‘We Developed Will Power to do the Right Thing in Spite of our Feelings’

This piece on Step 9 of the GROW Program has been submitted by a South East GROW member.

Will power has two faces – one public and one private. Nobody needs to know if you stay in bed until two in the afternoon but you can pat yourself on the back if you get up at one. If you agree to meet friends for coffee and turn up, you are entitled to another brownie point.

With GROW, it is possible to nudge both aspects forward. Your friends at GROW are non-judgemental and compassionate. At a meeting you can confess to your late-in-bed habit and take on the task of getting up earlier. Later you can report on your progress or failing, knowing you’ll be reassured or encouraged regardless of how you got on.

Likewise, you can turn up or not turn up for a coffee meeting; your kindred spirits will have some inkling of the painful mental processes involved. (One suggestion though: if you can’t make it, send somebody a text.)

Will power to complete a college course is a different thing but if it is really insurmountable, you should ask yourself some probing questions. Did you sign up because you really wanted to – or did you sign up because you felt that you should? ‘Should’ is the opposite of enthusiasm.

Recalibrate your mental resources and reset to a realistic goal that you are capable of achieving. If the crossbar seems low, so be it. Continue to immerse yourself in the GROW Program and in the GROW family. Encouragement, new skills and companionship will enable Step 9 to happen at a pace that is right for you.

Another strategy is to see if you can break down your will power challenges from having to make several decisions to having a manageable handful, or to even just one. Did you ever aspire to giving up sweets for Lent or drink for November? Did you, like most people, succeed at something for a few days – or even a fortnight? Mark Twain said that giving up smoking was easy, so easy that he had done it thousands of times.

For an example of decisions and willpower, think about the thirty days of November and about not drinking. On the first day you accomplish this; on day two you feel empowered to try again. Then you think you can avoid temptation for a third day. As you wrestle into November you remember that maybe you could have a couple on Saturday because you were so good all week.

Maybe you say that it’s okay if the pledge doesn’t apply on weekends. Then you bump into a friend on a Thursday and that’s nearly the weekend anyhow…. In other words, you are making a decision every time you are tempted.

A better strategy is to have a chat with yourself in October and decide “I am not going to drink in November”. Once you are a few days into the dry month and are tempted, just think of the single decision you made and stick to it. This is still not easy but is less difficult than making up your mind when you are in the middle of a craving.

You know what they say: He can resist everything except temptation. Reclaim – or find – your willpower on your own terms.

This further piece on Step 9 has been submitted by GROW in the Mid-West.

Will power is a resource we possess which controls ourselves and our actions. We alone choose to work on and be guided by our will power. By doing this, we see the options in front of us and decide to make that choice, an informed and liberating choice which overrules any initial notions we had which were led by irrational feelings.

‘Feelings are real but they may not correspond to the facts’. When we opt to go by will power, then we are free to make the right decision in conjunction with the appropriate emotions so as to successfully complete any task.

‘If we don’t live the way we think is right, we’ll end up thinking the way we are living is right’. We exercise our will power when we are ‘more durable than vulnerable’ and we are not ‘an emotional reaction but a person’.