Many of the New Thought books, like the ones from William Walker Atkinson, often have exercises on Will that involve doing some useless task.
Like counting a box of matches, or organizing stones in a specific pattern, or something equally useless.
This task should not have any practical need or purpose. It’s doing it for the sake of doing. Not just once – which would be quite easy -, but it’s always over a certain period of time. At least a month.
As you might expect, this exercise is not particularly interesting. In fact, it can be quite boring.
But, if you do these types of exercises as a boring activity and mental state, then its results would be quite minimal (if any).
If being bored as doing an activity would be good for your Will, high school students would be masters of the Will!
But that’s not the case. I’m sure you’ve done plenty of boring tasks in your life, yet, your Will probably didn’t improve much as you’re doing it.
Our Will is engaged in doing this task or exercise… but if the only Will you are using is in activating your limbs to do it, then the impact is quite minimal.
There are two main challenges:
1) First, it’s an activation of Will during the exercise in itself to control your mind and mental state to avoid the boredom that comes along such a useless task.
2) Secondly, is finding the Will to remember to do this every day. Particularly when there’s no need to compel you to do it.
In the first point you discover how little control over your mind you truly have. When you try NOT to be bored and be actively engaged, you’ll see how hard it is to accomplish any control of your mental state.
The second point is even more important.
When you set out to do a task – not compelled by any desire or need – it’s pure Will. Each time you don’t do it – or don’t do any other activity which you are not driven to do by your own need and intrinsic motivation – it reveals how little “free will” you actually have.
An impulse to action is driving your behaviors. Not your so called “free will”.
While the Will remains as an unconscious force that drives you to action, then you are not truly free.
You only become free when when you take hold of your unconscious impulses by your conscious mind and then decide to do or not do.
The type of Will exercises described above, will force you to think this action every day. You must consciously consider the Will to do it and to remember to do it every day, as well as the reason of why you want to do it.
Then you will consciously decide to do it and connect with the motivation for it, so you’ll counter the unconscious needs and feelings you may be feeling at that moment to do one unique act of Will.
Because developing Inner Power and a powerful Will is not as easy as doing one simple exercise, we created a training course to help you develop this true “free will”.
You can start here:
>>> 10 Steps to Inner Power
