Do You Have The Willpower To Take Action?

“For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” Philippians 2:13 NIV

Remember the times you didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning? What made you stay in bed? Was it just the softness of the bed? Most likely not. You were not motivated to get out of bed that morning. Nothing was pulling you, so there was no desire to get up.

Also, remember the times you jumped out of bed in the morning because of how excited you were about the activities of the day? What made you jump out of bed? Wasn’t it comfortable enough? It sure was, but something else pulled you.

Taking action changes us, but it doesn’t happen without desire or willpower. You probably struggle with taking action and wonder why it’s so hard. It’s because you haven’t dealt with the root – your will.

When you don’t feel like getting out of bed, your mind knows that you have activities to do and tells you to get up. But those activities haven’t positively influenced your will. So the desire to get out of bed isn’t strong enough and the resultant action, which should be to get up, instead keeps you in bed.

Likewise, your mind is already aware of that new project you need to start. But your will to start hasn’t been positively influenced. So, because you haven’t taken the necessary action, you feel depressed, wondering why it’s so hard to get started. You think you want to start, but your will says you don’t.

God is smart enough to know this. He works on your desire instead of forcing you to take action. Forceful action isn’t sustainable. After a while, you’ll realise you never had a genuine desire and eventually stop.

Also, forcing yourself to take action never works. Mindlessly saying, “I will start today”, even when your body and mind say “NO”, will lead to inconsistency and you’ll quit.

I’ve realised that when I pray for the ability to act on projects, I don’t just act immediately. A desire to take action starts to build up and I notice it. I then fuel that desire by making it top of my mind every time by thinking about it and eventually, I’m able to take the first action.

If you’re not happy that you’ve been unable to take action on something, see if the desire has started building up in you. Fuel it by making it top of mind. Taking action then becomes easy.

Transformation starts from the mind first before the physical manifestation happens. Once you want it bad enough, you’ll act.