As I wrote in the last blog, strong will is not about how well you can dominate others. It is about how much power or energy you have to drive your own life forward. Imagine your strong will as a horse. Horses are huge, strong beasts with tremendous power. But if you don’t know how to ride a horse, or how to be in relationship with them, they will take advantage of your ignorance. They might gallop away with you hanging on for dear life, or they might just stand there and not take a single step, no matter how much you try to coax them.
If we think of our strong will as a horse, then we quickly see the great need to have skillful will. Without the skills necessary to ride a horse, we might never leave the meadow. Or worse! We might end up running around the meadow chasing the horse. Skillful will is, in fact, our ability to obtain what we want with the least amount of energy. We all know people who can ride horses almost magically, easing these huge, powerful animals right or left with just a miniscule pull of the reigns. This how we want to move through our lives, skillfully, with minimal effort, going in the direction we desire.
Strong Will Can Work Against You
Let’s look at one example of how the strong will can actually work against you and the skillful will is more effective. I knew a woman from Romania named Olga. She needed to support her son through university, so she left her own job as school headmistress and moved to London where she could earn more money working as a nanny and also improve her English. Suddenly, after 20 years of running a high school and two university degrees—one in mathematics and the other in engineering—she was taking care of three children, ironing, and cleaning house for someone else.
Love and Will 