What are your thoughts on "When you want to change, strategies are more helpful than will power.?

Use this forum to discuss the May 2021 Book of the month, "Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through" by Jeff Meyer.
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Vidhi Adhikari
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Re: What are your thoughts on "When you want to change, strategies are more helpful than will power.?

Post by Vidhi Adhikari »

DANAWEB wrote: 09 May 2021, 08:27 For me one of the most important points put forward by the author in this book is "When you want to change, strategies are more helpful than will power."

I find this true in every aspect, whether it is about our personal lives or about our career, or even in the work place scenarios.

When we consider our careers, everyone of us do want to make a move to another career or another work place at some point. However, unable to have a clear plan or a step by step approach as to what needs to be done on a consistent basis in order to succeed the chosen path.

Most of us has the will power, however we will not be successful if we do not have a clear strategy to follow our dream.
Agreed, but overstrategizing and getting demotivated with failure can quickly deter you from your path. I believe that both are important when pursuing a different direction.
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Post by Sarah Nichols 7 »

They’re both equally important. You could have a step-by-step plan on how to change jobs or change locations or change your love life. But, if the will power isn’t there, you won’t take that first step. Will power helps you take that first step of faith when you don’t see the rest of the steps.
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Post by Sarrikoziol »

Personally, I think you need both will power and a strategy. You do have to want to make the changes enough to strike up a strategy to begin with but also the will power to carry out the plan. I suppose you could make a plan and follow through. However if you are just going through the motions, wouldn't you need to ask yourself if you truly wanted the change?
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Post by Medhansh Bhardwaj »

Both are equally important. If you just keep on strategizing, it will not change your life in any way. The most you can get out of that is mental pleasure. Inside your mind, you will be the king of the world, but outside, you will not grow at all. This is the case with maladaptive and lucid daydreamers.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you use your willpower to take massive action in your life without any strategy, there is a strong possibility you will not obtain the desired result. Why? Simply because of lack of knowledge, experience, and strategy. By crude luck, maybe you can get to the desired result. But the chances would be very slim. Most likely you will take some impulsive decision which will further worsen your problems.
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Post by Alexandur Gicov »

It can hardly be said more accurately and correctly. No matter how strong your will is, if you don't have a strategy, you are much less likely to continue in your endeavors.
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Post by Rizki Pradana »

I think strategies can help achieve your goal, but if you don't have the willpower, you will not do the strategies that achieve your goals.
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Post by mbhuibregtse »

Strategies are very important as it will help you build a solid routine. While will power helps, it doesn't seem to be enough to make a concrete change. Otherwise, the person wouldn't need the change in the first place! Very simple strategies can build new positive habits that facilitate change.
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Post by Nyasha Gogoma »

This is absolutely true. The concept is akin to trying to avoid a certain temptation, e.g. not eating sugary snacks. Rather than keeping tons of cookies and chips in your pantry and deluding yourself into thinking that you have enough willpower not to wake up in the middle of the night to snack on these, it is better to take preventative action. A simple strategy would be removing the temptation altogether. If you only buy carrots, even if you wake up hungry in the middle of the night, there won't be any sugary snacks to try to avoid. You'll most likely end up eating the carrots and eventually grow to like them. Relying on willpower isn't that helpful because your mind doesn't have a plan to latch onto. When you break down your huge goal into multiple smaller and simpler steps, however, it takes a lot of the pressure off and actually helps you to achieve your overall goal. This is known as the theory of marginal gains.
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Post by Hussein21 »

From my understanding of your question, I believe power is more helpful than strategies. You can have the best strategy in the world but if you don't have the power to carry it out then there's nothing to achieve
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Post by Shridhar Suryawanshi »

I think that the author is trying to say that smart people win more battles than strong people. I completely agree with that. Brains over brawn.
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Post by Venus2304 »

I believe that will power is just as important as a good strategy when trying to develop new habits. A determination to win or to succeed is the first step to achieving great things.
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Post by Bennaji »

I feel they go hand in hand. Willpower to change should be had along with strategy because most times, one can have the strategy with no willpower.
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Post by Asja Šabani »

Willpower is necessary as activating energy to propel change (I don't like this, I want to change!), but we need a good strategy for the actual, step-by-step execution of plans, wants and dreams.
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Post by Asja Šabani »

I absolutely agree with this statement. Having a clear strategy, routine or technique is way more important and useful than the plain willpower to change something. Also, it is easier to rely on a proper technique or strategy when things get difficult.
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Post by Moneybag »

I this both will power and strategies go together and are very important. One can not be successful with just one of them. You need the two of them to be successful.
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