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Willpower and maintaining focus

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To maintain a high level of productivity, one must maintain focus as to prevent oneself from becoming distracted. To ensure this, one requires strong willpower. Obviously, some people have a stronger willpower than others. Are there any factors involved in determining a persons willpower, besides his free will? Would it be correct to say that the only way to increase ones willpower, is through using ones free will to enforce self-imposed regulations?

I'd appreciate some insight into this.

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To maintain a high level of productivity, one must maintain focus as to prevent oneself from becoming distracted. To ensure this, one requires strong willpower. Obviously, some people have a stronger willpower than others. Are there any factors involved in determining a persons willpower, besides his free will? Would it be correct to say that the only way to increase ones willpower, is through using ones free will to enforce self-imposed regulations?

I'd appreciate some insight into this.

I think that the only way to increase your willpower is to repeatedly use it.

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Would it be correct to say that the only way to increase ones willpower, is through using ones free will to enforce self-imposed regulations?
I would say that your second clause means, more specifically, what the first clause says. Enforcing self-imposed regulations is what willpower is.
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Will Culture: My main interest.

"A stimulus to nervous matter effects a change in the matter by calling forth a reaction in it. This change may be exceedingly slight after the first stimulus, but each repetition of the stimulus increases the change, with its following specific reaction, until by constant repetition a permanent alteration in the nervous matter stimulated occurs, which produces a fixed habitual way of working in it. In other words, the nervous matter acquires a special way of working, that is, of function, by habit.- William Hanna Thomson M.D

This is the opening quote to Frank Channing Haddocks: Power of Will. What a way of writing he and most writers of the 19th Century had. As a weight-training enthusiast practising this idea of conciously bringing will to the fore transformed my often mundane workouts. It's an inspiringly rational text from the most secular of the will power authors- and the best.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Will Culture: My main interest.

"A stimulus to nervous matter effects a change in the matter by calling forth a reaction in it. This change may be exceedingly slight after the first stimulus, but each repetition of the stimulus increases the change, with its following specific reaction, until by constant repetition a permanent alteration in the nervous matter stimulated occurs, which produces a fixed habitual way of working in it. In other words, the nervous matter acquires a special way of working, that is, of function, by habit.- William Hanna Thomson M.D

This is the opening quote to Frank Channing Haddocks: Power of Will. What a way of writing he and most writers of the 19th Century had. As a weight-training enthusiast practising this idea of conciously bringing will to the fore transformed my often mundane workouts. It's an inspiringly rational text from the most secular of the will power authors- and the best.

Seanjos signature quote says it all.

You have to make it a habit.

I think this is a very important subject, because focus is something I think a lot of people (including myself) struggle with on a regular basis.

If you have a specific set of tasks that you are having trouble focusing on, perhaps you could start out by setting a time for yourself to work diligently on it. I do this with my children and their chores from time to time - even myself.

I will set the timer on the microwave, and tell myself "Okay I am going to focus only on cleaning the kitchen for 30 minutes" or "focus on writing up the lesson plan for my daughter for this week for the next 60 minutes" etc.

It has helped me - I know those examples may be a litte too simplistic (depending on what you are trying to focus on), but those are ones that personally come to mind for me.

(I would like to see more comments here on specifics of how people have improved their will power and focus with actual examples - can others share? I would find it helpful, and perhaps the original poster would as well.)

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We are what we repeatedly do.

Aristotle

I recently started writing what I want to become habits of mine in a little journal.

I take a notes throughout the day on a note book I keep with me and read them in the evening to update my pocket agenda, witch I in turn read every morning.

I also have a smaller note for more outlandish ideas witch I read once a week.

This helps me against having my mind wander too much so I can continue doing what I planned to do.

And I have a magnet board in my computer room on witch I hang and write things I still have to complete.

I also found that when working in the computer room at school, techno makes for good white noise keeping me from switching my attention to a nearby conversation.

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We are what we repeatedly do.

Aristotle

Also in response to the original query:

Caveat: repetition of the same error begets insanity.

We need to repeat the right methods, including the right method of focusing.

The challenge is to stay focused. Some of the things that distract us from remaining focused on the actualization of one's values can be: living in a society at odds with one's values, dealing with people consciously or unconsciously hostile to your values, limitations placed on our acheivements because of the irrational fears or jealousies of others, lack of access to the full resources an open society would afford the most productive, etc. But these are external factors, and only partly beyond our control.

An internal limitation is the self image and self prospects one allows one to believe. Do we on some level agree with our attackers? At weak moments do we allow ourselves to give in to their assaults because it is just easier to let them believe what they do so we can have some momentary surcease? This is a hard road to maintain when people who we trust disappoint us so much and render our honest work as fodder for their irrational campaigns.

I take aikido. I have learned that it is better to slow down and learn a few things properly instead of rushing around and learning nothing well. Often people repeat the same flawed techniques for decades, even achieving rank beyond their abilities. Psychological retraining is a lot like aikido. Aikido teaches you to move into an attack to the place where you can be safe again, and where you can control the opponent without damaging them. It is only achieved by relaxing and moving into an attack. This is a frightening thing for most people, and something that takes many years of training to master. Learning and then defending a rational philosophy, not only to others, but daily to yourself, is also a hard thing to do, and takes many years of deprogramming and retraining.

I posit that the best way to learn to stay focused, as I've had to do while writing patents and doing patent searches for a living, is to examine slowly each distraction, disturbance, and attack, and see it for what it is, and decide if you can do something about it, or if you can just choose to ignore it as the kettledrums of savages. This is not easy, but it gets easier the more you do it. There are more solutions than you might imagine when you clear your mind of justified anger at these distractions, and see what tools you have to combat or neutralize them. Eventually attacks do not make you tense up, or get defensive, and the control is back in your hands. You can choose what you want to do because you can see that you actually have choices.

This was a bit rambling because I'm playing hooky from work to do it, and I admit that I have a long way to go learning to focus in the moment consistently. But if one is aware of the pattern, and the solution, eventually one learns to discard the distracting false values, and to embrace and reinforce the rejuvinating true values, and one gets better at it if they work at the appropriate pace. Just like retraining the mind-body in aikido to accept an attack as the only way to neutralize it.

"If you cannot control & trust yourself, if you cannot see yourself clearly. You will never have any knowledge or trust of others, and you certainly will not be able to control them." Saotome Sensei

Focus on the solutions, not the problems. (Terry Goodkind)

<*>aj

BTW, I find that keeping a personal journal helps one work through daily issues of living up to one's values, and helps one learn to focus one what is most important, and to not buy into the rest.

Edited by aristotlejones
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Will Culture: My main interest.

"A stimulus to nervous matter effects a change in the matter by calling forth a reaction in it. This change may be exceedingly slight after the first stimulus, but each repetition of the stimulus increases the change, with its following specific reaction, until by constant repetition a permanent alteration in the nervous matter stimulated occurs, which produces a fixed habitual way of working in it. In other words, the nervous matter acquires a special way of working, that is, of function, by habit.- William Hanna Thomson M.D

This is the opening quote to Frank Channing Haddocks: Power of Will. What a way of writing he and most writers of the 19th Century had. As a weight-training enthusiast practising this idea of conciously bringing will to the fore transformed my often mundane workouts. It's an inspiringly rational text from the most secular of the will power authors- and the best.

As a competitive athlete and coach in wrestling, body builder[non competitive],as well as a personal trainer for over a decade, I used to stress to my clients/wrestlers that we are not lifting weights but commanding muscles to contract. The body does what the mind tells it to. "Wrestling in principles" is one of my most oft repeated phrases. Also the protein peptides that cascade along the neurotransmitters cause an actual physical representation of the process you are quoting.

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