Definition of

Willpower

Overcoming

Will is often associated with an inner force.

Will (from Latin voluntas ) is the power to direct one's own actions . It is a property of the personality that calls upon a kind of force to develop an action according to an expected result. Will generally implies the hope of a future reward, since the person strives to react to a current tendency in pursuit of an ulterior benefit .

For example: “You have to have willpower to overcome an illness of this type” , “Please be kind and try not to cause more problems” , “I had to fire him because of his unwillingness to work as a team” .

Will and free will

The will has motivated all kinds of philosophical debates since it is linked to what one wishes to do and to understanding the reasons why a subject chooses to do that. Therefore, the will is related to free will .

Will is also related to the power of choice that comes from consciousness, feeling and action. Something chosen by one's own will is not forced by an external impulse. A woman who quits her job because she was not happy with the conditions is acting according to her will. On the other hand, a woman who quits her job because of pressure from her husband, for example, is not respecting her will.

From desire to mandate

Another way of understanding will has to do with the desire or intentions to do something : “I have the will to resume my art studies” , “Many tell me to try again, but I no longer have the will” .

The will, on the other hand, can be someone's mandate or order: "My father's will was done and we bought the house" , "The coach decided to respect the midfielder's will and did not call him up for the next game" .

Diet

To lose weight you need the support of a nutritionist and willpower.

Willpower and obesity

Willpower refers to the ability that we humans have to overcome those desires that can generate harmful consequences in our existence. The concept is usually related to the determination to stick to a diet to lose weight .

Obesity is a problem that affects our societies in a dangerous way and that brings consequences that in many cases are extremely harmful. The reason why there are more and more people who suffer from this disease is that in many cases the willpower is not fully active, so setting a goal (deciding to lose weight) and working hard to achieve it (strictly following the diet that we have imposed on ourselves) is a task that is almost frustrated before it even begins.

The ten commandments of diet

According to the author of one of the most popular self-help books for people with overweight problems, entitled "The Ten Commandments of Dieting", relying on willpower to lose weight is not a good decision. He advises that one should rather rely on a good strategy ; and this does not always require a diet full of sacrifices that will motivate us to become discouraged and give up shortly after starting.

He says that there are two ways to lose weight: one is intense (an extreme discipline for which willpower is necessary) and one is slow but sure (a discipline where patience plays a fundamental role, and where nothing happens if one day we break the rules of the diet).

How to maintain willpower when trying to lose weight

The advice for a safe diet is to make small but direct changes that lead to a gradual overall change. There is no magic way to achieve weight loss, however, taking into account some aspects that make oneself can be of vital help to achieve it, some of those mentioned in this book are:

*Accept reality: Don't fool yourself; what some people say about not eating anything and still gaining weight is not true; whenever you gain weight it is because you are eating more calories than you are burning. In light of this, the first thing you can do, before eating less, is to move more.

*Propose the possible: Do not set goals that you know are very difficult to achieve. It is better to take more time but achieve real results than to lose a lot of weight at the beginning and then gain those kilos back when you abandon the diet.