A strong Will is more valuable than money, more to be prized than gold, more precious than diamonds. For even if you get possession of these things, they will not change your essence. But the methods I am setting out to describe here, if you follow them, will. This is why, while a certain amount of money is necessary to survival in this world, and may make life pleasant, it never, on its own, brings permanent satisfaction and happiness.



People thought that the ancient alchemists were trying to turn base metals into gold, and even they perhaps thought so. But while they may not have succeeded in that, through their long years of toil in their laboratories, those who persisted, working for years at exercises of their own devising, produced a change in themselves. They achieved the Philosophical Gold, the extraordinary will which can then be set to any goal, and persist as if it had eternity in which to act and unlimited power at its disposal, with absolute confidence that you will succeed.

Such people have a calm confidence, are absolutely sure of their success, they have the power to do whatever they wish. If they wish to lose a certain amount of weight, they do so. If they wish to make a certain amount of money, they do so. If they wish to attain a certain position in life, they do so. And unless their intention or the methods they adopt are harmful to others - for as evidenced by two world wars, even the strongest will, set to evil purposes, will eventually be defeated by powers even greater than their own - this actually becomes the case, for they find that all their efforts are rewarded by a connection to the Higher Will, so that, even if they die in the midst of their work, others will complete the task for them. What I mean by 'the Higher Will' must be left to another series. First things must be undertaken first.

By following a graduated series of physical exercises, it is possible to transform our physical body - its shape, strength, and powers of endurance. It is the same with the power of the human will. By consciously setting out in a pre-planned way, to develop our will, by a series of carefully planned and graduated exercises, we can train ourselves to be persevering in the pursuit of our goals, to an astonishingly greater extent than we are now.

By creating new habits for ourselves, and sticking to what we have consciously set out to do, no matter what, we can stretch and extend our ability to do whatever we have previously decided to do, for however long it takes to achieve a result. In order to accomplish anything, it is necessary to believe in our ability to do it. We can accomplish anything which we believe reasonably in our possibility of doing. The key word here is "reasonable''.

Each of us has, or should have, a good idea of our own potentials, abilities and limitations. If we do not, and set out to develop our Will, we soon will have. This is because the development of will is a head on clash between you and your limitations. In setting out consciously to develop more will by adhering to set exercises, we soon find our limits, by reason of how difficult an exercise we are able to tackle successfully.

We should, as a matter of course, test our powers and abilities in every possible way and at every opportunity. Until you try to find out what you are capable of; test the abilities of this marvellous machine which you are - or which has been lent to you for seventy years or so - how will you know the full scope of what you can do? If you haven't tried various jobs, sports, recreations, how do you know that one of them doesn't contain the seeds of your success?

Writing, music, computer programming, selling, teaching, painting, car maintenance, martial arts, dancing, pottery, personal development - only by trying things will you learn where your natural strengths - and limitations - are. Ideally, of course, all this should begin from birth - we should be taught to voluntarily test our abilities in any and every way we can. By and large the culture in which we live, and the sausage machine of formal education does not encourage us to do this. The sit-down-shut-up-and-listen philosophy turns us off from real self-education, which should always lead us to act - Education anagrams to ACTION DUE. If we think of all the things we were told at school which went in one ear and out of the other, and we have never been able to use, we can see something of the scale of the problem.

There has been a lot of emphasis, beginning with Maxwell Maltz's great book Psycho-cybernetics, on the importance and superiority of the imagination over willpower, when pursuing our goals. And the imagination is a powerful and important faculty. But if we set ourselves to regularly visualising our goal situation a certain number of times a day, or at a set time every day, what is it which causes most people to give up on that, or any other regular exercise or project they set themselves to, with 'the best of intentions', as most new year's resolutions are not kept? Why do we start so many things, courses, careers, etc. hopefully, only to be amongst the vast majority who fall by the wayside, while the seemingly charmed few go on to the prize?

Willpower, which has almost become a no-no in certain personal development circles, is the backbone and backstop which separates achievers from non-achievers, since it is the element of character which allows us to perservere. But lack of it is not a failure of character, but a failure of training. When someone says 'I have no willpower', it's not really a reflection on them. It's a reflection on a school and higher education system that teaches a lot of information, much of which will be outdated in a short time, but while teaching the essential skills which allow you to read this article, and to function economically, it does not teach you to train and educate your will, a faculty unique to human beings and which is of great help whatever we want to accomplish in life.

In the next article I will give you a series of practical exercises which will help the development of your Will.

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