What Everybody Ought to Know About Willpower

One day in September 2007, an eye doctor told me if I didn’t take care of myself, I could go blind. I have diabetic retinopathy.

This news was - as my friend, Joe, says - “just the kick up the arse” I needed. I was so scared of losing my sight, I decided on the spot to lose weight.

Before that day, I believed that losing weight took lots of willpower. I soon realised I was wrong. Losing weight doesn’t take willpower; it takes “want power”.

"We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now."

-George Sheehan

That warning from my eye doctor made me want to lose weight more than I wanted the foods that made me fat. At social gatherings when the dessert menu came round, it didn’t take willpower to resist - I simply didn’t want any.

People tell me I have lots of willpower. Then – usually with a mouth full of dessert – they tell me they are “weak-willed”. They are not weak-willed; they just want dessert more than they want to be slim.

James Gordon said it best: "It's not that some people have willpower and some don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not."

Comments

[Cindy]

Excellent point, and something I need to learn to ask myself before every bite. Do I want this, or do I want to be fit?

Thanks for showing us a different way of looking at it!