When looking for a way to accomplish your goals, it’s common to come across articles and videos on “willpower” and “why power.”
However, have you ever heard of waypower?
If not, you’re in luck.
Today’s article dives deep into the concept of waypower. After reading this article, you’ll have a thorough understanding of waypower. This includes:
- Waypower definition
- The relationship between waypower and willpower
- How to increase your waypower.
Let’s get right into it.
Waypower Definition
Waypower refers to the mental capacity to create roadmaps to guide you to reach your goals.
To give you a better understanding of waypower, consider a time in the past when you set some audacious goals for yourself. At the time, you may have had the will to work on accomplishing the goal, but you couldn’t see a way to reach your goal.
You lacked waypower and were slowly running out of hope.
However, after researching, learning, and consulting, you could now see a possibility of accomplishing your goal. You had developed your waypower and now were more confident that you’d reach the goal.
“This waypower definition sounds a lot like willpower; what’s the difference between waypower and willpower?”
Keep reading to find out.
What is Willpower?
If you were to ask most people why they failed to reach their goals, they’d tell you that they lacked the willpower.
According to the American Psychology Association, willpower is the ability to resist short-term temptations to achieve set long-term goals. In other terms, willpower can be described as the self-discipline to keep working on your dreams despite temptations and setbacks.
However, willpower is finite and depletes over time.
Which is where waypower comes in.
“How?”
Keep reading to learn how willpower and waypower work together.
How Willpower and Waypower Work Together
You’ve probably heard of the saying, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” But what happens when you can’t find a way?
If you’re like most, you get confused and depressed, which results in your willpower and hope slowly dissipating. Without enough willpower, you give up on your goals.
But what if you found a way to achieve your goals just before your willpower and hope were depleted? In most instances, you’ll likely feel reinvigorated, full of hope, and beaming with resolve.
Such is the relationship between willpower and waypower.
To better understand this relationship, let’s consider the central concept of Rick Snyder’s book, The Psychology of Hope.
In the book, Snyder argues that people who score highly in willpower and waypower are more likely to feel hopeful about their ability to shape their future.
If you can conceptualize a strategy to help you achieve your goals and are willing to put in the work to make sure your approach works, you’re less likely to give up on your dreams. With both willpower and waypower, you become more hopeful and achieving your goals becomes effortless.
However, once your willpower or waypower starts depleting, you lose hope, and achieving your goals becomes harder and harder.
“I know I have the willpower, but how do I increase my waypower?”
Keep reading to find out.
How to Increase your Waypower
One of the best ways to find solutions to obstacles that prevent you from achieving your goals is by copying what others in a similar situation have done. You can do this by reading books or biographies about people who faced similar issues to what you’re facing.
Let’s say you’re working on building a life coaching business. Despite your strong will to help people, you can’t seem to attract any new clients. You’re stuck.
For most people, such an obstacle is enough to deplete their willpower and kill their dream.
However, that’s not you!
Rather than give up hope, you start researching how other coaches solved their marketing problems. After reading through several coaching and business books, you come across a viable solution to your problem. And just like that, the hazy cloud lifts, and your willpower and hope rejuvenates.
By reviewing what others have done, you can grow your waypower.
You can also increase your waypower by gathering data and conducting research on the problem. Conducting research allows you to dig deeper into the root cause of your problem. With such data, it now becomes easier to reach your goals.
You can also grow your waypower by studying industry best practices and implementing them. In most scenarios, people get stuck because they don’t follow best practices. Researching and adhering to best practices will likely result in an increased waypower.
And that’s not all!
If you feel like you can’t build your waypower on your own, you can hire a coach to help you.
Here’s how a coach can help you develop your waypower.
How a Coach Can Help You Increase your Waypower
As mentioned earlier, one of the main reasons why most people fail to reach their goals is the lack of willpower. This is why most coaches will first focus on growing a client’s resolve.
However, what happens when a client has a strong will to work on their goal but can’t see any way to reach this goal?
With such clients, a coach focuses on helping him or her increase his waypower.
How?
The coach first asks a series of questions to help clarify the client’s views on success.
After painting a clear picture of what success would look like for the client, the coach then moves to help the person explore a possible path to success. This includes discussing options that the client has already thought of.
The coach can then help the client unpack their ideas further. He or she can also share options that the client may not have thought of.
If a client chooses a specific option, the coach and client explore it further to come up with the best way to achieve the set goals.
When working with a coach to increase your waypower, they should provide you with more choices, which translates to more freedom on how to shape your future.
Any Further Questions?
There you go.
A thorough definition of waypower and how it applies to the pursuit of goals. I hope this article gave you a more in-depth insight into how you can develop this mindset and use it to achieve all your objectives.
Do you have any further questions or additions to the topic?
Please leave it in the comment sections. I’ll be sure to respond to every question and addition sent.
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