Drill and more drill.
If a person draws up a plan of action carries it out, we call it drill; and yet it may be far removed from the severities that make up the daily routine of an ascetic or a Hindu fakir. Drill extends from the simple and homely endeavor to overcome a minor fault of behavior to the all comprehensive regime of a soldier preparing for active service. Any kind of formal discipline is drill, but not all drill is good drill.
A system of drill, rationally conceived and carried out, is an undoubted gain, simply because it is developing will-power on a methodical basis; but a system of drill, pushed to extremes, tends to destroy soul, and it is soul that makes the person. Moreover, the aim should not be to develop power in general, but power for the particular purpose for which it is wanted.
Irresolution
For instance, there are difficulties of the will other than those that concern the habits we have noticed. There is the weakness of will shown in what we may call general irresolution. The business man who starts an enterprise and has not Will enough to carry it on; or the student who takes up a new language and cannot muster courage enough to master it are cases in point. We are afraid that in most instances such discipline as moving a chair about a room for five minutes – an action without sufficient intrinsic intelligence to commend it to some minds — would not do much good in developing Will for the business man or for the student. They must use self-suggestion and form the habit of perseverance. For what is the old-fashioned and yet undervalued virtue of perseverance ? It is simply a regular supply of Will-power. It is will-power as a habit.
The Three Steps
- First there is the Resolve.
- Next comes the Affirmation: I can.
- Then comes the Effort, as seen in practical endeavor to carry out the Resolve, and step by step this effort changes into habit, and habit into character, which has been defined as “a completely fashioned will.”
Here there is no waste of energy in trying to develop Will-power for anything; every effort is an effort to strengthen will just where it is wanted. The former is the method of drastic drill; the latter is the method of service and common sense. But use both methods, with adaptation. Every week, every day if need be, do something in the line of duty or advantage which you would otherwise shirk.
Auto-Suggestion
To develop Will-power, you should aim at the formation of desirable habits, by means of auto-suggestion. Before dealing with the meaning of auto-suggestion, we shall inquire into the special use of the latter half of that hyphenated word: suggestion. In ordinary speech it means a proposal to say or do something. For instance, this course of study has helped you to formulate a plan of life, and has shown you the right way to realize it. You are pleased with the result, and, speaking to a friend about it, you “suggest” that he ought to follow your example. The friend, believing in your judgment, acts on the advice and his letter says “Following the suggestion of,” etc. This effort to persuade others to believe or to act, is exceedingly strong if the circumstances are propitious.
Unspoken Suggestions
In the life you live from day to day you are acting out the principles of suggestion, one aspect of which is imitation. Why do you not wear the clothes of an Englishman of the Elizabethan period with all their wealth of color? Because you would be inconveniently conspicuous. It is easier, and safer, to dress as others do, in modern clothing. You need not, of course, imitate other men servilely; indeed you have full liberty to choose your own patterns, but the garments themselves must be of the conventional kind, or you are in danger of being adjudged a freak.
The rule is this; we have a tendency to do what the great of majority of people suggest, we should do as seen the example they set us.
