Will is a useful thing to have as it allows a person to overcome factors that would make their decisions for them, such as pain, fear, anger, fatigue, lust or weakness. I would, of course, be remiss to not mention that the will can be used to overcome compassion, love and mercy as well. The will, as Kant noted, can select good or evil with equal resolve. However, I will set aside the concern regarding the good and bad wills and focus on training the will.
Based on my own experience, the will is like physical stamina—while people vary in what they get by nature, it can be improved by proper training. This, of course, matches Aristotle’s view of the virtues.
While there are many self-help books discussing how to train the will with elaborate and strange methods, the process is straightforward and like training any attribute. To steal from Aristotle, it is mainly a matter of exercising the capacity but not doing so to excess (and thus burning out) or deficiency (and thus getting no gain). For example, one way of developing the will to serve temperance is to practice refraining from pleasures to the proper degree (the mean) and this will help train the will. As another example, one can build will via athletic activities by continuing when pain and fatigue are pushing one to stop. Naturally, one should not do this to excess (because of the possibility of injury) nor be deficient in it (because there will be no gain).
As far as simple and easy ways to train the will, meditation and repetitive mental exercises (such as repeating prayers or simply repeated counting) seem to help in developing this attribute. It might also help by giving the mind (whatever that is) a chance to relax and recover some will.
One advantage of indirect training of the will, such as with running, is that can develop other resources usable in place of the will. For example, when a person tries to get into shape to run, sticking with running will initially take a lot of will because the pain and fatigue will start quickly. However, as the person gets into shape it will take longer for them to hurt and feel fatigued. As such, the person will not need to use as much will when running (and if the person becomes a crazy runner like me, then they will need to use will to take a rest day from running). To borrow a bit from Aristotle, once a person becomes properly habituated to an activity, then the will cost of that activity becomes less, making it easier to engage in that activity. For example, a person who initially must struggle to eat healthy food rather than junk food will find that resisting not only builds their will but also makes it easier to resist the temptations of junk.
There are also what could be called will surrogates. A will surrogate functions much like the will by allowing a person to resist factors that would otherwise “take control” of them. However, what makes the will surrogate a surrogate is that it is something that is not the will—but merely serves a similar function. Having these would seem to “build the will” by providing a surrogate that can be called upon when the person’s own will is failing—sort of a mental tag team situation.
For example, a religious person could use their belief in God as a will surrogate to resist temptations forbidden by their faith, such as adultery. That is, they can do what they will rather than what lust is pushing them to do. As another example, a person might use pride or honor as will surrogates—she, for example, might push through the pain and fatigue of a 10K race because of her pride. Other emotions (such as love) and other factors could also serve as will surrogates by enabling a person to do what they will rather than what they are being pushed to do. Or not do.
One obvious concern about will surrogates is that they could be seen not as allowing the person to do as they would will when they lack their own will but as merely being other factors that “make the decision” for the person. For example, if a person resists having an affair with a coworker because of his religious beliefs, then it could be contended that he has not chosen to not have the affair. Rather, his religious belief (and perhaps fear of God) was stronger than his lust. If so, those who gain what appears to be willpower from such sources are not really gaining will. Rather they merely have other factors that make them do or not do things in a way that resembles the actions of the will. But such will surrogates can be useful, like training wheels on a bike that allow one to learn.
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