How to Increase Willpower – Tips for Building Willpower

Willpower is often associated with losing weight, quitting smoking or sitting down to read and study. Actually, it is useful and necessary in all walks of life, in sports, achieving goals, self improvement and in meditation. It is a skill well worth developing.

It is said that the imagination is stronger than willpower, and that what you imagine again and again, eventually affects your subconscious mind and turns into a habit. This is true, but when you possess willpower you can tell your mind what to think and what to imagine, and you can insist on acting in a certain way. Without willpower you just let passing thoughts and whims dictate to you what to do. By building willpower you gain the ability control your imagination. 

Willpower helps you focus your mind on the goal and hold it there, without being sidetracked. How can you succeed, if you keep changing goals or changing your mind?

So how do you go about building and increasing willpower?
You can do so by training and developing this skill by special exercises.

Here are a few tips and strategies for building and increasing willpower:

Do a little more
Read one more page before you close your book.
Wash one extra plate when you wash dishes.
Walk another two minutes when doing your daily walk.

Respect your decisions
When you decide to do something, do it. Don’t procrastinate or change your mind.
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Livescience has published an article about a research made by scientists about the brain and willpower.

Brain’s Willpower Spot Found

By Robert Goodier
Source:
www.livescience.com/health/090506-willpower-brain.html

When healthy eaters choose broccoli over a Butterfinger, they use a small region in their brains that indulgers don’t use.

That bundle of cells is a clue to the biology of willpower, a new study finds. Like a wagging finger in our heads, the region admonishes us to consider long-term benefits over instant rewards when we make decisions.

“This is the first time people have looked at the mechanism of self-control in people who are making real-life decisions,” said Todd Hare, a Caltech neuroscientist who led the study.

To zero in on the nodule that imposes willpower, Hare and his colleagues scanned the brains of 37 people who called themselves dieters. During the scans, the subjects pored over 50 photos of foods. They rated the foods according to taste and healthiness.

Some foods, such as Wheat Thins and granola, earned strong “neutral” marks in both categories. For the final test, scientists showed each volunteer a food that they had labeled “neutral” and asked them to choose between it and each of 49 other foods.

Read the Complete Article

I have news for you. SuccessConsciousness has launched a new forum, which replaces the old forum.

We had the same forum for several years, but now the time has come for a change, for a new forum, with a new look and many more topics.

If you are a member of the forum, you will need to register again. You may use the same email address and username, as in the old forum, or choose a new email address or username. You will be able to participate and post messages immediately after registration.

As to the old forum, you will be still be able to access it and read the messages, but it is not possible to post messages or begin new threads. This is possible only in the new forum.

The new forum includes forums on:

# Personal Development – Self Improvement
# Life Coaching
# Positive Thinking
# Creative Visualization and the Law of Attraction
# Motivation
# Affirmations
# Setting Goals and Achieving Success
# Meditation
# Peace of Mind – Inner Peace
# Nonduality and Advaita Vedanta
# Psychic Abilities and Development
# New Age, Occultism and Mysticism
# Books Reviews and Discussions
# General Discussion

Here is the address of the new forum:
http://www.successconsciousness.com/forums/

Please note that the address of the old forum has changed. Here is the address of the old forum:
http://www.successconsciousness.com/cgi-bin/forums/ofsc/Blah.pl

Please visit the forum and register as a member. Actually, you don’t need to be a member to read the posts, but if you wish to interact with the other members, post questions or reply, you will have to register (it is free registration).

I am sure the forum would grow to be a great and unique forum, with advice, tips, information and lively discussions on all aspects of self-improvement and spiritual growth, and become an informative and inspiring source for many people all over the world.

You are all invited to visit the forum at
http://www.successconsciousness.com/forums/

Pleasure is a state in which you feel good and enjoy what you are doing. It usually does not last long, because life is such that you have always other things to do, like work, cleaning the house, driving somewhere, interacting with other people, etc. you cannot stay in the feeling of pleasure for long.

When you eat some delicious food you derive pleasure from it, but the pleasure cannot last for long, since you cannot go on eating indefinitely, you finish eating the food on your late and the sensation of pleasure wears off after a while. You may enjoy watching a movie, but the movie lasts for a certain amount of minutes. When you read a book you enjoy reading, ultimately you reach the last page.

As you see, all pleasure is time limited.

Pleasure is usually awakened by external stimuli, and is largely physical, involving the five senses, like the smell of good food or its taste, or of the sight and physical contact of a certain person, a story you read in a book, etc.

Though happiness is similar to pleasure in some respects, yet it is different.

Pleasure is emotional in nature, while happiness is a state beyond the emotions and even beyond the mind. In pleasure the emotion are active. While in a state of happiness there is calmness and peace.

Happiness does not depend on external stimuli, since it comes from within, though quite often, it seems as if the source is external.

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