“Can each of us take proactive steps to spark pivotal epiphanies in our lives?
I’m confident that we can. I’ve seen it happen—
first with myself and then with others.”
Donna Hartney
The AHA! Handbook:
How to spark the insights that will transform your life and career
How’s it going doing what you know you need to do for your career, your health, your relationships, your spiritual life? Maybe you could use a little (or a lot) of willpower. Join the club.
According to a recent research report from the American Psychological Association (Stress in America: Missing the Health Care Connection), the biggest perceived barrier to change is willpower. (Of the nearly 2000 people surveyed who where trying to make a change or who had been advised to make a change, 31% said that a lack of willpower was getting in their way, followed by time constraints (22%), cost constraints (16%), and stress (12%).)
31% who want to change think they need more willpower to be successful. What worries me about that number is that I’ll bet that most (if not all) of the people who said that are thinking the willpower that means muscling through, putting your nose to the grindstone, sucking it up and making it happen.
Unfortunately, the muscling-through kind of willpower isn’t sustainable over the long haul. (Check out this research summary in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.)
So what options does that leave us with? I have two suggestions: