Furthur use of the Will

“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks.” - Phillip Brooks

If we want things to change, we must study the use of the will. If you have excellent will power, you can accomplish whatever you want.

Practicing the will can be done every day. Notice when you want or need to do something, but you find excuses not to do it. This is where the will can be practiced.

Practice it on little things at first - washing the dishes now instead of waiting for them to pile up, cleaning your apartment even though you don't feel like it, writing an email to someone even though it's going to take time and effort, going to the gym even though it's freezing out (like this morning in NYC) or - writing practice goals on an index card and then doing them one by one. All of this strengthens the will. Make it into a game - play with this idea.

With time, your will will become very strong. You'll begin to face challenges straight away and take action even though you may not feel comfortable with them. We are using the will to get out of the comfort zone. This is how we grow and learn.

In the following days I will write about efficient action.

Using the Will

Using the will in our work is extremely important and is often overlooked. We want to use the will to keep focusing on what we want - not on what we don't want.

In the case of practicing the guitar, we want to decide on what we want (better tone, more accuracy, more colors, running through the piece without stopping, etc.) and then use the will to stay focused on that - regardless of the current circumstances. Realize that staying focused on what you want will bring it to you, but it might not happen immediately - although sometimes it does. Often I have to simply tell a student to focus on getting a better tone, and it comes. Or I ask them to focus on being more accurate, and it comes. I don't have to explain anything or introduce new techniques. The student simply has to make a decision of what to focus on and then use the will to stay there. Then the mind / body will start to find solutions.

If there are no decisions made in our work, we can become easily distracted and overwhelmed. Our job is to focus on what we want to improve and use the will to stay focused on that during the session. 15 minutes of this kind of work is worth months of unfocused practice. Remind yourself by saying "I want to play my piece at this tempo" or "I want to memorize this passage" or "I want to get a better tone". Write down the idea and post it all over your practice room. Keep reminding yourself of what you want to improve. It takes time to build the momentum for new ways of playing - just stay on it.