We often associate will power with an impeccable discipline. The ability to focus without distraction even through discomfort on what they do and what they want.
By this definition, many people who need to Stim or get over stimulated often have low will power, because their threshold of self control and toleration is a great deal lower.
There is an actual neurological reason for a lack of stability or focus. They are literally wired to have less will power in our the brains are designed. Willpower as defined by most people that is.
With Autism it seems like they are unreasonable when they demand structure or break down without it. With ADHD there is a sense that the person is lazy, doesn’t care. The saying that “He likes the idea of a skill/task but doesn’t really love it because he doesn’t want to do the work.”
When in truth often these people are struggling just to just function, when they really want to stay in bed, sit in a corner rocking, or run around and scream, any such temptation.
Personally I used to jump on my bed and slap my thighs between tasks before I was properly medicated. I still have some neck ticks to stim.
But what if will power is over rated, and what if we’re looking at it all wrong?
I’m going to use martial arts as an example of pressure, but I want to explore willpower holistically for life to everyone, regardless of whether they like fighting or not.
USE AND LIMITS OF WILLPOWER
Willpower is a pool. And because it’s a pool it’s valuable, it is not limitless.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312138882_Self-Control_and_Ego_Depletion
If you’ve done Self-defense, traditional martial arts for self defense, historical european medieval combat with a simulation of danger back in the day, or even full contact combat sports, there is a concept of toughness. Duh. Everyone knows what toughness is.
Toughness is often associated with willpower.
In combat sports it’s a person like Nick Diaz getting his cheek bone broken fighting Gomi, ignoring it, weathering the punches and then winning due to overwhelming pressure and perseverance.
![4K] Nick Diaz Vs Takanori Gomi - Gogoplata - YouTube](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5xsjY2zRsZA/hqdefault.jpg)
In self defense it’s those true stories of war you hear, of a guy with his legs blown off military crawling on his belly for miles to get help.
Or a Rugby player dislocating his knee cap, then hammering it back in place to keep playing.
Now much of this can be learned. You can learn to be tough, IE you do something enough times and it’s no longer scary, or your so aware of the consequences of a dislocated knee that your not surprised. Maybe the first time it happens you freak out, but you took so many bumps and bruises you go ‘meh’.
At the same time, some people are tougher than others. Sometimes you can only learn to be tough so far or certain situations.
To use myself as an example, there are some days I can walk through pain like nothing. Some times focus on things without fail if I get hyper focus from ADHD or I have excellent control.
But certain activities or things or a lack of sleep and my mental strength fluctuates. I can’t maintain it.
And you know what? I bet that happens to Nick Diaz too. I’m sure he has off days, or didn’t get enough sleep and just isn’t as tough that day.
At some point if the soldier had crawled long enough, the pain would be too much or the futility of it would have made him give up. Lucky for him that never came as fast as it would a normal person, so he survived and his badassery was legendary. But we are not gods, there are limits.
The Rugby player perhaps would have had a bad break up or a slew of bad luck that may sap his willpower. Perhaps even having to relocate his knee sapped some of his confidence to play.
Whether some people have it or not, Willpower is a pool. It is not infinite, and it fluctuates. Willpower is a very good thing and must be cultivated. But it’s not a secret power. It must be built, maintained, and is situational. It’s like a ‘life bar’ in a video game, but one we can’t see or measure precisely.
I want to emphasize that having willpower is very admirable and something that everyone should aspire to have.
ARE MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE WEAK WILLED? CAN PERSERVERENCE EXIST UNDER A LACK OF DISCIPLINE?
It certainly can seem like that. Especially ADHD and autism. We do tasks but we constantly get distracted. We get hungry and can’t tolerate it as much. We’re sensitive and easily moved/affected. It’s easy to see us as weak willed. And by many peoples definitions we are. Outwardly it seems like we don’t care and give up.
Yet if we do an art or skill that we seemingly waffle on or don’t care about, we still show up to the classes. Still trying to do it years later. Still pursuing it. People will mock us, accuse us, shame us for our our behaviour manifests, tell us we’re wasting our time. Yet we keep going and going and going. And sometimes even though it took us longer to get to a point a normal person is at, we do it unique, we sometimes even do it better and no one understands why. They all called us weak willed. But we are persistent, and we are often adept in learning how to adapt, to figure out our own way to do things since the regular way doesn’t suit us. Perhaps that is a form of willpower we excel in, but we’re unpredictable in it we’re not the typical strong willed stubborn bastard. We’re unique, hard to read.
Autistics especially are incredible at picking up patterns, noticing small things. And often if they keep at a task or love it enough to tolerate the shaming, the attacks, the hurt feelings, they can have a focus and a discipline that is almost superhuman. Within a structure they find things no one else does, understand it better than anyone else, and do so persistently.
ADHD people have hyper focus. We focus very well on things we’re interested in, no matter what is happening, no matter the resistence. WE may get frusterated but we will do it. We may not have the same attention to detail as austistics do, but since we don’t like structure we are incredibly out of the box in our conclusions and methods. Autistics are unpredictable in depth, but we are unpredictable in our methodology, we ADHDs.
I hate to bring up combat again, but some low functioning Autistic people can be hell to fight. They are relentless and hard to control. My parents know of workers who have been sent to retirement to collect disability because a large and aggressive autistic client attacked them viscously. I know people who work in hospitals saying dealing with out of control autistic or schizophrenic’ patients is scary, it’s like facing a wild animal.
Despite some militaries screening out potential soldiers with ADHD, I know some people that were diagnosed later in life that served, and served well and successfully. Two of them mention how they were more Intune with their instincts, able to to know when they are attacked before it happens, a sixth sense that picked up danger before anyone else was clued into it.
ADHD folks are known to stay calm under pressure and their neuro chemicals balanced under danger, able to act with a more clear head than neuro typical people and fight more effenciently. The single minded focus gives them ‘willpower’ in a high stress context, while in civilian life their willpower is weak, their self esteem shot. And if they cave under pressure, it’s because of a life where no one encouraged them and constantly told them they are weak and lazy, when in truth such a context(Given the right preperation) they thrive.
The limits of willpower.
Okay lets say you lived a badass life style and you got some good genetics with gave you a brain with incredible control of focus. Good. Awesome. Your a fighter or scientist, whatever occupatation you choose.
Thing is though, unless Green Lanterns are real, willpower cannot change fundamental realities.
A person with brain damage can have an Iron Will, could be impeccable in work ethics and focus. Yet asking them to solve complex math equations through sheer stubboness would probably not result in much. A more meek, less disciplined mathematician or physicist could probably figure it out if they are good enough at the equation and theory. Someone with a strong will but an inability to comprehend could not.
That Rugby player gloriously slamming his knee cap into place would not be able to play if his knee stopped functioning. No matter how strong his willpower is. The ”Secret” has been proven wrong by physics and realities of existence constantly.
To relate it to martial arts, Nick Diaz has lost fights to people, not because they could take more damage than him, but because they simply were better fighters, more skilled, more technical.
George St. Pierre for instance is a tough guy, but few would say he has a grittiness that Nick Diaz has.
Yet George St. Pierre beat Nick Diaz. Now many would say he won by decision, and if the fight had gone on and on and on that maybe Nick would overcome. Nick Diaz also has a loss by submission on his record. No willpower or toughness could stop that. Nick has a loss to TKO, his granite chin and Iron will could not stop his brain from sloshing around so much that he fell and got finished with punches.
Will power and ‘mindset’ are treated like the ultimate holy grail of life and violence. But they are just one tool among many. A very useful tool when it’s reliable, but it’s not the whole picture.
WILL POWER OFTEN LEADS TO PATTERNS:
This is entirely anecdotal, this is just my observation, thus my entire thesis can fall apart. But people with incredible willpower tend to be very stubborn, very single minded, and often very temperamental. Many are humble but single minded, but others can even be arrogant. They think they are right or want to do an action, and it’s because they know better because they always succeed. Usually because of a single minded focus.
A very obvious example of that is in science. Good men who are scientists will hold views that have been proven wrong. But they don’t accept their old theories and work is proven wrong, they will work hours and hours trying to prove it’s real, or interpret the data in a way that validates their previous hypothesis or theory. They fail to evolve or even consider the possibility they were wrong. They don’t see change, because they are too fixated on their old work and beliefs, and then are either remembered for being wrong or just forgotten. Most of those men are probably good men, but they certainly were stubborn.
There was a family friend, a very good man. A very kind man. But he was stubborn, and he hardly ever changed his mind about anything, he did what he wanted. He had a very strong will, but he had a personality type.
I’m going to generalize now, I am not talking specific people, and I know even within large group there is variation. But I’m going to talk about stereotypes within occupations and groups, and why they exist as they are.
Combat sports are filled with tough guys. What is the stereotype of how they act? How they behave? Often they are brash, arrogant, cocky. When they lose, often they won’t even admit they lost or the other guy was better. Sometimes it’s a ‘bad day’ or ‘I just missed a punch’ or in rematches they do the same thing again more aggressively then lose. I’m not talking about the best of the best, I’m talking about a stereotype and the number of fighters that behave like this to create the stereotype. It’s something that can be quantified enough to discuss isn’t it?
Military men and police. People who don’t like police will often say cops are assholes for political reasons. People who like police will praise them. Regardless of your views, both will comment on a personality type. A tough man, staying cool and persistent in hard situations, an assertive person, who greatly respects structure and law. I myself knew people before and after they became law enforcement officers, many had a distinct shift in their personality, or always did have the ‘cop personality’ that is often joked about or feared. A google search on police voting patterns shows they tend to be conservative politically, both in the colloquial term and original meaning. As for the military, I heard from Americans that veterans either become super patriotic and love establishments or survivalist/socialist/anarchist types. But either way, the army either changes you or your attracted to it due to who you are. The stereotype is similar to a cops, clean cut, orderly, tough. A pattern of behaviour.
So why do I bring up a personality type here?
Because these people tend ot have patterns. And patterns make people predictable, especailly if their instinct is to try and try again until they succeed at a task or the person is defeated. Many strong willed people are intelligent and versatile, but they still have a personality, they still have patterns.
One of those patterns is stubbornness.
DEFEATING THE STRONG WILLED OPPONENT/BEING MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN THE WILLFUL
To relate this to self defense, Maija Soderholm talks about how in self defense circles, what is taught is an unbeatable mind, sharply focused moving forward, pushing through pain and punishment. That wins. It works until either they run into someone who can’t be surprised with shock and awe with an equal or greater pool of willpower. She points out how tough guys often are very predictable when she works with them and when her own badass teacher would beat them. They often did not have flexible minds.
A man with strong willpower could have a glass jaw or a fragile body. His can’t will his body to withstand impact. He can’t just have a single minded focus, the mind must be supple, it must be adaptive, it must be tricky. If something is not working he must be willing to abandon it. And if he is losing, he must know when to retreat, give up one goal and replace it with another.
What makes a person predictable is attachment, one has to keep calm under pressure(Which should happen if your training inoculates your nervous system) and to not be attached to a through process, a method and most especially a technique or action.
The training certainly shouldn’t teach you to give up, as I said above, persistence is a very good thing and so is willpower. But it should teach you to change. Shifting from fighting to running away is not giving up, it’s still proactive, it’s an action, it’s active. You are not displaying weak will by being dynamic, by changing.
But if your facing someone with a better will, you can still overcome them if your mind and methodology is more open to change and unpredictability.
In the context of martial arts, it’s learning the fundamentals and sticking with them. But not in the way you think is bet, but the way you need, in anyway you need. You may even have to use the fundementals of fighting in a way that violates your principles if you have to. Good principles probably would not get violating, but you should be willing to abandon it if need be.
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” was told to me by a BJJ professor Chris Hauter. But I heard it’s attributed to Picasso.
Either way it’s a good motto for combat and martial arts. If your principles are good, you can openly flaunt them, and they will still be there to save you.
BEWARE A STRONG WILL THAT IS ADAPTIVE AND CREATIVE: THE GREATEST IN CIVILIZATION AND BARBARITY
So most of this blog seems like me talking shit about willpower, strong willed people being predictable and depicted as dumb and predictable.
But guess what? I’m talking general personality quirks and trends. Humans are individuals. Even tendencies among groups still has variations.
The fact is, there are willful people who are open minded, fluid and unattached. You could argue that was Buddha, a man with impeccable discipline but also able to free himself of attachment, a mind that is unencumbered.
We are individuals. Our personalities are not just ‘stubborn’ or ‘open’ we are a mix of both, and at times we are completely different people in different times of our lives, even during different times of the same day, in different countries or locations. Our psychology is never the same.
Thus sometimes if we work at it, we can be the best of both worlds.
Perhaps a strong will with an adaptable mind is what we truly want, it’s the ideal personality trait for anyone.
Of course I don’t think it means your enlightened, mindset and psychology shifts based on context and tasks. I’m sure many of the people I will cite below are not exactly worthy of enlightenment, but in the pursuits of their lives they were both stubborn and dynamic.
First we will look at a non-combative example.
Albert Einstein:
He had a single minded focus and pursuit of physics. He was an eccentric child growing up. But he read and read and read. But he did not memorize and regurgitate the same facts or formulas. No, this horny as fuck bastard did his own thing with it. Came up with new ideas, changed how we thought about physics.
Of course he didn’t pioneer this stuff alone, his knowledge and theories were already being bandied about, he popularized them and generally is credited. But either way, he is the most popular example of a person that was persistent, but was utterly unpredictable and successful.
He was stubborn. But he wasn’t predictable, he was adaptive and innovative.
Now let’s talk about a combative examples: Musashi Miyomoto.
Now there are many misconceptions about Musashi Miyomoto. The biggest one is that he had no formal training and just made up his fighting style. That’s not true, Musashi was formally trained, if I remember correctly, he had multiple teachers. He had a structure of tradition he adhered to before he created the Nito-Ichen-Ryu school. Musashi was a man that was remembered in history, but he stood on the shoulders of many other people, he is just the most readily remembered.
He did not have an easy life, but he studied hard. He was devoted.
The dude could have taken his life so easy. He wasn’t a ronin because his master died and no one wanted to take him. Some of his students/adopted children had retainers. But Musashi spent his life without a retainer, because I speculate he wanted someone worthy to follow. But even if I am wrong about his motivations, it’s clear he could have easily served under anyone.
When one reads about how he won his duels, his most notable victories are stories of cunning, creativity and guile.
His most famous duel involved him countering an opponent with a long sword by carving up an oar and basically bonking the bastard on the head.
Another duel he hid in a palanquin, and then when it was opened up, he jumped out and cut the dude down.
He would show up very early or very late for a duel to throw his opponents off. He never did the same trick three times, only twice. The first time in one duel he came late, his opponent was impatient and exhausted from being adrenalized waiting for Musashi to come. Needless to say Musashi won that duel.
In the third duel with that family, he showed up early, found men were gathering to jump him, the teenage heir of the family waiting for him, pissed off at killing his predecessor.
So Musashi jumped out, cut the teenager down. Then allowed the other members of the school to chase him down, where he used the space created from running to seperate them, and used the trees as barriers to keep them from flanking him. Musashi did most of the killing and won.
Now maybe he was a bit of an asshole. Certainly in his old age there was a humility to him, a gravity based on my very light readings of the historical figure.
But the fact is he worked very hard for his skill, he was very focused, her was persistent. But he was also very very unpredictable, very much in tune to seeing patterns in his opponents both in technique but also psychology.
Even his tactic of getting people to chase him. That’s an attachment, the act of giving chase. He lured them in, he played them.
This was an extraordinary man who combined being tough and being dynamic. There is a reason he’s the most popular samurai in history, one of the most well known, his works and life studied by businessmen, generals and martial artists alike.
WE CAN CHANGE. WE ARE NOT WEAK WILLED. WE ARE NOT STRONG WILLED. WE ARE NOT PREDICTABLE. WE ARE NOT UNPREDICTABLE. WE ARE ALWAYS CHANGING, MOMENT TO MOMENT.
This advice will touch both how mentally ill people in everyday life and martial artists. I am going to use an combative example to prove my point, but the ultimate lesson can be applied to self help for those with mental health issues.
There is a police officer(Not typical social views for the occupation) blogger and martial artist I respect in my city. I don’t always agree with him, but I value his advice and judgement. He said something I really loved, about how over rated mindset it. The context of his critique of mindset is that an officer or fighter will get in a real world situation. He would fail or get hurt. And the advice other coaches or officers would give is “You must have had the wrong mindset bro” as if Mindset was some mysterious powerful force. Of course their context of mindset is comfort under violent pressure and a toughness and relentlessness. But the thing that bothered this friend of mine is that no one articulates it beyond that. What do they mean by being tougher? What do they mean by mindset? Is it possible they had a perfect mindset, were comfortable under pressure but still failed because the training failed?
HIs argument is that we should focus on what we can control, and we can control training/skill building/scenario work, inoculation and all that. Because that is what we can control. But our mindset? We can’t often control it, many factors can subtly affect our psychology to ‘deplete our ego’ or sap our pool of willpower.
But I realize that, while talking about mindset very often gets into almost magical talking about mental toughness, it also shows that mindset is fluid.
That means while your pool of willpower is depleted, you can fill it back up instantly, or you can even change your very psychology in an instant.
From a martial arts point of view, you’re changing your psychology through training. If your training is good, your simulating what you will face under violence and pressure. You will gain a comfort, maybe even an aggression.
If the training is realistic and simulates danger, pressure, shock, you can get creative with your mind. You can pretend to be someone else(Rory Miller calls this his neuroplasticity drill) you can change the way you move to influence your mental state, as there is a relationship between movement and psychology.
If your default state is to be stubborn and single minded, great. You can always be open minded in specific situations, let that strong will be tempered with an openness.
There are people who are strict religious fanatics or other political/life ideologies they will never question, challenge or think deeply about, but for some reason when doing art, sports, combat, science they have a very open mind just in that situation.
In other words, people are stubborn or strong willed in one aspect of life, easy going and fluid in another. Sometimes they can be both iron willed and creative doing one task, while lazy and predictable in another.
We are always different people, constantly.
And that is a strength. That means you are not trapped by genetics or circumstance. You always have something you can control.
What's the deal with Adeel? 