122: Mental Strength and Willpower

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Questions about the Video File:

  1. What’s your most important asset?
  2. Why money is not considered your most valuable asset?
  3. How can you conserve your will power?
  4. How is mental strength consumed?
  5. How can you protect your mental energy?

 

General Questions:

  1. How many fixed daily routines do you have? How about weekly routines or monthly ones?
  2. How often do you set new positive habits for yourself? Do you ever do it consciously or they are just through time?
  3. What unimportant decisions do you make everyday? Do you agree that omitting them will save your mental energy?
  4. How often do you talk to people who are negative or manipulating?
  5. To what extent are you negative when it comes to making important decisions? Why is it so?
  6. When was the last time you set a goal and planned for it?
  7. Are you quick at making small decisions? Why? Why not?
  8. How often do you have to make big decisions? How do you feel about it?
  9. Can you find any distinguished differences between your morning decisions and the ones you take in the afternoon? Provide examples to support your idea.

 

Related Quotes:

“A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them.”  Stephen King

“We become what we repeatedly do.” Sean Covey, The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens

 

Related Idioms and Expressions:

 

  1. Out of site out of mind: if you don’t see someone or something you may easily forget them
  • When you’re quitting sweet, try not to buy the at all. When there is no sweet at home you don’t crave for one. Out of sight, out of mind is what you need to keep in mind.
  1. At will: if you do something at will you do it whenever you want by your own decision.
  • If your friends talk about something unpleasant you can leave the room at will.

 

  1. The better part of : most of
  • I spend the better part of the year to prepare for the exam

 

Related Words and Phrases:

Asset (n) valuable property or quality

  • Time is my only asset in this job, I need to plan carefully.

Viable (adj) capable of being successful

  • Concentration is a viable quality that can be learnt.

Stamina (n) physical or mental strength to do something challenging

  • Most survival skills require a great stamina.

Clarity (n) the ability to think clearly and not being perplexed

  • After hours of working, clarity will be compromised

Shelter (n) a building or structure that protects you from bad weather or danger.

  • Taking shelter in the warmth of home is a blessing many take for granted.

Oblivious (adj) unaware of someone or something 

  • When she is reading she is totally oblivious of her surroundings.

Willpower (n) the ability to make decision and control your behavior accordingly

  • To go on a diet you need a strong willpower and a clear routine.

Decline (v) decrease

  • Your willpower will decline if you don’t have plans.

Burnt out (adj) tired because of doing hard work especially for a long time

  • After working 20 years as a park ranger he felt burnt out.

Reach out to somebody (phv) to try to contact someone  

  • She reaches out to her sister in times of distress.

Nuts (n) crazy

  • You can’t do all this in just 2 hours, you are nuts.

Depleted (adj) reduced

  • The number of pandas has depleted over the recent years.

Pointless (adj) meaningless; without any purpose

  • Talking to Dina about art is pointless, she doesn’t seem to get it.

Drain (v) to suck energy out of someone

  • Working in a rehab can be draining from time to time.

Manipulative (adj) the quality of a person who wants to control others to his/her advantage

  • Manipulative kids are as horrible as manipulative parents. They both want to control the other illogically.

Whinny (adj) the characteristic of a person who complains and nags constantly

  • Don’t be a whinny kid, go and do your homework and then you can watch TV.

Peel away (phv) separate from a group or whole and go to a different direction

  • She peeled off from the crowd and took shelter in the solitude of her room.

Cut somebody out (phv) not to let someone join a group or activity

  • She knew if she was whinny she would be cut out of the party.

Comfort zone (n) a situation or condition in which you feel mentally comfortable

  • Protesting to the manager about low wages was out of his comfort zone

Better (v) improve

  • You can better your life only by knowing what you really want

Stack (v) pile up; put thing one on the top of the other

  • You’d better stack up your clothes or soon you’ll have a mess here.

Intense (adj) strong in quality

  • I felt an intense pain in my hand after working hours on my computer

Consistent (adj) steady; happening in the same way

  • Educating children requires consistent behavior on the side of parents. Moody parents can be easily manipulated

Sweet tooth (n) to have a craving for sweet food

  • I have a sweet tooth so I don’t forget to stack the cupboards with chocolates and cookies.

Temptation (n) desire to do something that you know you shouldn’t do.

  • Resist your temptations and stay out of fast food restaurants.

Drama queen (n) a person who gets too upset or worried about unimportant thing and makes a fuss over it

  • July is a drama queen. She cries for a small stain on her coat for an hour!

Put somebody down (phv) to say words to people to make them feel stupid or worthless

  • Don’t talk to her about your new projects, she will definitely put you down.

Binge (v) a time when you do something excessively especially drinking or eating or spending money

  • She kept bringing on chocolate for days after she failed her job interview.

 

Related Collocations

Mental energy: to take part in an exam in order to answer the questions

  • The students had to take two tests in one day.

Decision making ability:  the ability to decide

  • Depending on your decision making abilities you can get promoted to higher managerial positions.

Think through a problem: consider all aspects of a problem carefully

  • You need to calm down and think through your problem.

Get something done:  to finish doing something; to complete a task

  • Can you get your assignment done by the end of the week

 

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Use specific reasons to support your answer.

  • We become what we repeatedly do.

There are 2 Comments

In my point of view when we are doing something repeatedly, it will become a habit. Actually a particular habit can be acquired by doing something repeatedly in a particular way. Obviously it is very crucial to understand if you develop a habit it becomes a part of your nature. The importance of a habit lies in the fact that if you have good or bad habits they will form your character and shape up your personality.
Furthermore, a habit not only plays an important role in our personal life but also it will help us in development of interaction with the society. Routines and habits enable us to do things without thinking too much about them and it is considered as our behavior that we usually do in our daily activities and it comes from unconsciousness part of mind and takes driving of our life. As a matter of the fact we are known by our character and personality and how we interact with others. Another point worth noting is the attitude that we made to becoming this person that we are now includes everything that we try to do them constantly in our every day life.
So in my opinion it would not be out of picture if we claim that we are creatures of our habits and become what repeatedly do.
 

I think this quot is true. after a while what we repeatedly do will go to our unconsciousnesses so we do it without any thinking and that's when it will become our habit. good habits are helpful for us because they will help us to become viable. On the other hand bad habits prevent us from moving forward in our lives and they will drain us, so doing them repeatedly is really pointless. As a result those who want to better their lives will replace their bad habits with good ones.