Willpower: Why Does It Weaken? And How Does It Grow Stronger?
**Willpower…
Why Does It Weaken? And How Does It Grow Stronger?**¹
Many times a person wishes to behave well but cannot. Or he knows the wrongness or danger of a certain matter and that he ought to stay away from it, yet he is unable. The reason for all this is that his will is weak—like a person under the control of a bad habit and unable to get rid of it.
He knows, for example, that smoking harms his health, wastes his money, weakens his will, and leaves its smell in his mouth and teeth, yet he cannot quit smoking. He wishes to, but he cannot… It is the state of a person unable to resist sin and also unable to do good. His will is weak in both cases.
Causes of Weak Willpower:
1—The first thing that weakens the will is desire.
And we do not mean a specific desire, but any desire—whether bodily desire, or desire for money and possessions, or desire for positions and the pride of life, or desire for revenge… All of these desires weaken the will.
When desire enters the heart, it affects the will and draws it to itself. The more desire grows, the weaker the will becomes in resisting it. With repeated pressure, the will may collapse completely and surrender to desire. The remedy is to stay away from such desires as much as possible, and if one is tempted by them, he should quickly resist and flee.
2—Staying away from the source of sin and its material.
The war of desire may come to you from within your own heart; its remedy is to strengthen your spiritual life, striving for purity of heart as much as you can. But if you become close to the material or source of sin, you then face two wars: one from within and another from without, joining together to cast you down and weaken your will and resistance to error.
So a wise person must avoid the temptations of sin and the bad company that makes falling easier and invites him to it.
3—What weakens the will even more is remaining long in the atmosphere of sin.
Speed is very important in fleeing from the sources of sin and whatever helps it. This is clear in all problems of addiction of every kind, and also in combating the thought of revenge or bodily desire.
If sin fights you and you resist at once, not letting its thought remain with you even for a moment, you will find your will strengthened and freed from temptations. But if you let desire graze in your heart, play with your emotions, and persuade your mind, then with time it will grow stronger over you and your will becomes weaker in resisting it. And even if you overcome, it will only be with great effort and divine help.
It is easy to pull a small plant from the ground, but difficult if you leave it until it becomes a tree with deep roots and spreading branches.
Speed is necessary to strengthen the will in doing good or resisting sin.
Do not delay doing good nor postpone it, lest the devil tempt you to rethink and perhaps try to change your mind. To stop a person from doing good or weaken his will, the devil does not say, “Do not do it,” but says: “Wait, think… don’t rush; let’s discuss it.” Thus he leads him into hesitation, weakening his will. With delay, the heart shifts from determination to mere thinking, and a counter-war may open that prevents good altogether!
Example: God’s portion of your money:
If you quickly resolve to give God’s portion as soon as your salary or income arrives, your will remains strong to carry out the commandment.
But if you delay, saying, “Let’s wait a bit to manage some things,” or you begin thinking: “To whom should I give? To the church? Or to charities? Or to poor students? Or to needy families? …” During this delay you may hesitate and say to yourself, “I want to do good, but I don’t know how—or to whom—or where.” And you may end up doing nothing. You might forget what you intended to give or lose it before deciding, and your will weakens.
4—Willpower is weakened by hesitation.
Whether in doing good, avoiding sin, or even performing duties—like a student hesitating to study daily, or hesitating to console the grieving, visit the sick, or help someone in need.
Hesitation weakens resolve, weakens the will to act, confuses the mind, and plants doubt: “Should I do it or not? Now or later? Must I or must I not?”… In all this the will weakens and may end up not acting at all.
Therefore treat hesitation in yourself generally, and in doing good especially. Likewise never hesitate for a moment in quickly resisting every cause of sin, whether human or material.
5—What weakens willpower in resisting sin is gradual involvement in the atmosphere of sin.
Sudden or rapid descent is noticeable, but gradual descent you may not perceive—just as you do not feel yourself descending many meters along the desert road from Wadi Al-Natroun to Cairo or to Lake Mariout.
In spiritual life, you may gradually descend from spiritual warmth to lukewarmness to coldness to falling, where your will collapses though you never noticed how it weakened.
Be careful with yourself. If you find you automatically and quickly reject certain sins, know your will is still strong.
But if you reject sin only after hesitation, know your will for good has begun to lose its first strength.
If you walk a few steps with the thought of sin before stopping, your will has weakened, though it still warns you.
But if you fall and do not know how to rise, or do not want to rise, know that your will has collapsed and is in need of strong and urgent treatment.
Sin may not fight you all at once or openly, lest your good will reject it. Instead it deceives the will gradually, step by step, until it weakens and falls.
Therefore, weak willpower often comes from lack of firmness from the first step. By negligence and slackness the will loses its strength.
The will must stop every cause of sin from the beginning, with wise insight that understands consequences before they occur.
How Does Willpower Grow Stronger?
1—Willpower grows stronger when a person lives in an atmosphere that helps him do good.
Whether from people who encourage him, give a good example, strengthen his will, or lovingly rebuke him if he strays even slightly. The will is also strengthened by the atmosphere of virtue surrounding him, in which his heart believes.
Life has two scales: good and evil.
If the scale of good outweighs in your life, your will grows strong; if the scale of temptations outweighs, your will weakens.
Remember that you are influenced by many things around you—like a clock pendulum swinging right or left. Make your leaning toward good the stronger side and your willpower will grow.
2—Willpower grows through exercises of self-control.
If your soul does not naturally incline to good, restrain it with strong will. Self-control strengthens willpower, and strong will controls the soul if it deviates.
If you always give your soul everything it desires without wisdom, your will weakens and desires control you!
So force yourself to do good if you do not naturally love it. The more you compel yourself, the stronger your will becomes, until you finally love good.
Compulsion is the starting point, not the final stage.
A small child sent to school for the first time cries and refuses because he leaves his parents and familiar surroundings. But after a while he finds pleasure in school, new friends, and learning, and goes willingly.
Likewise in the spiritual life: self-compulsion first leads to loving good.
Force yourself into repentance, and you will find rest in repentance.
3—What strengthens willpower is the fear of God and the alertness of conscience.
Your awareness that God sees every deed and hears every word plants His fear in your heart and strengthens your will toward good. It keeps your conscience awake and watchful.
A living conscience strengthens the will.
Your bond with God—through contemplation, prayer, the words of Scripture, and the lives of the saints—keeps your mind and heart in a spiritual atmosphere that strengthens your will toward good and makes you reject all forms of sin and resist them strongly.
4—For willpower to grow, a person must hold firmly to values.
He must have unshakable values he will not abandon even if the whole world stands against him.
One who holds honesty and truthfulness as firm values will have an unbreakable will when tempted against them.
The martyrs, who held faith as a fixed value, had unshakeable willpower to preserve their faith despite threats and sufferings. Their will could not weaken.
But a person without values is like one lost in a desert with no sense of direction; his will becomes unstable.
Our will weakens because some values in our life have weakened.
If values remain strong and our commitment to them strong, our willpower will also remain strong.
There are values like respect for law, respect for public order, respect for elders. As long as these values stand, willpower remains strong. If one value weakens, the will may be led into rebellion and resistance.
Religion offers us definite values, and the will grows strong in carrying them out.
For example, fasting strengthens willpower by abstaining from food; likewise strong willpower helps a person fast. The strength or weakness of a person’s will is influenced by his devotion and closeness to God.
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Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III published in Al-Gomhuria newspaper on 29-10-2002.
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