How Strong is Your Will?

[Siúil a Rúin]

How strong is your will? How drawn are you towards conclusion and certitude about those conclusions? How do you see the amount of force to exert onto the external world with your ideas, desires, etc? Do you have tenacity over the long-term for ideas, plans, behaviors, expectations, goals, etc?

It could be an interesting discussion to hear how people see their own will both internally and externally. Also it is interesting to see the value people place on having a strong will.

 

[Cellmold]

I see my will only in stubbornness and self-destruction as in my will is strong towards those areas.

With goals and other more specific attainments not so much. Most of it comes down to having an idea "hey sounds good" then attempting it and finding out that it either bores me, I am terrible at it, or I can't see anything in it long term.

Generally my will manifests only in private where I can work intensely on something of interest. The rest of the time I'm a leaf in a tsunami, always being blown about because I can never decide on a course of action id actually like to do. I'm not really fond of society and don't see much place for myself in my current one.

So my will is weak and I'm easily discouraged and it shows externally in the same way. This does result in enormous amounts of unsolicited advice that i normally ignore, largely because most of it involves becoming more like the person who gave it which is both abhorrent and impossible. But as I said there is very little that I feel strongly about and truthfully as a highly emotionally-influenced person that's the only way I could motivate myself.

I think a strong will is incredibly important, it helps drive you on and become more assertive. The alternative..... is me.

 

[á´…eparted]

How strong is your will?

I'd say fairly strong. It's very chaotic, but it doesn't let go easily unless there's a reason to. My will seems stronger than it actually is.

How drawn are you towards conclusion and certitude about those conclusions?

I must have conclusions. It's really really important to me. I don't do well with openendedness or goallessness. Certainty is also very important to me. How certain I am about things is case by case. Some things I'll hold onto even in the wake of very little hope or certainty, other's I'll let go at even just a bit of diminishment. Ultimately this triage of what is held onto and what's let go of is usually for the sake of longer term goals.

How do you see the amount of force to exert onto the external world with your ideas, desires, etc?

Quite a bit. I try to minimize my impact and imposition on others as much as I can. For two reasons: A. I can't stand imposing upon other people unless there is an objective referenceable reasons for me to do so (it's why I could never go into marketing even if my life depended on it). B. I want to be as independent in reaching my goals as I can. If I am the soul person in control I only have to operate on my own time tables, answer to myself, and if there is a failure I know it was my fault and it's easier to manage.

Given an objective reason though and enough authority to where it's possible; if I want something done, it gets done, and I will not take no for an answer. The main thing that makes me hold back is if I have to impose/effect others. If they're left external to it, or I can organize them in a way to keep them out of the fire path, then I am rather relentless and stubborn.

Do you have tenacity over the long-term for ideas, plans, behaviors, expectations, goals, etc?

Yes, big time. I break before I let go of long term goals. Even then I'll still hold onto them while broken. I have a ton of expectations, goals, plans, and bench marks I set out to reach and achieve on a small day to day to the long term years goals. I have goals many years down the line that come hell or high water I will get to them. It's exceedingly rare for me to let go of long term goals. At most I'll change them into something else if I realize that getting to them would actually make things worse off, and negatively impact multiple other long term goals. In those cases it's actually not too difficult for me to change them, but it does take time to mentally adjust.

 

[Gawain]

I could be wrong, but I think the original questions show a very J way of viewing the world. I am incredibly strong-willed and stubborn (two slightly different things), but planning doesn't really factor into it for me (beyond the unavoidable, like having to schedule an appointment or something).

When I am set on something, nothing can keep me from eventually achieving my dream. As a P-type, those dreams tend to be ongoing type things and paths to follow as opposed to end goals. If anything, the "goals" are far more beginning points than ends in themselves. For instance:

1. To find my father, who I had never met, and form a relationship with him as an adult. (Bonus: I found out I had siblings!)
2. To become recognized as a knight in some system that I feel forces me to grow as a person into the closest approximation of my personal heroes as reasonably possible.
3. To have a job I enjoy, that allows me to express myself the way I wish to be percieved, and also makes the world a better place.

I have never wavered in these three. I like things to be open-ended, and I dislike conclusions, endings, or concrete goals because finishing them feels like I've lost having something to strive for. But I find myself constantly thinking about what I want to do better to maximize my dreams. It doesn't feel like effort in the sense of hard work. It feels more like constant enthusiasm and hopefulness with occasional bouts of angry frustration when things go wrong. But the anger is good, because it helps me power through the rough patches until things are better again. This is where my stubborness comes in, because if things are bad for too long, I start to get bullheaded about not changing course because I think that would be the same as giving up. This can be detrimental if I get tunnel-vision, as I can actually be so stubborn as to make things worse. So I have friends reminding me to take a step back and think about how my actions are forwarding my cause (or not, as is often the case) quite often.

Oh, and as for the long-term, those dreams I listed are my big three, which I set for myself at age 12. I'm now 30. I also can be rather strong-willed when it comes to my value system, but since I believe a good value system changes and grows with the individual, that is somewhat harder to demonstrate. My value system now is not the one I had at 12. While it shares some things, enough has changed that I'm sure many outside observers would think I had no tenacity at all.

 

[Qlip]

I don't think I'd ever characterize my will as strong; But somehow I make things happen. I think my impulses are just very consistent and I have some decent self-management strategies.

 

[prplchknz]

my will is stronger than it appears. most people think i have weak will, i don't i usually just don't give a shit not to eat those cookies. if i have a reason to not do something and its mine i won't do it. if someone says don't do blah blah blah i'll probably do it anyways because i'll not have a good reason not to. and then i get told my will is weak. no you're just an idiot.[the person accusing me]

 

[cascadeco]

How strong is your will? How drawn are you towards conclusion and certitude about those conclusions? How do you see the amount of force to exert onto the external world with your ideas, desires, etc? Do you have tenacity over the long-term for ideas, plans, behaviors, expectations, goals, etc?

It could be an interesting discussion to hear how people see their own will both internally and externally. Also it is interesting to see the value people place on having a strong will.

I'm not sure, the answer that seems most applicable to me, and how this applies to me, is my thinking I have a strong belief in myself and in my life / valuing my life. I think that to most people, my 'will' is going to be seen in my being stubborn and unwavering in some things. Externally though I'm also pretty flexible and accommodating and a lot of times don't have a huge preference in something. When I DO have a preference, it's pretty clear though, ha.

I don't think I have a longterm 'tenacity' in things, simply because I have never been someone who's able to plan for the super longterm. I just get very anxious and it's not the way I am able to operate to be able to plan for something in the distant future - mostly because I can't really conceive of my knowing for sure I want to do some particular thing in 5 years or 10 years. The most I do, and I can do well, is if I decide on something, I can execute on it really well. I guess I like certitude about conclusions and I like knowing what I'm doing with my life, but it's on a more short-term scale and I know very well I don't know what I may want to be doing in 5 years. If that makes any sense.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

These are really interesting, good responses. It will be interesting for everyone to read more.

I've been thinking about will and analyzing it because I find it a significant problem when I try to interact in the world.

For myself, I think there is a tenacity in certain areas. I'll hold on to a relationship until it's impossible to stay. My first area of study was music and I'm still in that field even though the income should have pushed me into another career years ago. I'm always planning and making contingency plans, but also appreciate the irony of it now that i'm old enough to have most of the plans I've cared about fall apart.

Perhaps it is related to trying to recover from health issues that involve pain and fatigue, but everyone around me from little kids to adult authority figures all seem so determined and strong willed in relationship to me. The majority of my social energy is simply focused on telling people 'no' and feeling like a jerk about it. There is some way that my will is not as strong as average, but another way it could be stronger. I struggle to form conclusions and feel more comfortable thinking in terms of statistical probabilities with virtually no certainties. I'm most certain in the emotional realm when I feel hurt or threatened by someone. I have trouble forming opinions about what to eat or what movie to watch, and tend to find that other people are really particular about everything.

Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with me, and why it is so exhausting to be continually confronted with determined, beady little eyes of both young and old, all so determined to get their way. Technically I'm more likely a J because I keep my stuff organized and make plans, but this issue of ego strength and will power is exhausting to me and something I just want to run away from most of the time. I can admire strong wills from a safe distance, and want to let all the determined folks go battle it out for their pleasure, but more than anything I want to learn how to be sure people leave me out of it.

 

[Qlip]

[MENTION=14857]fia[/MENTION] This is a perceiver's comfort, but I've seen just as much people waste their lives dogging on a plan that has no merit as I have people having no plans at all.

I feel like there is a satisfaction of sense of self in having strong preferences, but the important part isn't the preferences themselves, but properly connecting what you care about to the world.

 

[1487610420]

[MENTION=14857]fia[/MENTION] This is a perceiver's comfort, but I've seen just as much people waste their lives dogging on a plan that has no merit than I have people having no plans at all.

I feel like there is a satisfaction of sense of self in having strong preferences, but the important part isn't the preferences themselves, but properly connecting what you care about to the world.

dogging
this is where people meet up in car parks and watch eachother having sex. Sometime other people join in, but its mainly about watching and getting off on it!
ooooo, i went dogging lst night at the local car park. it was jolly good fun!

Urban Dictionary: dogging

 

[Qlip]

Urban Dictionary: dogging

One definition that isn't in a crowdsourced lulz dictionary is 'to follow persistantly', or 'to be recurrently or persistently in the mind', or to 'hold onto with a mechanical device'. I don't know what you do with your time, but I tend to get more use out of those definitions.

 

[1487610420]

One definition that isn't in a crowdsourced lulz dictionary is 'to follow persistantly', or 'to be recurrently or persistently in the mind', or to 'hold onto with a mechanical device'. I don't know what you do with your time, but I tend to get more use out of those definitions.

TIL

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

[MENTION=14857]fia[/MENTION] This is a perceiver's comfort, but I've seen just as much people waste their lives dogging on a plan that has no merit than I have people having no plans at all.

I feel like there is a satisfaction of sense of self in having strong preferences, but the important part isn't the preferences themselves, but properly connecting what you care about to the world.

I would never want to discourage someone from having a strong will, and I can admire aspects of it. The people who force their will on me for external, relatively impersonal issues mostly just make me feel tired, but in full disclosure, I can feel intense resentment towards people who encroach on my more internal, personal boundaries.

I spend a lot of my teaching energy building up self esteem and telling students that I can see them be experts as whatever their strengths are. I enjoy the feeling of noticing a person's strengths and vulnerabilities and making them feel their own potential. There is some relationship between self-esteem, reaching personal potential and strong will, but maybe there isn't a 100% correlation?

There is some aspect of "strong will" that is a mystery me. How can any one human being just assume their desires are more important than anyone else? How can we assume we are always right? How do we assume that if we want something, it is the same as being entitled to it? When that is pushed onto me in a way that enters my personal boundary, I do have thoughts like, 'yes, people are special, but how can anything think they are THAT special because they aren't'. Yeah, that's rude, and in an ideal I'd like to think people have infinite value. I suppose I have some of that when it comes to my personal, private boundaries. I get angry if someone touches me in a suggestive way without permission, or if a woman competes with me for my partner's attention. I definitely do not do that to other people. I wish I better understood how people with intense ego-strength process information and see the world.

My last relationship was six years with a man with INTENSELY strong will. There are definitely admirable qualities about it and he is skyrocketing to the top of his field professionally. It almost ruined me to be that close to it, and so now I think that if I could just understand it, then I could either deal with it better in others, or find better ways to avoid people like that.

 

[Qlip]

I would never want to discourage someone from having a strong will, and I can admire aspects of it. The people who force their will on me for external, relatively impersonal issues mostly just make me feel tired, but in full disclosure, I can feel intense resentment towards people who encroach on my more internal, personal boundaries.

I spend a lot of my teaching energy building up self esteem and telling students that I can see them be experts as whatever their strengths are. I enjoy the feeling of noticing a person's strengths and vulnerabilities and making them feel their own potential. There is some relationship between self-esteem, reaching personal potential and strong will, but maybe there isn't a 100% correlation?

There is some aspect of "strong will" that is a mystery me. How can any one human being just assume their desires are more important than anyone else? How can we assume we are always right? How do we assume that if we want something, it is the same as being entitled to it? When that is pushed onto me in a way that enters my personal boundary, I do have thoughts like, 'yes, people are special, but how can anything think they are THAT special because they aren't'. Yeah, that's rude, and in an ideal I'd like to think people have infinite value. I suppose I have some of that when it comes to my personal, private boundaries. I get angry if someone touches me in a suggestive way without permission, or if a woman competes with me for my partner's attention. I definitely do not do that to other people. I wish I better understood how people with intense ego-strength process information and see the world.

My last relationship was six years with a man with INTENSELY strong will. There are definitely admirable qualities about it and he is skyrocketing to the top of his field professionally. It almost ruined me to be that close to it, and so now I think that if I could just understand it, then I could either deal with it better in others, or find better ways to avoid people like that.

Yeah, I think I understand where you're coming from.

I've thought a lot about this from a more philosophical perspective. For me it seems like the act of living itself necessitates prioritizing yourself over others, it's all id. It also could be said that even being of service to others and being selfless is actually a herd-survival instinct, it can been seen as being just as opportunistic as bowling people over. I imagine that we all might see others as extensions of our goals, as tools, things to manipulate and get return from. And reasonable people make sure to take care of their tools and keep them in good shape. It's not even behavior that is consciously acted on, just evolved over a person's lifetime.

Or at least that was what I came up with when I couldn't comprehend the idea of altruism. It's seems to explain a lot, but it's a depressing thing to contemplate, and I don't think it nearly explains everything.

 

[Cygnus]

People say I have good willpower. I think I don't. They say I'm very "self-regulating," although, with an impulsive person such as myself, I don't see how I could possibly survive any other way. It's the bare minimum I can do.

 

[small.wonder]

[MENTION=14857]fia[/MENTION] As I was reading your posts (#8 and #13), I couldn't help but feel like they sound very Sp. I can see that you identify as Sp-auxiliary so perhaps that explains it, but the way you describe strong will speaks very much of Sx in some ways.

I have had an unfortunate amount of time comparing the two recently b/c my Mom is Sp/Sx and we've had to process some relational dynamics that we have. I think she feels very much the way you've described. She's said that she feels like I am demanding, when really we both are demanding that our first instinctual needs be met-- hers is just emotional space to process, when mine is immediate resolution of intimacy. She demands to move away, when I demand to move towards-- thus she perceives me as an aggressor at times.

I know we haven't interacted much here on the forum, but I seem to recall you having a pretty good handle on, and knowledge base in both MBTI and Enneagram (forgive me if I'm mistaken)-- so I don't want to come across as teachy at all, since you probably know this stuff. It seems to me though that many type specific Sx descriptions are demanding because Sx is competitive and strong willed in nature. Thoughts?

As to the OP: yes, I've long known (and been told) that I have a strong force of will. Being more intent on emotional health than in years past though, I exercise that with restraint. I do not unleash the way I did in darker seasons of my life, and generally use my willpower to mediate conflict, or to further my own progress and action.

That said, I'm not what you would call tenacious in an achievement sense-- more in a relational, emotional and spiritual sense.

 

[Luke O]

One definition that isn't in a crowdsourced lulz dictionary is 'to follow persistantly', or 'to be recurrently or persistently in the mind', or to 'hold onto with a mechanical device'. I don't know what you do with your time, but I tend to get more use out of those definitions.

It's more of a British thing anyway (apparently...)

 

[Betty Blue]

Personally, I am not sure where my strong will ends and my stubbornness begins.

 

[highlander]

How strong is your will? How drawn are you towards conclusion and certitude about those conclusions? How do you see the amount of force to exert onto the external world with your ideas, desires, etc? Do you have tenacity over the long-term for ideas, plans, behaviors, expectations, goals, etc?

It could be an interesting discussion to hear how people see their own will both internally and externally. Also it is interesting to see the value people place on having a strong will.

I would say that I have a very strong will. I don't focus on a large number of things but when I do focus on something, I tend to pursue it with a great deal of focus and tenacity over an extended period of time, with a drive towards practical and measurable outcomes. The obstacles and challenges tend to energize vs. discourage me. In fact, I probably am at my best when faced with a difficult or challenging situation especially if I haven't tackled something like it before. It has probably had a lot to do with my career success - perhaps more than any other thing I can think of. What will happen is I end up facilitating or driving change and accomplishing some unique thing that I had an interest in over a period of years. I'm more like the tortoise than the hair though. I guess you could say I accomplish things through sheer force of will. I outlast a lot of people.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

If there's something I'm sure of, and something that I think needs to happen, I'm probably going to hold on to that. I can change my mind, but that requires me going against someone who has considered as many angles and aspects of it as I have. Meeting such a person is very rare.

On matters of which I feel I know little, I do not speak. I may seek out further information, but refrain from judgement until I feel confident in my intuitions and opinions.