OK, so you?ve read a plethora of books on spirituality, listened to numerous teachers and interviews with luminaries, and watched mind-expanding films. You have had ?aha? moments and even made some progress toward the changes you desire in your life and in the world around you. But still, your deepest desires seem elusive. You understand the ideas in a general sense, but they don?t stick. Why not?
Sometimes it?s a simple matter of willpower (or lack of it).
It?s funny how the notion of ?willpower? has become popular in the realm of spiritual growth. A surge of prescriptive books on how to develop willpower, how it works in the brain, how it works psychologically, and how cultivating it can yield ?health, happiness, and productivity? is emerging. It?s funny because willpower is such an old-fashioned concept. Willpower is what our grandparents and great-grandparents used to forge new lives, to face adversity, to push through seemingly insurmountable odds, to tend to the challenges of daily living that were often hard work and spiritually unsatisfying. ?Willpower comes from the ?pull up your bootstraps? era, far from the fast-paced, sparkling, instant gratification and glorification world we inhabit today. Also known as resolve, commitment, or determination, or discipline, willpower was not just an inner strength, but a cultural ethos.
The modern books (and ideas) touting the benefits of willpower infuse a spiritual bent, meaning that they are rooted in self-improvement and conscious (spiritual) growth and change. But more significantly to my mind is that they are a subset of the largest context we can imagine for personal and spiritual change: conscious evolution. And consciousness, simply defined, is awareness and responsiveness to our existence.
Deliberately shaping our inner awareness and outer responsiveness (conscious evolution) can be framed through any number of disciplines and accessed by any number of inroads, including good old-fashioned willpower?or the ?new and improved? willpower.? No matter how you dress it, it?s a tried and true tool.
So the next time you activate your willpower to improve your spiritual practice, if you find your willpower momentarily wobbles, you can view this as a positive sign: positive because you are now aware enough to have noticed! And with this awareness, you have more choice about how to respond. You might turbo-charge your willpower to keep going, and then let go, surrendering to the awareness that all you strive toward already exists, like a spiritual escrow account, just waiting for you to allow it to come through you.
Some recent books on NCReview that focus on willpower, self-discipline, and mastering skills and challenges:
The Practicing Mind
The Power of Habit
Excuses Begone!
The Willpower Instinct
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself
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