typical learning mechanism. But in fact, no willpower is not here. There is a motivation to be good, and it makes us neglect the lesser good. In this particular case, this concept will work perfectly and smoothly. It would seem to work - well, wonderful! But there is great importance in how we call things, whether we call them by their proper names.
The concept of will power mixes completely different goals: meeting the needs of our own and public ones. Often, both are intertwined with the same action right away, which makes it much more difficult to figure out what we really need and what doesn't. The same work is a great example, it seems that we and the community need it. And society, perhaps, will thank us in return, and that means that we need it again. Or maybe not thank. It becomes very difficult to figure out whether we want it or not, or we want it, but not us. There are erroneous decision-making that does not do us well, the communication is weakened, we begin to intuitively doubt that willpower is good. In such cases, it is said that willpower is lost. In general, many of you know that a large number of failures weaken willpower, and good luck strengthens it. But this is not similar to how muscles are trained. The latter, on the contrary, train at the limit, sometimes even on failure. It is the lack of strength and the inability or difficulty to perform the required amount of work that stimulates the development of muscles. But the unfortunate manifestation of willpower does not strengthen it in any way. And even the work of willpower on the limit, when you give all the best, and the result is scanty, is unlikely to positively affect its growth. After all, an increase in willpower means not so much a potential increase in remuneration as a guaranteed increase in the size of your victims. If you feed the dog on a call, and suddenly stop doing it, it will cease to show the willpower to lift your ass from the mat and drag it to the kitchen. In general, our “willpower” also works. But there are other factors.
Psychologists (including Eric Bern) divide our mental states into different types: child, adult, parent, sage, and more. Of course, our behavior depends on the state we are in. The capricious child is repelled by “I want,” and the strict parent says “must.” If a person is in the right state, then he can easily force himself to do what he does not want to do. Not because it is profitable for him, but because he has such a mood. In this case, the motivation will be working out the desired behavioral template, the desire to feel in a certain role, in relation to himself. And these templates, again, are usually laid down to us in childhood. If adults papa and mama showed an effort of will, then this is how we will imagine what it means to be an adult. In the end, even a banal desire to feel like a full-fledged individual will push us to work out those templates that we associate with the word “full-fledged”.
As with any intangible concept (love, friendship), it is rather difficult to unambiguously determine what will power is. But if there is a manifestation (if not strength, then at least will), then, if desired, you can get to the bottom of its sources. I am sure you will find other instances of the manifestation of this mythic power.
5. Is life possible without willpower?
How to live without it, because you need to do something, but otherwise - kirdyk!
To begin with, that (of course, in my personal, albeit deep, conviction) we are not very strong, but very weak-willed people in general. Probably, not everyone got used to the idea that there is no willpower, but I already assert that there is no will as such.
Will as a human quality is the ability to make choices and perform actions.
We are interested in qualities first of all when we look at other people, or at ourselves through the eyes of other people. Or on items. Now, if there is a strong pillar - its quality tells us that it will not fall. If a pillar has cracked - this is a weak pillar, it can harm us from falling from above, caused by the influence of an external wind and the reaction of a weak internal structure. The presence of some qualities, of course, does not make this pillar strong-willed. Everything that happens with it depends solely on external and internal factors that are relatively easy to calculate. It is more difficult with a person because of the complexity of his inner state. It is difficult for us to evaluate it, and therefore it is difficult to predict a person’s reaction to external events. However, his actions in the same way are a reaction to external and internal factors. Under the same conditions, having the same thoughts, a person will almost certainly perform the same actions. If there is a choice, then what should be the reason for changing the solution in completely identical conditions? Is that a random component. Thus, on the modern understanding of physics and the psyche, man is essentially not much different from the post. We still do not take into account the phenomenon of feeling of our own “self” that has not yet been explained, since esoteric explanations will not give us any practical benefit, and the very fact that this feeling is present also does not give us anything useful in practice. As for the complexity of predicting human behavior, complexity does not mean impossibility. In fact, we all every day deal with such predictions many times, and quite successfully. And the better we know a person, the better we predict his behavior. In general, it turns out that will is a myth just like willpower, just an abstract concept describing a set of actions to make a decision, but which has nothing to do with freedom of choice.
How can one live with the thought that we control nothing in our life?
First, we do not forget that lack of will does not mean inaction, and the lack of willpower does not mean the inability to achieve goals. If you are thinking about the influence on yourself, then this means that the most important idea has climbed into your head: control over yourself and your life. We have no effect on whether we have such a thought or not. And not everyone is lucky in life, really. But such a thought has already come to us - aliluya, we are saved, because this thought automatically clings to all other useful thoughts, which entails the desired behavior aimed at improving your own life. We just continue to play the game “I make a volitional decision”, but remember that ideas come under the influence of external factors, so you need to draw as much as possible from outside, and not dig inside. This is another idea that automatically follows from the first, and begins to cling to even more useful ideas. Some understand the lack of will, like what you need to lie on the bed and do nothing. Their problem is not the lack of will, but the lack of a useful idea, or even more likely the presence of a harmful idea. The mechanism of action is the same, just another fundamental idea.
Secondly - to treat yourself like other people. After all, we are not much different from others, why should we make an exception for ourselves? And other people need to be perceived as they are, remembering that everyone uses his own unique experience, each has his own idea of the world, his own strengths and weaknesses, and so on. And most importantly - the re-education of a person without his desire - a thankless task. Learn to get along with others, and apply exactly the same approaches to yourself, and then you will get along with yourself. And it is possible and vice versa - it does not matter.
Well, how can you still solve the problem in order to do what you do not want to do?
At one time I tried several psychologists on the topic of fighting with my own laziness. The answers were frustratingly useless. In general, the essence was that if I did not do something, I simply did not want to do it. Attempts to prove that I really really want to, just for some reason I can not, led the conversation to a standstill. It was very strange, because it seemed that they did not hear me. And it was completely incomprehensible why then all this psychology is needed at all. In the end, I also came to the conclusion that I simply did not want to. Just the concept of "I do not want" has become much broader. In general, psychologists are a strange and completely irresponsible people. Contrary to my views, none of several psychologists have ever given me simple, working advice. But, as it turned out, they can do very funny tricks: with the help of very standard procedures, they are able to bring you to a state where you yourself understand everything, answer all questions, thank you and leave satisfied. But a psychologist may still not understand what you thought of yourself there. Helped - well, okay.
In general, in fact, you just need to figure out what you want and what you do not want. If you want, but you do not, then there is some opposite desire or unwillingness. The very conflict that we forget to resolve, stepping over us by the “effort of will”. We can solve the problem by stepping over the opposite desire. However, this way we can create another, even bigger problem. The ideal option would be to find a compromise to meet all their needs. For this you need to resolve the conflict. And to resolve it, you must first see it.
6. Where do conflicts come from?
We are with you (most probably) already adults who have embarked on an independent path, and conflicts with parents should be kept to a minimum. Therefore, I will only talk about internal conflicts arising within ourselves.
The difficulty is that conflicts are not obvious. Otherwise there would be no problem of willpower at all. We have a desire, often primitive and simple, and we are aware of it and want to achieve it. For example, a lot of money, good health - many want it. But it does not work out a lot and go in for sports, something apparently interferes. What do not you understand. Why it happens? In addition to consciousness, humans also have a subconscious mind. Consciousness allows you to build a very long chain of conclusions, very accurately calculate the options. But it is terribly slow. It is a matter of the subconscious! They say it is able to process a huge amount of information in an instant and produce a result. Only accuracy is lame. But the subconscious uses a maximum of incoming information for decision making. Using our intuition, we often can not be aware of why we made such a decision. As a result, we get a solution without justification. On the one hand, the consciousness that is trying to justify, on the other, the subconscious mind, which simply wants or does not want, but does not comment on it in any way. When the conscious mind and subconscious mind have different desires, an internal conflict results. This can happen simply because the mind and subconscious use different sources of information and a different approach to analysis. One such case deserves special attention - this is when your desires are imposed on you by society, and in fact are not yours. Here we wished for a birthday of money and health, year after year. We begin to believe in this, we even find an explanation for this desire (after all, people tend to look for explanations) and convince ourselves even more. The problem is that the desire is not really ours, we were simply forced to believe that we want it. Consciousness is easy to fool. It is more difficult to turn this trick with the subconscious, it is primitive and clearly knows that, for example, we just want to eat, sleep, drink beer and watch TV. You can have more “high” subconscious desires, just more often get stuck at the first step. I do not want to say that money and health is bad. But if no one told you about this year after year, from where would you know about it? Probably from his own experience, comparing his condition with money and without, with health and without. And those who are smarter would have analyzed the experience of others.
This process of comprehension is very important for real conscious desire to be born. For example, the experience of walking in hospitals is much more eloquent than the warning of parents that “you cannot buy health”. Here, of course, an even greater role is played by the ability to learn, to draw conclusions, and it is desirable, nevertheless, on the mistakes of others, and not on our own. Many simply do not learn to learn and draw conclusions on their own, for them only the program “willpower” then works. The second example is much clearer the experience of owning a large amount of money and the experience of complete lack of money than talking about money between people who know nothing about them.
Not always available to us the opportunity to gain experience, even a stranger. In this case, fantasy plays an important role. Experience can be experienced by thinking about how it will be.There is even such a self-motivation technique: to imagine the result as bright and detailed as possible. In the end, you need to very thoroughly figure out for yourself why you need it or not. The more justifications - the harder the desire.
What this gives in the end is that our subconscious can be imbued with the idea of consciousness, and agree with it. We kind of bring our conscious desire to the level of the subconscious, which now, being able to compare both wishes, is inclined to the same thought as the consciousness. Everyone agrees, everyone is happy. But this, in general, is not such a problem, because in any case, we often think about what we want, visualize the goal, and the subconscious has every chance to evaluate it. And it happens that you want it very much, but the subconscious mind still resists. This, as I see it, is the most difficult problem, with which basically they struggle, applying incredible efforts.
The subconscious mind can also have good reasons to want something or not to want, and you should not forget about it. If you transfer a conscious thought into the subconscious mind, rather simple techniques allow you to take the desire out of the subconscious mind into the consciousness more problematic. And this is very useful to do to find out the nature of resistance. There is a high probability to agree with your subconscious, including to detect the imposed desire. Extraction of information from the subconscious, in particular, and deal with psychologists, using various methods and techniques. There are very different approaches, from simple dialogues to immersion in the hypnotic state in order to get your stumbling block out of the subconscious. If any indecision is tormenting you, I advise you to turn to such practices, and it is very desirable with the help of a psychologist. True, psychologists saythat you need to be very careful, and generally digging into the subconscious is a very dangerous thing, since it is not known what we will get out of there and how it will turn out later. My opinion is that a person striving for self-knowledge should not stop it. The main thing is that there is no risk of harm to health. As for the simpler cases - generally speaking, it is worthwhile to train the habit of analyzing yourself, studying yourself as some kind of third-party organism. Attempting to look at oneself as an object of research helps one to look at one’s self-bias and objectively evaluate the motives of one’s unconscious behavior. Mistakes, unpleasant patterns of behavior are easily recognized, and admission is the first and most important step on the road to change. The vast majority of our actions are controlled directly by the subconscious, and we carefully consider only a few actions.Therefore, the ability to analyze the result of the work of your subconscious is an important thing in general as a whole, and not just for resolving conflicts in your desires.
7. Personal experience
I never helped the willpower, except in physical exertion. It was only through careful awareness that I managed to:
- stop smoking,
- stop drinking,
- refuse junk food,
- go in for sports,
- change jobs to the one that likes and brings the desired result,
- make a lot of other, major and minor pleasant changes in of life.
The bonus is that such changes do not strain. No conflict, no problem. There is only satisfaction. Of course, not everything is perfect, and there is always room for development.
I do not have a single friend who would have done any of these endeavors. But there are many examples of failures on all counts. At best, there are enough people for several months.
8. What to do?
- Increase the level of self-awareness, analyze yourself more often and admit your mistakes.
- Never stop learning.
- Who has problems with procrastination - use the opportunity not to work, and read Vladimir Levy's “The Cure for Laziness”. IMHO, tricky to read, but useful thoughts, and nothing like that, I no longer saw.
- Who seeks to understand himself, others and relationships - read "Introduction to Neuro Linguistic Programming" (Joseph O'Connor, John Seymour) - this is not at all what people usually think when they hear "NLP".
Thank you all for reading. I would appreciate fidbek in the form of participation in the vote. I want to understand whether it was worth writing all this. :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/229611/
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