DAILY GURU

Tuesday 15th Of February 2005

Willpower and making emotional resolutions are two completely different things. There is a common misunderstanding of what willpower means, and confusing it with promises and resolutions made emotionally and without much thinking, and which lack the inner power to support and carry them out.

People often make resolutions and promises to do something, behave in a particular way, study, look for a job or a partner and so on. They may even start acting according to their resolutions, but this goes on only for a short while.

They may start with much noise, but end in silence. They make resolutions enthusiastically and optimistically, but after a short while lose their enthusiasm and stop doing what they promised themselves to do. These kinds of actions weaken the power of the will, and make people lose their faith in their ability to use willpower. Then they might start believing that willpower is a myth, an unreal thing. This is a wrong assumption, because no real willpower was involved here.


Most of the resolutions that people make are triggered by emotions. They make them in response to some outside event or due to a strong emotion or thought, and rarely because of common sense and reasonable, balanced thinking. The driving powers behind these resolutions are feelings and emotions, but feelings and emotions are not stable and not constant. One moment you may feel you can conquer the world, and a moment later you may feel weak and incompetent, and everything seems so impossible to do.