The act of voluntary will
How does your will get manifested? Consider this example. One evening, you have a "mental spark" to read a book. An idea then comes of taking the book off the shelf, embodied in an image of getting up from the chair and taking the book. Finally, your musculature is invoked and you make the physical effort of retrieving the book.

These stages happen at great speed and are almost imperceptible as separate events. But sometimes, habitual thinking interferes with this act of will, thereby sabotaging your goals.

Case example
Take the case of D., age 52, who reported having a realization while writing a letter to an acquaintance that he was spending hours writing to someone he barely knew or cared about, yet, he had not spoken to his sister, whom he "loved with all his heart," for several years.

D. suddenly realized that the argument they had three years ago now made no sense. At this precise moment, D. had a mental spark: "I am calling her now!" An idea of picking up and dialing the phone followed. Then, D.'s habitual tendency of thinking about the future intruded. He started speculating about whether she might refuse his call, how she might not respond to his answering machine message, the chance of their conversation just making it all worse, etc.
D. got trapped in "what if" thinking and did not call his sister.

The use of voluntary will
Will can be successfully utilized for breaking negative habits like D.'s future talk. Yet, in order to do so, willful effort must be applied, without which will becomes a wish. The muscle of will can be developed through consistent will-strengthening exercises.

As a way to strengthen D's will, he was instructed to practice stopping exercises for three weeks. Every day, D. was to choose one habitual activity before which he was to pause. Such an activity could be: counting to three before picking up the phone, pausing before opening the door, taking a step backwards before beginning to speak, etc. This practice strengthened D.'s ability to create space between external stimuli and his responses and to be in charge of the pace of his responses.
The next step was to change D.'s habitual pattern of second guessing. He was instructed to become a shomer. Shomer, the Hebrew word for "watcher", is a non-judgmental observer of "what is." Though described in different ways, it appears in most spiritual traditions as a technique for weeding out habitual thinking and behavior.

D. was to become aware of any time he made up stories in his mind about the future, and to confirm this observation with a statement, "Here goes D. making up a story." The shomer exercise helped D. to own his undesirable thoughts by becoming more fully aware of them. By practicing this exercise D. was eventually able to disown his negative future talk by identifying it before it took over and by then saying to himself, "Here goes D. about to make up another story, but I choose not to." Within several sessions, D. was not only able to call his sister but begin asserting his will in other life situations.

Developing and strengthening your will can help you to:
· expand your concentration, attention and/or persistence, enabling you to accomplish your goals;
· break negative modes of thinking and/or acting, such as having unwanted and intrusive thoughts, or of having an addiction to a substance or behavior;
· direct your life with consciousness and intent.