Want to develop stronger willpower and mindfulness? Turn off your auto-response.
When you master your willpower, you’ve come a long way toward mastering your mind and life! Strong willpower is an important characteristic for leaders in all positions —whether you’re leading a family, a small business, a team or organization, or, most important, leading yourself!
These are some benefits of stronger willpower:
- It provides more choices about how to think and respond emotionally.
- It increases the opportunity for creativity.
- It improves decision making.
- It gives you more control of your mind and life.
- It allows you to delay gratification, which is critical for long term success.
When your mind is on auto-response — most people’s minds usually are — willpower isn’t in play because you’ll repeat what you always do. But when you create mindfulness, when you can stop a thought — especially a negative or fearful thought — for a moment, you enable your willpower. In the pause that you create before you have an auto-response, you have a choice. You can respond the way you always do, or you can respond differently. When you’re practiced at creating these pauses in your thoughts, you can learn to lengthen and deepen them, being more mindful. And mindful is powerful!
Mindful is powerful is the ninth Fearless Leaders success secret in my book. Strong willpower is important to becoming more mindful, because you have to be off auto-response to be mindful. With more willpower, you can create many choices on what you think, your emotional reaction and how to act rather than limiting your choices by being on auto-response.
The Marshmallow Experiment
In the 1960s, Walter Mischel at Stanford University conducted “The Marshmallow Experiment,” which tested delayed gratification and willpower. In this study, a group of 4-year-old children each received a marshmallow. They had a choice to either eat it right away or wait and get a second one when the researcher returned. Some children could wait, while others couldn’t. The researchers then followed each child into adolescence, revealing that those with the ability to wait were better adjusted and more determined. They also scored an average of 210 points higher on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Having strong willpower to delay gratification is critical to success!
Strengthening willpower enhances mindfulness and helps you become the master of your mind. Mastering your mind gives you the opportunity to create the thoughts, emotions and life you most want.
More willpower – more happiness and success.
Dr. TC North is an executive and leadership coach based in the Denver, Colorado, area. He’s also a leadership speaker and the co-author of the best-selling book “Fearless Leaders.” Through his coaching, clients learn to master fear, strengthen confidence, build executive presence and think with greater mindfulness.
