Everybody wants to succeed. I have never met a person who said, "I do not want to succeed." So wanting is not the problem. The problem is the gap between wanting and doing. In my chapter "Where There is a Will There is a Way", I try to understand why some people cross that gap and others do not.
The book names three things that weaken the will. They are fear of failure, dislike of long hours of work, and reluctance to face challenges. Let me show you each one through a story.
Ashutosh, the man who worked hard to avoid work
Ashutosh was a man who was always tired of hard work. An uncle had left him a comfortable allowance. When he married, he made sure that his wife also came from a family with financial security. He invested their money so that neither of them would ever need a job.
It worked for a while. Then the allowance began to fluctuate and some investments gave low returns. Now Ashutosh had to protect his budget. He did market surveys of the prices of vegetables, fruits and poultry in different shops. He worked out exactly how much meat and how many vegetables the family should eat each month. He sent his wife to far-away shops that sold things cheaper, and sometimes they walked long distances. As the children grew, his calculations became so complicated that he sat up half the night doing them.
See the joke. To avoid working, he ended up working harder than any person with a job or a small business. The book says it clearly: very often, to avoid work they dislike, people do much more work than they would have done had they the will to succeed.
Sampath and the bad coaching
The second quality of the will is taking responsibility. Sampath went for an interview. He had the right experience, but his degree marks were low. The interviewer asked why. "The coaching was bad at the institution I studied," he said. He was not selected.
His career counsellor told him later, "Never try to blame someone else for what has gone wrong. If you had said, 'I think I didn't work hard enough,' or 'Maturity came to me slightly late in life,' it would have been better appreciated." I agree. When you blame, you hand your power to someone else. When you own it, you keep it.
The crows and the jackfruit tree
The third story is my favourite. Prashanth had a huge jackfruit tree, but a family of crows ate most of the fruit and left the mess. His friend Siddharth asked why he did not pull down their nests. A young crow panicked. The grandfather crow was calm. "Prashanth does not have the willpower to take up anything challenging," he said. "We are safe." And indeed Prashanth said only that the nests were too high, one ladder would not reach, and who would climb on a tied ladder?
Three days later, Siddharth asked Prashanth's son Ramesh the same question. "Yes, uncle, I will set to work on it tomorrow itself," said Ramesh. He had ideas. Use a pole from another tree. Stand on the porch roof. The grandfather crow's face fell. "Ramesh treats a challenge as an opportunity to prove himself," he said. "It is time to find another place to live."
The same problem. Two people. One saw a wall, the other saw a puzzle.
What this means for you
The book gives a list of nine questions to test your will. Here are three of them. Answer honestly.
- Do you do only those things that you find easy?
- Are you wary of taking up a difficult and challenging task?
- Do you blame destiny if things go wrong with your plan?
If the answer to any of these is Yes, you have found your work. The book also gives a very practical way to build the will. Do not start with your biggest dream. Pick one small thing that will help you get ahead but which you find difficult. For example, public speaking, letter-writing, swimming, losing weight, or giving up a bad habit.
Then do these two things.
- Set a time limit, for example thirty days, and start practising today.
- Every time you lose the will to carry on, remind yourself of the benefit waiting at the end.
If you can build willpower in a small pursuit, the book says, it becomes easier to find enough of it for the larger dream.
I will also leave you with the reply of the violinist Isaac Stern. A woman told him after a concert, "Oh, I'd give my life to play like you." He answered, "Lady, that I did!" Willpower is not a feeling. It is what you give up, every day, for what you want.
This is one chapter from my book Simply the Best.
