3 Ways to Develop Willpower and Self-Discipline According to Former Monk Dandapani
The magic of our small daily rituals.
Ask any successful writer, athlete, or entrepreneur what was the single factor that contributed to their success, and you’ll find a common denominator:
Discipline.
J.K. Rowling’s discipline to go six months into isolation, wake up every day, sit on a chair, and write until her book was complete. Michael Phelps’ discipline to show up to the pool and swim six hours a day, six days a week. A founding entrepreneur’s discipline to show up at the office two hours before her team arrives, and then leave two hours after everyone else — every single day.
That’s why Jim Ron described discipline as “the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” And while discipline is the door to greater achievement, it’s willpower that acts as the key to opening that door.
It’s willpower that begets self-discipline.
Willpower is defined as the ‘control exerted to do something or restrain impulses’ at a given moment. So if your goal is to lose weight, willpower is your ability to walk past a box of donuts once. Self-discipline, however, is your ability to do it repeatedly for the next six months.
As explained by Positive Psychology, “at the core of willpower is the ability to resist short-term temptations and desires in order to achieve long-term goals. It’s the prevailing source of long-term satisfaction over instant gratification.”
So how do you develop willpower?
According to Dandapani, there are three ways to develop your will power, and his approach can be summarized as follows:
Effort → Willpower → Discipline.
As you give a small mundane daily task awareness and effort, you develop willpower, and as you practice repeating that task and making it a ritual, you cultivate greater self-discipline.
First, Finish What You Begin
According to Dandapani, three are three ways to develop your willpower:
- Finish what you begin.
- Do a little better than you think you can.
- Do a little more than you think you can.
And it’s the first one that’s the most important, as it usually is the hardest.
Think about it: It’s easy to start new tasks, but it’s often very difficult to finish them. It’s easy to open a new page and start writing a blog post, it’s often harder to finish writing and publish that piece. It’s easy to launch a new side project, it’s often harder to stick with it and see it through.
That’s why Dandapani’s approach to willpower is different.
Instead of focusing on developing willpower for the bigger and more ambitious projects in life, he advises us to build willpower rituals around our minor and mandate everyday tasks first. In that way, we actively train ourselves to develop the mental muscle of willpower, which then builds the foundation for continuous self-discipline.
Here’s what he suggests:
“Look at your average day and ask yourself, what are the repetitive things you do every day. What are the non-negotiable, re-occurring events in your life?”
Making your bed in the morning, washing the dishes after breakfast, or cleaning up your deskspace after a workday — all these are little daily rituals that can offer us a chance to develop greater willpower.
When you go to sleep and then wake up the next day, finish the process of sleep by making your bed. The process — or effort — of making your bed in the morning is a conscious practice of willpower. And every new day, try putting a little more heart and effort into it. Try to do it a little bit better — try to perfect the art of making your bed.
When you finish eating breakfast, don’t leave the dishes in the sink. Finish what you started — wash the dishes and put them back where they belong. That’s you finishing what you began, and that’s the practice of willpower.
Dandapani explains that it’s our commitment to closing the loop in those small daily rituals that help us develop willpower and self-discipline.
Why?
Because these actions require effort and sustained effort translates into willpower. And when you develop willpower, you can control where your awareness goes:
“Make your bed in the morning to finish what you begin. Why? So you can develop willpower. Why? So you can control where your awareness goes. Why? So you can control where your energy is flowing. Why? So you can control what’s manifesting in your life.”
What Matters to You
“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” — Frank Herbert
Rituals become habits and habits go on to define our life. If you can create daily rituals for your mornings and evenings, you would’ve spent at least an hour a day developing willpower.
As you commit to and accumulate those rituals, you develop willpower. And that translates into self-discipline. And as he explains:
“The more you repeat something, it becomes a pattern in the subconscious, and then that pattern then becomes a habit and it becomes very easy to do.”
So, leverage your everyday activities to practice finishing what you begin, doing a little better — and a little more — than you think you can, and you’ll be consciously developing greater willpower and self-discipline.
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