Will-power

Sometimes coaching clients say to me: I have a goal, but I just don’t have the will-power to make it happen.

hmmmmm.

When I hear that, I’m never convinced. The moment the Will-Power Card is drawn, my brain immediately jumps to a couple of other things, factors that I suspect are probably far more likely to be contributing to the lack of achievement.

Things like:

+The goal, itself

People often come to life coaching because they’re struggling to achieve their goals. And the most common reason for that lack of achievement is that they’re pursuing the Wrong Goal.

Now, there are a number of reasons a goal can be wrong. The biggest one? It isn’t something you really want to achieve [ie it is a Should – I should do that – rather than a Like or Love].

When clients and I tweak their goals to make them intrinsically aligned [or if we replace them altogether], it’s almost like magic. They start achieving at a ridiculous rate. SO GOOD!

+Motivation

Motivation requires an interest in the goal and also, a belief in your ability to succeed. If you don’t have that belief then no amount of will-power will get you through.

If you find your self-belief faltering, try some tricks to give it a boost:

• speak to someone who believes in you and champions your efforts
• make a list [actually write it down!] of all your past successes [even if they’re unrelated to the goal at hand]
• write down your goal, make a list of next steps and order them from easiest to hardest. Then get started, doing [easiest first].

+Fatigue

A little known [but proven] fact is that will-power operates like a muscle.

It’s just like when you go to the gym and do heaps of pull-ups [ah…not me, a hypothetical person] and your arm muscles fatigue. So too, when you’ve been exerting your will-power for a long period of time, your capacity to self-regulate tires.

People tend to see a lack of achievement as a personal failing [I exercise every morning for two weeks and then I just fall back into old patterns! I wrote my blog every week but then I gave up!] but really, slips can reflect a normal attempt to replenish essential reserves.

If you find yourself unable to maintain a new pattern of behaviour, you might like to consider building recovery periods into your strategy, to keep your will-power firing.

Tags: life-coaching, Melbourne