Do not trust your will power
I have read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Outliers.” I am a fan of Malcolm Gladwell and have had the privilege of interviewing him in New York a few years ago. Gladwell made his famous claim that in order to reach the mastery level of a Yitzhak Perlman or Yoyo Ma, they, together with a host of others masters of their craft must have more than 10,000 hours of practice.
Some people look at this and say, “That is impossible a task for me to accomplish.” Others start working on it. They rise and grind. They practiced like crazy,
wanting to achieve 10,000 hours of practice. They muster their courage, develop their determination, and build their will power to complete their task of 10,000-hour practice so they can become experts and masters in their craft.
I am not too sure about this, but I certainly cannot muster enough will power to practice speaking for 10,000 hours. More in increments, perhaps, built over the many engagements I have had over the years. But one thing is certain; I cannot depend on will power alone. I depend on divine inspiration to remind me that I am on a mission, and I am doing this for a purpose bigger than me.
I have read up on some interesting information about will power.
Do you know that you can actually wear down your will power?
In a well-known 1996 research project led by Roy Baumeister at Case Western Reserve University, scientists had two groups of people sit down in a room. They were instructed to solve a simple puzzle.
One group was told they could eat their warm chocolate chip cookies in a bowl in front of them. They just have to resist the other bowl, which is full of radishes. The next group was told the opposite. They are to eat the radish and resist the cookies. After the experiment, the researchers told the participants that they need to tabulate the results. The puzzle was not quite simple, and it could not be solved. The scientists just wanted to see how each person behaved in order to solve it. Can you guess what happened? The people who had to eat the radishes and resist the cookies spent about eight minutes before they quit solving the puzzle. The people who ate the cookies tried an average of about 19 minutes. Why? It appears the will
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