Thread: Willpower
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Old 12-02-2017, 08:53 PM
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Incontrol15
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Willpower

I fell upon a thread earlier about willpower in a different room and thought I'd share with the general public.

It reminded me that I dug into willpower in a BIG way when I quit drinking and learned a lot from that exercise and it set the stage for what became getting I touch with my future self.

Most of what I learned / realized about willpower was from Dr. Kelly McGonagall who is a health psychologist known for her work in the field of 'science help'—popular explication of scientific research—as it relates to achieving personal goals despite inner conflict. (Thx wiki).

She made willpower her life's work. To understand where it comes from, how to harness it, why some have strong will power, and others don't, how to utilize it, how to make it stronger within us, etc.

She became a professor on the matter and actually created a highly sought after course on the issue at Stanford. If you look up willpower, your sure to see her name.

I found her material not only very fascinating, but very useful. I got a better understanding of what was needed to have willpower, SOME of which was a strong connection to our future selves.

Somehow breaking free of the dreaded present version of ourselves, or our pathetic past versions.

There's more to willpower than that, but that's the major piece. And if you check out the video links below, I bet you'll get something from them.

Of course the trick is to learn how to connect to and love your future self. She provides some tips I believe I the 2nd video clip. If not, scope around YouTube for more of her stuff.

I remember applying and practicing her tips and I remember they helped me.... A lot. I'm fact, I still have some of the notes 32 months later.

The sad part is, I stopped doing what she suggested. Though I dabbled in growing my future self for several months, the novelty wore off and I got stuck in my current issues again.

The result? I looked for a "fix" for depression online and found a substance I ended up getting hooked on after over a year of sobriety.

Since then I learned another VERY, VERY, VERY important piece to the overall puzzle....loving your CURRENT self and showing self empathy, understanding, and patience. This could be a topic on its own, but what helped with that was meditation. Learning to Meditate in a way to get in touch with the deepest version of myself that loves me despite all the stupid things my addict version of self did / does.

There are many pieces to the puzzle of sobriety. Which is why it's so important to involve an outside source of information and guidance. AA, NA, rational recovery, therapy, and even here.

Anyway....
Hope these videos helps someone as much as they helped me. Granted... It still took some work. But hopefully she puts you on the same path she put me on.

A life as an addict / alcoholic is hell. Every day using is literally like going insane. For real. Everyone here knows that. Many also know the insanity stops when the using stops. For real.

This link is a short 15min video on her overall take on the topic. Maybe it'll motivate you to look deeper:

https://youtu.be/NzVoQkPswRk

This link is a 55min recorded presentation she gave to Google Inc. She presents and explains in detail what she's learned and basically outlines her full semester course and book. ABSOLUTELY worth an hour of your life no matter how strong your willpower is: https://youtu.be/V5BXuZL1HAg
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