Willpower

I’m discovering new strength of will and it’s so exciting I just have to share it! I’m not quite sure when it started, but I’m suddenly struck by how much has changed.

I recognized this change when I suspected that I had Candida. That idea led me to cut out gluten and sugar from my diet until I could get test results back to determine whether it was true. Most of you yogi’s do various restricted diets here and there or fasts or cleanses – as all those great hippy doctors recommend. I, on the other hand, found any restriction simply impossible…every time I tried, I would immediately obsess over whatever food item I tried to remove from my diet and cave by the time dinner rolled around. But not this time; this time I went gluten free, sugar free for three weeks and hardly blinked.

When my results came back clear, I couldn’t believe how little the diet bothered me. If it were permanent, I’m sure I would have mourned the loss of pizza and ice cream, don’t get me wrong. But what realized is that something inside of me has changed.

I spent almost a decade trying to build a daily meditation practice, constantly praying for discipline and willpower to practice the way my guru taught. I spent years trying to integrate exercise into my routine with spotty success. And food? Well, I call myself a vegetarian, but found fish irresistible.

But something really has changed. One strong exertion of Will seems to have rolled into the next. When one goal was met, the next became so much easier to reach. Now I sit amazed at what has happened – I pushed the ‘boulder’ of laziness past some threshold and now it’s rolling faster and faster down a hillside in front of me! What luck!

So, here’s my advice if you’re like me – struggling with self-doubt and your inner sloth – pick one goal in your life and make a fierce commitment to succeed. Make it small at first and give yourself a finish line to congratulate your success. Sign up for that 5k, commit to floss daily for a whole month, make just one change in your diet. That small success is just the start. The next one will be bigger and then bigger still, until you look back and realize your boulder is rolling down the hill and you’re so happy you could sing!