When a person desires physical strength, he or she must exercise. Physical exercise is most productive when the body is partially exhausted. The exercise of muscles focuses on working through resistance and through the weakness brought on by partial exhaustion.

The development of character also requires exercise. Not the exercise of the physical muscles but rather the exercise of the resolve. The development of the resolve is most productive when the desire to yield is strong but not overpowering. The exercise of the resolve focuses on working through a situation of conflict and through the desire to yield without yielding.

The consistent indulgence of the desire for self gratification causes an enslavement to one's desires and appetites. Those who are thus enslaved lose the ability to resist outside stimuli. They are easily persuaded by others who are manipulative and they are defenseless against techniques of seduction.

This enslavement to one's own appetites is also the cause of the inability to control one's reactions as for example in the case of road rage.

The development of self control and discipline requires exposure to small challenges.

Let me illustrate the concept of small challenges by writing about New Year's resolutions. The reason that many people make the same resolution each year and yet never seem to keep their resolution is that many of them are creating challenges which are too big for their current capacity.

A wise parent does not over protect his or her child but also does not allow the child to be exposed to challenges which are too great for the child's current capacity.

If you desire to grow your strength of resolve, you must be willing to make small resolutions on relatively unimportant matters. The reason that these early resolutions need to be about topics which are relatively trivial is that the degree of the importance of a matter has a multiplicative affect on the size of the challenge.

As a runner's capacity increases, he or she will increase the distance or the slope or the speed of their exercise. As a weightlifter's muscle strength increases, he or she will increase the time per lift or the number of reps or the weight of the lift.

As your capacity to meet challenges to your resolve successfully increases, so you must also increase the degree of the challenges. Becoming is never about achieving an ideal but about continuous development towards an ideal.

When a person is recovering from surgery in the hospital, the amount of walking which they may do would not even be considered exercise by most healthy people, but for the person who is recuperating it is challenging, exhausting and beneficial towards development. However, it would be ridiculous to impose the same restrictions to one's walk after one has fully recuperated because the capacity for walking has increased to such a degree that the walker is no longer challenged.

So it is also with resolve. For the person who has practiced self-control for years, waving a piece of candy in front of their face to persuade them to do something which is against their own best interests is ludicrous. The piece of candy is not sufficiently challenging to require a significant exercise of resolve any more than walking twenty feet is sufficiently challenging to someone who has full capacity of their legs and body.

The internal process known as "Becoming" produces the ability to rule over your desires and impulses. This ability to rule over your desire is frequently termed "Self-mastery."

Longfellow wrote:

Be not like a stream that brawls
Loud with shallow waterfalls,
But in quiet self-control
Link together soul and soul.

becoming personal development transformation resolve resolution self-control challenge exercise character integrity cohesive