Have you made New Year’s resolutions before? If you have, how did it go? Did you succeed? If you did, congratulations, you’re one of the very few people who actually fulfill their resolutions at the start of the year.
You’re one of the few because research shows that most people fail to achieve the goals they set on January 1. A survey shows that 88% of people who make these resolutions give up by mid-March. And do you know one of the biggest reasons for this failure? The answer is lack of willpower.
What is willpower and can you do something to have more of it? The answer is yes, you can improve your willpower and achieve your resolutions and most of the goals you set. But how?
In this article, we’ll show you what willpower is and what you need it for, as well as recommend a few new year vision board ideas to improve your willpower. Harness the power of vibrational frequency to achieve your dreams by improving the very thing you may be lacking the most.
WHAT IS WILLPOWER AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
WHAT IS WILLPOWER?
What is willpower exactly? Well, there are many other words that describe it, such as determination, drive, self-discipline, resolve, and self-control.
However, psychology defines it best as, “the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals,” as defined by the American Psychological Association.
In simpler words, willpower is our ability to delay gratification in order to achieve a goal. For many, willpower is synonymous with self-control.
If you need to finish a job by 5 p.m., willpower is your ability to complete the task on time by resisting procrastination or doing something else.
So why is it important? Well, in the survey mentioned earlier, willpower allows us to fulfill anything we need to accomplish. But, willpower can also be hard to find due to distractions and temptations around us.
Here are some benefits of willpower:
- Improved focus and concentration
- Teaches you how to manage stress
- Allows you to resist procrastination
- Makes you more productive
- Helps you succeed in anything you set your eyes on
- Helps you become healthier and happier
WHY WILLPOWER COULD BE THE ANSWER TO LIVING A LIFE OF SUCCESS
Willpower is believed to be one of the most important determinants of personal and professional success. Also known as self-discipline or self-control, willpower is key to helping us create long-term positive changes in all aspects of our lives.
One study discovered that willpower is more essential than IQ when it comes to academic success. Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., a psychologist from the University of Pennsylvania, and Martin Seligman, Ph.D., who is considered to be the father of positive psychology, conducted a study on self-control with a group of 8th graders.
The students were given a task and were offered two options: $1 to be given to them immediately, or $2 to be given after a week.
The study showed that the students who chose to be given $2 after a week had the following records in school:
- Better grades
- Better school attendance
- Higher standardized test scores
- Were more likely to be accepted in competitive high school programs
Based on the results of the study, the researchers concluded that self-control is more important than IQ, when it comes to academic success predictions.
The study is one of the many experiments that support the theory of self-control or self-discipline as one of the key determinants of success.
Willpower is believed to help us focus on our priorities, resist temptations, become more efficient, and basically live a more successful life.
If you want to achieve your goals, if you want to create your dream life, then you need to have strong willpower. But alas, many people struggle with it and end up procrastinating, giving up on their goals, and quitting at the first sign of failure.
You need to learn how to improve your willpower if you want to manifest the life you dream about. Self-control is needed to achieve success in every aspect of your life, be it in your relationships, career, personal finance, health, and every other goal you want to achieve.
5 VISION BOARD IDEAS TO IMPROVE YOUR WILLPOWER
If you want to get started on improving your willpower now, you can harness the power of vision boards to help you manifest strong self-discipline or control.
Here are 5 vision board ideas to improve your willpower:
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MAKE SLEEP A FOCAL POINT ON YOUR VISION BOARD
It’s hard to find the willpower and motivation to chase after your dreams if you’re tired and sleepy all the time. You need energy to achieve your goals. That is why proper sleep is very important if you want to achieve a goal.
A good 7-8 hours of regular sleep each night is enough to get you refreshed and energized to start the day.
You must also avoid hitting the snooze button. Each time you postpone or extend your alarm, studies say you are only making yourself feel worse. This is because snoozing sets you up to sleep again, only to be awoken minutes later. Snoozing is known to reduce your quality of sleep, so you end up feeling more tired.
What’s the best thing to do? Wake up and get out of bed at the first alarm.
Create a vision board that reminds you of the benefits of sleep in achieving your goals. You can also place a reminder to sleep and wake up at a specific time each day.
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PUT PICTURES OF A COLD SHOWER
It’s tempting to enjoy a warm bath or shower in the morning, but a cold shower is much more effective at waking you up and helping you start your day on a high note.
A cold shower can activate your sympathetic nervous system, which leads to raised blood pressure and stimulates the release of noradrenaline hormones. These can help you find the energy to get started on your day.
Mount pictures of a cold shower on your dream board.
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MAKE A POMODORO TECHNIQUE VISION BOARD
There’s a common misconception that willpower has a limit. Recent studies actually show that willpower can be restarted with a few tricks. Think of willpower as a battery that gets depleted but it can be recharged. So if you feel exhausted, what do you do? Rest and recharge, right?
It’s the same thing with willpower. If you feel like you don’t have the drive to keep going, you just need to rest and recharge.
The Pomodoro Technique is one way that can help you become more productive by creating a balance between work and rest. The Technique was created by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s as a time management method.
It involves breaking down your time in 25-minute intervals to create this balance. For example, you work continuously for 25 minutes, then take a break for the next 25 minutes, and get back to work again.
These intervals are called “Pomodoros.” By breaking down your tasks and separating them with short breaks, you are making your job more manageable and preventing you from becoming overwhelmed.
Create a vision board highlighting the method and its benefits to remind you to create a balanced way of working.
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A VISION BOARD RANKING YOUR GOALS
Make a list of your goals based on importance or priority. By creating this rank, you get to see which tasks need urgent action and which tasks can wait. This can also prevent you from being too overwhelmed with too many things to do at once and keeps you focused on the bigger goals that need to get done.
Choose pictures that are larger for your bigger goals, and choose smaller pictures for smaller goals, to highlight which goals are more important.
You can also use vision board templates that can help you rank your goals in a more organized, clear, and effective way. These templates are pre-designed templates that feature frames where you put images on the layout, activities, and exercises you need to answer about your goals, and other details that help you create a vision board outlining your most important goals.
The Vision Cloud is offering free vision board templates to download, which you can get by clicking on this link.
With a mission to help you believe that anything is possible, The Vision Cloud is committed to making sure that everyone finds their true potential. You have the power to create your life, and whether you have strong willpower now or not, The Vision Cloud is here to help you improve your life for the better.
Improve your self-control and discipline through the use of vision boards and the principles of the Law of Attraction. The Vision Cloud offers a vision board magazine subscription designed to make things happen, whether in your personal or professional life.
With a magazine that gets delivered to your door, plus goal-setting worksheets, a step-by-step guide on using dream boards, an option to receive daily SMS motivational and inspirational words, and access to a private Facebook community of like-minded dreamers, The Vision Cloud gives you the best resources to turn your dreams into reality.
For more information on the vision board magazine subscription offered by The Vision Cloud, click this link and discover that you have the power within you to make your life so much better than you can imagine.
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EAT GOOD FOOD AND EXERCISE
Avoid eating junk food and other highly processed food as these can wreak havoc on your health and energy levels. A fit and healthy body can boost your willpower by having enough energy throughout the day to do the things you need to achieve your goals.
Create a health and fitness vision board to remind you to choose fruits, vegetables, and other healthier food options in your diet. We’ve written great articles on using vision boards to help you manifest good health, fitness, and well-being, which you can find here.
Other tips include improving your time management skills, focusing more on the positive outcomes of your goals, reducing stress levels, and avoiding always being in a state of willpower as depletion does happen when you overwork yourself.
Chasing your dreams can be exhausting, especially when you suffer from one failure to another. But what happens when you quit before even making progress? You lose hope, you lose the drive, and you lose your dream altogether.
Improve your willpower and you’ll improve your chances of success. Take these New Year vision board ideas to boost your willpower and finally accomplish every New Year’s resolution you set for yourself at the start of the year.
