Improving your Freewill

Let's start by talking a bit about Fate, Freewill and Destiny. Fate is what you get if you don't try to change anything about yourself consciously. In other words, it is the forces of social conditioning, genetics and circumstances. If your fate is taking you where you want to go, no problems, enjoy the ride. Freewill is the ability to make conscious choices that can redirect the flow of fate into a new and hopefully more enjoyable future. Goal setting, action plans, and intent work are all examples of this. Destiny is where you actually are at any given moment. It is the combination of Fate and Freewill.

If you are intent on improving your life, it is important to focus on improving your Freewill and that is where Freewill Exercises come in. Freewill exercises consist of three basic parts: Paying attention, stopping conditioned responses, acting on new choices. I would also break these down into three levels of challenge: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Basic exercises should be small challenges with little to no risk and ideally an improved beneficial aspect. For example: Getting out of bed 5 minutes earlier, Drinking tea with your off hand, Stopping to take a deep breath before speaking, etc. Use your imagination and you will undoubtedly come up with some of your own.

Intermediate exercises may have some risk and ideally have an improved benefit aspect. For example: Saying no to people of authority in your life when you mean no, saying yes to the things in your life that you really want when you know others might not approve, confronting basic fears in a safe way, learning a new skill that you always wanted to but never have, or public speaking about some of your favorite things.

Advanced exercises should ideally be undertaken only after progressing through the basic and intermediate exercises. These can be major life changing events and are not to be taken lightly. Some examples: Quit that job you hate and find or create one you love, Break up with that abusive person and find the love of your life (or spend some quality time alone for a greater challenge), Climb that mountain, go skydiving, run a marathon, try parkour, in other words, change yourself in a major way, put it all on the line. You know what your biggest challenges are, go face them!

The benefits of these exercises include but are not limited to: an improved self-esteem, more confidence, new experiences, the satisfaction of doing the impossible, great stories to tell, having an amazing life and much more. If you start at whatever level you are comfortable at, and move to bigger and better things, there is no limit to what you can accomplish!