Am-power before Will-power

To reinforce what I just said perhaps we can look at it a slightly different way. Trying to use your will-power alone to force yourself to give up a habit, may work for a few people, but for many others it will simply reinforce the habit. Each of us is an individual, and we need a path that can be tailored to our unique individuality. This hopefully is what this book will help unfold for you. Will-power is a wonderful thing, the mental equivalent of muscle power, without it humanity would have become a sorry, if not extinct, species many millenia ago. However as we evolve we change and a large part of change for human beings is learning knew ways of doing things.

In much the same way that muscle power is no longer the prime motive force in an ordinary person's work day, the way it was a few generations ago, so will power is being superseded in our methodology of self control by knowledge and understanding, by being. I do not mean by this that we should abolish will-power in our minds, just that there are some things for which it is not the best tool.

This means we can no longer afford to think of ourselves as someone who is 'Giving up the habit'. We may know on an intellectual level that what we are doing is 'giving up the habit' but that is not how we are going to think of ourselves any longer. This is the first thing to accept, the first step you have to make.

This is really the crux of what this book is all about, and we will go into it in more detail shortly. First however there are a few ideas that have to be added to, or refreshed within our minds.