67The more thoughtful our questions get to be, the more
interactive the conversations. Look for opportunities
for interactivity to motivate yourself to higher levels of
experience.
29. Embrace your willpower
I can’t tell you how many people have told me that
they have no willpower. Do you think the same thing?
If you think you have no willpower, you are undermin-
ing your own success. Everyone has willpower. To be
reading this sentence, you must have willpower.
The first step in developing your willpower, there-
fore, is to accept its existence. You have willpower just
as surely as you have life.
If someone were to put a large barbell weight on the
floor in front of you and ask you to lift it and you knew
you could not, you would not say “I have no strength.”
You’d say, “I’m not strong enough.”
Not strong “enough” is more truthful language, be-
cause it implies that you could be strong enough if you
worked at it. It also implies that you do have strength.
It is the same with willpower. Of course you have
willpower. When you accept that little piece of choco-
late cake, it is not because you have no willpower. It is
only because you choose not to exercise it in that in-
stance.
The first step toward building willpower is to cel-
ebrate the fact that you’ve got it. You’ve got willpower,
just like that muscle in your arm. It might not be a very
strong muscle, but you do have that muscle.
The second step is to know that your willpower, like
a muscle in your arm, is yours to develop. You are in
charge of making it strong or letting it atrophy. It is not
Embrace your willpower