To be honest, I think sheer will power is a bad idea. You start trying to do useful things using your will power and then you realize it’s like a gas can that gets empty very quickly along the day. I mean, if you’re doing something against your emotions, if you’re doing something that you don’t like to do, in the beginning you will do it without any problem. You will fake yourself, you will feel comfortable doing it like you can do it the whole day… but after a while you get tired very easily and believe it’s not productive.

I was reading some time ago a book called Switch that explains the different forces that affect change. In the book they just explain how to make changes by looking at three different perspectives:

• The Rider
• The Elephant
• The Path

You know… the rider is kind of the intellectual part of the change, trying to look for reasoning, etc… the elephant is the emotional part of the change and whenever something is unclear, then it gets fearful… and the path is your environment, that can help you achieve the change or not at all. Well, in my case, my elephant is very fearful to accept that anything needs to be done just through sheer will power. I get fearful very easily and that doesn’t help much.

My proposal is that you look for ways to make it easier, to put your passion in as many things as you can, because if you have that tank of will power, it needs to last for the entire day (I presume that during the night it gets filled up again). If that’s the case, then you need to use it wisely along the day because there are so many things that require will power that do not depend on you. You can end up the day frustrated, anxious and feeling uncomfortable with yourself.
On the other hand, if you are aware when you’re using this energy and you try to limit the usage of sheer will power as much as possible, it’s the same as if you’re piloting an aircraft and you’re trying to glide it so that it doesn’t consume any petrol.