By: Melanie Adamsons
In a society that places a lot of value judgment on being productive, there can be an existing narrative of people not having enough ‘willpower’ or determination if they don’t achieve goals. But it can be fairly common to not do what we actually want to do. Have you ever wanted to feel better or deal with a problem but didn’t feel like using skills or changing what you were doing?
The idea of willfulness vs. willingness is a concept that might be useful to keep in mind, especially when it comes to tolerating difficult situations and being effective.
Willfulness can be described as doing the opposite of what works and trying to solve the situation while simultaneously sitting on one’s hands. It can become the desire to be right in a situation instead of being effective.
Willingness is doing the exact opposite of willfulness. This attitude can be described as accepting the facts of the situation (reality for what it is) and doing what is needed in the current moment and situation, even when you don’t want to.
One common occurrence where I notice willfulness coming up is when I put my glasses down somewhere, mill around, and can no longer recall where I put them. The first signs of willfulness show up when I keep going back to the place where I thought I left them. At that moment, I’m not accepting reality the way it is because I think they “should” be there. Of course, I tend to find my glasses a lot faster when I’m not imposing my will on reality and look in other places that they actually have a chance to be in (usually by the pesky coat rack).
Oftentimes, willingness vs. willfulness can show up in our relationships with others. When your goal is to maintain a good relationship with someone, willfulness can look like wanting to be “right” and not listening to the other person’s perspective. Of course, we may not agree with the other person even after we’ve listened but usually our emotional distress becomes lessened.
Willingness takes practice to cultivate and there are many ways to increase willingness that differ in complexity. A more straightforward skill to use is the half-smile.
A half-smile is when you relax your face and have slightly upturned lips- other people won’t usually notice when you are using the half-smile. Our facial expressions can have a direct effect on our emotional state. If we plaster a big fake smile on our face when we don’t actually feel like smiling, this can sometimes make us feel worse. The goal of using the half-smile is not to suppress our feelings but rather to help us be more accepting of our emotional state (which may help us better tolerate distress).
Three ideas to practice the half-smile is to use it when you are having conflict with someone else, when you are noticing yourself becoming irritated or frustrated, or when you are reflecting on conflict that occurred.
Can you think of any examples where you’ve been willful or willing recently? It might be helpful to figure out how you can identify both willingness and willfulness ahead of time and next time you feel willful, try out the half-smile and pay attention to what happens next.