Strength of will. Does it exist? More likely no than yes. !

Types of will, manifestation of will

In different situations, the will receives different names. Its names are courage, determination, self-discipline, self-confidence... The most common manifestations of will are:

discipline and self-discipline - the manifestation of will in the face of fatigue, emotions and other temptations.
courage is the manifestation of will in difficult or extreme circumstances. Responsible and reasonable, moderately courageous and moderately calm behavior in difficult or extreme circumstances.
patience - the exercise of will in the face of ongoing stress, the refusal of impulsive actions, maintaining reasonable inaction, or repeating actions over and over again that do not lead to immediate results.
decisiveness is the manifestation of will in the face of responsible decisions. Ability to make decisions in an uncertain situation. The ability and ability to independently make responsible decisions and do what you decide, despite obstacles. See→
self-confidence - a person’s conviction that he will succeed; self-confidence in the face of a challenge, in front of a difficult task.

Wisdom in the manifestations of will

One of the most important manifestations of wisdom is to maintain the right balance between courage and patience. Cm.

Volitional act and volitional efforts

Will manifests itself in volitional acts: actions accompanied by volitional efforts. decisions on how to do it right.

Running away from what is scary is not a volitional decision. Running to a scary place to help people is a volitional decision.

In this case, the motivation to run away (to save oneself) must be equal in strength, or stronger than the motivation to stay in place and help - then an act of will manifests itself. If a person stays to save people, because otherwise he will be shot, we are not talking about an act of will.

An act of will is the right action when it is easier or more habitual to act incorrectly.

In other words, an act of will (volitional effort) is a confrontation between instinctive behavior dictated by genes or habits and conscious behavior chosen by the person himself.

A volitional decision appears where the body unconsciously prepares one physiological reaction, and the mind forces it to launch another. The moment of restructuring the body from one instinctive or habitual reaction to another is called volitional effort.

Imagine that you need to jump with a parachute from a tower: your body says - get away from the edge, but your mind says: step over the edge! Since the body generally thinks faster than the mind, it has time to prepare in advance for the fact that it needs to leave. At the key moment, the mind commands - forward! and the body has already prepared to run back: the corresponding muscles have become toned, and now you need to connect completely different muscles. The body does not want to rebuild, but usually, if a person insists, he obeys.

Volitional effort is always associated with the mind, controlled by a person through the mind, and directed against habit or instinctive behavior. Accordingly, the process of natural restructuring of the body (for example, from sleep to wakefulness) is not a volitional effort, because it occurs unconsciously and out of habit.

A.N. Leontyev writes about the so-called “reverse push” phenomenon. A person standing on a tower before a parachute jump involuntarily changes his center of gravity, shifting it back, “running away” from the edge of the tower, and only then makes a jump or refuses to jump.

Active volitional effort is only needed at the beginning; after a certain period of repetitions (usually 20-40 repetitions), the body gets used to another activity: to the fact that it needs to do a new action, and prepares the body for a new one.

If the will is developed, then the process of restructuring occurs faster and easier, if the will is weak, it is more difficult. The more often a volitional effort is made, the easier it is for the body to rebuild itself in a new, unusual way. see Development of the will

Will and determination

Decisiveness is the manifestation of the will to make and push through difficult decisions.

Let us note that a decisive person is not always consistent, not always methodical, and does not necessarily follow through with all his decisions. He started decisively, promoted it decisively - and then simply cooled down and decisively switched to another project.

Factors influencing the ease of volitional effort

Depending on the situation, making a volitional effort can be easy or difficult; it depends on a number of factors.

Habit or instinct?

A habit is something that we are accustomed to, but which is not inherent in our genes. Instinct is something that is inherent in our genes. Accordingly, a volitional effort directed in the “opposite direction” of a habit is easier to accomplish than a volitional effort directed against instinct.

Getting up early in the morning or saving the life of not only yourself but also the people around you in an extreme situation requires different efforts.

Environment

The internal incentive to do as usual is stronger than the conscious incentive to do in a new way.

This means that in order to achieve what you want you need to find or create external incentives for yourself:

say the commitment out loud, come up with a controller, create a dream collage, and so on.

A.N. Leontyev in his article “Volya” mentioned a case when a woman who was afraid to jump from a tower with a parachute returned the next day and asked to jump. When asked why she did this, she said that yesterday she was asked if she had jumped with a parachute and she said yes, but in fact she had not. And now she wants to jump so as not to seem like a liar to herself.

Positive-negative

Concentrating on the good, “not scary” side of a difficult decision makes the implementation of willpower easier. (again referring to Leontyev, if people were asked to look at the parachute, and not down, where it was high and scary, there were fewer refusals to jump).

If you want to learn how to do exercises, concentrate on the good, on how great it will be to run towards the cool wind, winking at the rising sun, about how quiet it is in the park in the morning, how clear and fresh the crystal morning air is - it will be easier to get yourself out of bed.

Decision speed

The more volitional effort is carried out, the more difficult it is: the longer the body prepares a “retreat,” the more difficult it will be for it to adapt to a new way under the influence of reason and will.

Accordingly, the faster you get up in the morning and the less time you spend thinking about whether to get up or not, the easier it will be to get up.

Will in different areas of human life

The will of an athlete - article by R.M. Zagainova.

Books about willpower.

A request generates a proposal. This statement is true for all areas of life. If many people are trying to understand what willpower is and how it can be developed, sooner or later, authors will appear who systematize knowledge and offer solutions. We offer a list of the most popular books on this topic:

Kelly McGonigal. Strength of will. How to develop and strengthen;
Brian Tracy. Get out of your comfort zone;
Eric Bertrand Larssen. On the limit. A week without self-pity;
Jesse Itzler. The month is at its limit. How I lived and trained with a special forces soldier;
Walter Michel. Development of willpower;
Irina Yakutenko. Will and self-control;
John Tierney, Roy Baumeister. Strength of will. Take control of your life;
Greg White. Challenge yourself. Get stronger;
Heidi Grant Halvorson. Psychology of Achievement;
Kelly Winner. Strength of will. Self-Management Guide.

Each of these books deserves attention, but it was the work of the American psychologist and writer Kelly McGonigal that made a real breakthrough in understanding this area. “Willpower”, a book written at the intersection of theory and practice, has deservedly become a bestseller.

Kelly studied the relationship between a person's mental and physical states. By analogy with training human muscles, she proposed the methodical development of willpower . After all, the brain, like muscles, is able to strengthen its abilities in the chosen direction. Moreover, the process of self-control depends, in addition to purely mental functions, also on the ability to “curb” one’s physiology. Emotions are associated with the production of various hormones. This process can be controlled and not succumb to temptations or fears if they interfere with the necessary actions.

The struggle between desires and reason at the physiological level is reflected in the competition between the limbic system of the brain (animal behavior) and the prefrontal cortex (control of emotions and the ability to plan). It is this confrontation that strengthens character, since a person has to subordinate his primitive instincts, which would help him in nature, but can harm him in society. For example, gluttony is a disadvantage for a person who can afford it. But in nature, the habit of eating everything to the last crumb is justified, because it is unknown when you will be able to get food again.

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Functions of the will

Manifesting itself in all spheres of human life, the will performs 3 main functions: motivating, stabilizing and inhibitory or restraining.

The incentive function is manifested in the activation of human activity. Will encourages a person to overcome obstacles, including internal conflicts, weaknesses, indecision, and go towards a goal, achieving success. Willful efforts require serious exertion of all forces, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Making a decision is often much more difficult.
The stabilizing function is the maintenance of human activity. Even after making a decision and starting to move towards the goal, you can stop halfway, turn back, afraid of the difficulties and the sacrifices required. Will helps to maintain a high level of activity, despite fatigue, fear, pain and plain laziness.
The deterrent function is no less important than the incentive function. In some cases, restraining yourself from doing something is much more difficult than forcing yourself to do something.

Along with the main three functions, I think we can highlight one more – educational. Will plays an important role in the development of personality and in the formation of character, qualities such as self-esteem, high self-esteem, and determination.

Volitional actions

Volitional actions are consciously controlled actions that are aimed at overcoming difficulties and obstacles in achieving set goals. They arise at a moment when a person is deprived of motivation, vitality and energy, but at the same time clearly understands what and why he needs to do.

The most important components of volitional actions:

setting goals;
thinking through ways and techniques to achieve the goal;
action planning;
overcoming negative motives;
decision-making;
implementation of the decision made;
evaluation of what has been done;
formation of an attitude to perform volitional actions in the future.

Volitional action is a rather complex process, including a whole chain of different stages and a sequence of different stages and phases. In the modern world there are so many irritants (advertising, the Internet, sounds) that it becomes increasingly difficult for a person to cultivate this valuable quality that largely determines success.

What is will: definitions

Will represents the conscious regulation by each individual of his actions and actions, the implementation of which requires moral and physical costs.
Will is a form of mental reflection in which the reflected object is the set goal, the motivation for its achievement and the existing objective obstacles to implementation; reflected is considered to be a subjective goal, a struggle of contradictions, one’s own volitional effort; the result of the manifestation of will is the achievement of goals and the satisfaction of one’s own desires. It is worth noting that the obstacles that a person has to face are both internal and external.
Will is the side of consciousness, which is a kind of lever of activity and regulation of the beginning, designed to create efforts and maintain them for as long as necessary.

In short, we can combine all of the above and conclude that will is the skill of every person, which manifests itself in self-determination and self-regulation of his own activities and various mental processes.

Definition of will in psychology

The concept of will was born in philosophy, where will is defined as the ability of the mind to self-determination, including moral, and the generation of specific causality. Having moved to psychology and neurology, the definition of will lost its moral aspect and began to be interpreted only as a mental function. The traditional attribution of will to the highest mental functions speaks of the idea of it as a property of a person, but not of an animal, although some studies of animals call this idea into question.

In the most general sense, will is considered in psychology as a person’s ability for conscious self-regulation. Will is necessary both to perform an action and to refuse it. The basic element of will is the act of conscious decision making. Will is close to the concept of freedom in existential psychology in the sense that a person who makes such a conscious decision must break away from the immediate situation and either turn to his attitude towards himself, his values, or turn to imagination, logic and model the consequences of the intended action.

In a more general philosophical and psychological understanding, will is presented by S. L. Rubinstein. Rubinstein writes: “actions regulated by a conscious goal and attitude towards it as a motive are volitional actions.” This definition allows us to clearly separate the concept of will from the concept of desire, the concept of motivation. In this definition, there is a separation from the immediate situation in the form of an attitude towards the goal, its awareness

The relationship between motive and purpose is also important. In the case when the goal and motive coincide, at least in the consciousness of the subject, the subject completely controls his activity, it is not spontaneous in nature - will takes place in the activity.

Some psychologists confuse the concept of will as a mental function with a person’s ability to strive to achieve a goal, as a result of which one can find the following definitions: “Will is the conscious regulation by the subject of his activities and behavior, ensuring overcoming difficulties in achieving the goal...”.

The concept of will also occurs in sociology. Sociologist F. N. Ilyasov, for example, defines will as “the ability of a subject to create a hierarchized system of values and make efforts to achieve values of a higher order, neglecting lower order values.”

Functions of the will

The will has two functions: incentive and inhibitory.

A driving will is an action or set of actions that you need to take (instilling a good habit). Inhibitory - an action that does not need to be performed (eradicating a bad habit).

Will is manifested to one degree or another in all people. However, many, despite the fact that they rationally understand that bad behavior or habit destroys life and can be very expensive (sedentary lifestyle, alcohol consumption, smoking), change their lifestyle and behavior only for a short period of time. After a few days, weeks or months, habit takes over and the will becomes overwhelmed. Until the hour when sufficiently strong fear or self-loathing arises again.

There is a certain threshold of desire that separates motivation and will: when the desire lies below this threshold, it is motivation, and when it crosses it, the action becomes volitional.

Volitional qualities of a person

There are a number of traits and character traits that ensure the ability to refuse immediate benefits in favor of the future personal or common good. These include:

Purposefulness is the direction of an individual’s actions towards a specific result. Experts distinguish two types of this quality. Strategic commitment is a person's ability to act based on their values. Tactical is setting goals and focusing on them.
Initiative. To take an active action, a strong-willed effort is required. This is a quality aimed at overcoming inertia.
Independence. This is a person’s ability to resist the influence of external stimuli, as a result of which he can critically approach the advice of others and focus on his own views and beliefs in the decision-making process.
Self-control is the ability to slow down impulses that are harmful to a person’s goals.
Courage is the ability to ignore fear and take smart risks.
Decisiveness is the ability to quickly navigate a situation and make decisions based on it that are immediately implemented. If this quality is expressed excessively, it turns into impulsiveness, when a decision is made without analyzing the situation, or indecision (a person only thinks about the problem without taking any action).
Perseverance is the ability to deal with difficulties for a long time on the way to a goal. If overexpressed, it can develop into stubbornness, when volitional efforts are applied to the detriment of the task at hand.
Organization and discipline. The ability to organize, plan your actions and subordinate them to the created routine.

Important! The main quality of a strong-willed person, which underlies all others, is self-control. It is the ability to do what is needed to complete a task.

Development methods

Strong-willed qualities can and should be developed. This can be done in several ways:

Do exercises every day, force yourself to exercise. This method helps develop fundamental good habits.
Do important things as early as possible, do not leave them for tomorrow.
Create a clear schedule. Set aside time for active activities, rest, eating, and self-development.
Don't stop when difficulties arise.

To make doing things enjoyable, you need to set motivation for yourself in advance and reward yourself at the end of the journey.

Will in psychology is a force that helps to achieve a goal with any effort, regardless of the difficulties and obstacles encountered along the way. Volitional qualities develop in different ways. One person can keep himself from bad habits, but another cannot. If desired, volitional qualities can be developed to the required level. For this, different techniques are used.

Volitional qualities of a person

For a more precise understanding of what will is, let us outline its main features, which are also called volitional qualities:

Determination is a person’s ability to set a specific goal and actively strive to achieve it.
Decisiveness is immediate but deliberate action that implements the decision made.
Perseverance is an internal quality that simultaneously strengthens the will. This is following the intended plan, despite obstacles and defeats.
Self-discipline is conscious submission to established requirements, norms and rules.
Self-control is the ability to control your emotional and behavioral manifestations.
Courage is the willingness to overcome the fears that often accompany achieving a goal.
Independence is the ability to rely on one’s knowledge, principles, values and take responsibility for one’s actions.

These qualities are inherent mainly in adults, mature people, but not in everyone. Many, being great uncles and aunts, continue to be childishly infantile: they are afraid to make decisions, throwing responsibility for their lives onto stronger, strong-willed people around them.