"Way Power" not "Will Power"

Will power is well understood and appreciated. In fact, even proverbs value it, as in "Where there is a will there is a way". Will power can literally move even move or break mountains as the movie "Manjhi: The Mountain Man" shows. 

The movie Manjhi may not be a box-office hit - but it doesn't matter at all to me - its story and message resonated with me. The movie is based on a real-story of a person named Dashrath Manjhi who lived in a remote village named Gehlaur near Gaya, Bihar. His village was locked by mountains. People had to go around the mountains to reach other villages or towns. One day, Manjhi's wife got badly wounded when climbing the mountain. But Manjhi could not get his wife in time to the nearest town where medical facilities were available, and she died in the hospital. 

Driven by the mad love Manjhi had for his wife, he vowed to break the mountain to make a road to the next town. Initially people were curious, later they made fun of him, and ended-up called him "mad". Days, months, and years passed, but he did not give up in trying to break the mountain using primitive tools like hammer and axe. Because he was driven by the love for his wife, he gradually transformed himself in the process of breaking the mountain. Finally after 22 years of hard-work, he successfully broke the mountain to make a road! After his accomplishment, people praised and celebrated him, but it did not make much difference to him and continued to live his life as usual and later died peacefully. 

This story beautifully illustrates what will power, determination and hard work can achieve. Looking at historical examples and success of great men who are known for their hard work and will power (Gandhi is an example), I always believed in hard work, perseverance, persistence, and will power. However, I do see a lot of sincere people around me who are diligent, hard working and are determined to succeed. They may not have will power like Manjhi to strive for 22 years, but still I see them honestly working hard. The reality: many of them struggle to even make their ends meet (forget about succeeding). On the other hand, I also see other people - not so hard working or have will power - succeeding in life. So, what's the missing link?

I recently realized that "way power" expresses one of the key reasons for success. So, what is way power?

Say you are running a product-based startup. You are trying to sell a mobile application for comparing product catalogues to help customers save their money. There is only small growth in users for the mobile app and adding features doesn't seem to help the app get more popular. However, you notice some unusual behaviour from the users of the app: they are sending the product photos to themselves to "save" or "collect" them. Enthused by this idea, you create software to put the images in "buckets" (just like we do in shopping) for storing images. Now, instead of mobile app, you build a website because it is a more mature platform. Bingo, the idea clicks and it helps transform your startup to a billion dollar company.

By the way, this story is real: it is of Pinterest. Here, using will power or determination to make the mobile application popular didn't result in success. The aim was to build a product that helps solve users' problem and that was "storing" images in this case. By solving this problem, the target to build a successful company is achieved through "way power".

Here is another example. Let us say you are overweight or obese, and what's more, you don't seem to stop eating. Using will power approach, you can determine to go to exercise regularly and mindfully eat only healthy food. However, perhaps 90% of those who rely on this will power approach fail and quickly fall back to their old habits. An alternative approach would be to use "way power" - to figure out creative and practical ways in which you can realize your goals. For example, let us say your flat is in 12th floor of your apartment. You can choose to listen to music and take stairs every day. Also, near your gym there is a South-Indian hotel that serves great food. You can plan to go to the hotel for breakfast every morning there but only after your gruelling gym session (BTW, it is a variation of idea I use for going to Yoga session every day - and it has worked for more than a year now!). In other words, you are finding ways to make things work instead of pushing yourself hard to make things work.

So, what do successful people do for applying "way power" in practice? Some practices are:

• Breakdown seemingly impossible large tasks to smaller achievable tasks
• Take baby steps and do one thing at a time
• Use creativity for solving problems that appear on a day-to-day basis
• Mentally rehearse becoming successful and enjoying the fruits of success
• Positively visualize and dream about solving obstacles successfully
• Cultivate deep friendships and work as a team to achieve a goal or to get support (instead of working alone)

To summarize, will power is important for success, but it is highly overrated, and solely relying on it is idealistic and impractical. "Way power" is a smarter way and more pragmatic means to achieve success.