Will is the demanding, strong voice of the father that resounds in us. Mom can ask, exhort, persuade — the father says what needs to be done. If you had such a voice in your childhood or youth (sometimes it can be the voice of a coach or a sergeant), if this voice became your law and began to organize your life and behavior, you know what will is. If you yourself began to speak with this voice to yourself and others, you have become a strong-willed person.
In any case, the formation of the will does not occur immediately, passing through several stages.
The first stage is opposition to the unnecessary external. The will is born from the formation of character, which in everyday understanding is equal to the ability of a person to insist on his position, to defend his point of view, his interests.
«I myself!» — the child shouts to parents, defending his desire to do it his own way. This is not will yet, it is only unformed energy, which can turn into both will and stubbornness, vengeful confrontation. What is the difference between them? A strong-willed person focuses on himself and does what he needs, a stubborn and vengeful person looks at others and acts in defiance of others, to spite or to evil them.
In order for the unformed energy of opposition to begin to transform into will, a number of difficult conditions are necessary. First of all, this is the child’s respect for his parents, the child’s desire to imitate his father — and the development of the father’s will, the father’s ability to give attractive models of volitional behavior. Many of the most important elements of volitional behavior come to the child through imprinting: imprinting the strong, strong-willed voice of the father, imprinting his decisive gestures and movements, imprinting his strong choices and readiness to be responsible for his actions.
If the father is a mumbler, the child learns the behavior of the mumbler. If the father is strong-willed, but his relationship with the child is not built, instead of contact there is a tense conflict, then the father’s demands will cause a protest in the child, and the development of the child’s will will be internally conflicted: his own will will cause him objections and protest.
This is how often leaders of movements for total freedom are born, supporters of free education and abstract humanism, fighters against a society that suppresses free individuality. Such people will not develop their will, because they associate a strong-willed “must” with violence, suppression, something suffocating — as opposed to a soft and kind “I want”, “like”. They will not develop will, they will look for how to turn Must into Want, at least learn how to reformulate Must into “I choose”. They are useful tools, but they are not will.
Another condition for the formation of the will is respect for reason and orientation to the external, objective: external goals, objective results and observable signs, written obligations with real indicators of achieving results. When there are no obligations, no external indicators, no numbers and no objective, it’s easy to deceive yourself and explain anything: “I decided that I don’t need this”, “This is not mine” and simply “Another time”.
Only in the event that a person recognizes the will as a value, focuses on the mind and the external, can he move on to the final stage of the formation of the will. The content of this stage is opposition to the unnecessary internal. those emotions and desires that are inappropriate and untimely. Here the will is the ability, skill or habit to act as it is necessary to achieve the goal, and not as you want at the moment.
I have a goal to become healthy, for this I need to do exercises in the morning, and sometimes in the morning I really want to lie still … If I can get myself out of bed, I have the will.
Everyone has some kind of will, just like everyone has muscles. Another thing is that they are in different states: for some they are cheerful and ready for any work, while for others they are swollen with fat, lazy and sleepy. It depends on a person whether his muscles will be strong or not, and it is the same with willpower: if a person works on willpower, there will be will, and if he stands spreading his paws to the side and whines that everything would be fine, that’s just Will I’m weak — I won’t have the will.
Referring to the lack of will as the impossibility of doing something is a form of manifestation of intelligent laziness.
With about the same success, you can justify your habit of eating with your hands, and not with a spoon, by saying that the spoons are at the sink, and the sink is 3 meters from the table, and therefore “I can’t eat with a spoon, I don’t have one …” Cool. Get up and take it — it will be. No will — develop!
Another thing is that any business is better done competently. Therefore, look at the article Personal development on the positive. And in general, How to work on yourself.
Good luck to you!