How to control your will?
When I have to do something (either that was imposed on me or that I myself decided to do), I often find myself convulsing with thoughts like:
- I don't want to do that!
- I rather want to sleep!
- I rather want to do something else, and this "something else" disturbs my thoughts to the point that it finally prevents me from properly accomplishing the task I had set myself.
What we do in these cases is one of the following (bad) things:
- We don't do what we had to do.
- We postpone it.
- We do it all the same, but badly because our minds are elsewhere.
- Worse still, we let ourselves be won over by negative thoughts: “I have no will! “, “I will never achieve anything! », « I am a poor guy! »
When I was a little boy, when I could never accomplish the most basic task in life, namely to get out of my bed, my father _ rest his soul _ gave me this advice: " Do THE GESTURES to get up! »
- I admit that for a long time I did not really understand the accuracy and the depth of this advice: I kept tossing and turning in my bed with the same obsessive thoughts, with in addition the one "that I absolutely had to do the gestures to get up! »
Much later, I understood. And it's valid not only for getting out of bed, but for accomplishing ANY MISSION: It's exactly that: instead of ruminating, say to yourself: I'm getting up (and I do what I say ), I go to the bathroom, I take my shower etc. And I don't forget to congratulate myself after having accomplished each of these "mini-tasks", and to congratulate myself warmly after having carried out my entire mission.
Why does it work? For a very simple reason which is that we cannot think of two things at the same time! I CANNOT undermine myself and at the same time say to myself: I want to do A. To do A, I must first do a, then b, then c. And I match the action to the word, while congratulating myself, as I said.
WARNING: Do not make me say what I did not mean:
1) It is not about turning us into automatons. Of course, we shouldn't always say to ourselves: "I'm doing this, I'm doing that!" Which would be debilitating. Again, it is only a question of mobilizing 95% of your mind on the task at hand, in order to eliminate any parasitic thoughts. Very quickly, we will notice that we are now fully harnessed to our task, and that we no longer need to act like a robot.
2) I didn't say either that you should never give up the things "that you want", in favor of the things "that you have to do". For example, I love Michel Fugain’s song “Chante! which begins like this:
Sing life, sing
As if you were to die tomorrow
As if nothing else mattered
Sing, yes sing
Love life, love
Like a thug, like a madman, like a dog
Like it's your last chance
Sing, yes sing
You can leave whenever you want
And you can sleep wherever you want
dream of a girl
Take the Bastille
Or slap your money at the game
But don't forget
Sing life, sing
…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoZi2WcfkMM
If you ask me my opinion on the question: “What should we do first: what we MUST do or what we WANT to do? “, I will answer: “Neither one, nor the other! There are no rules ! Sometimes one, sometimes the other! The ideal is to do both at the same time, and it is to help us achieve this result that I wrote this post »