You've probably heard the phrase. It sounds aggressive. It sounds like something a corporate shark or a gym rat would shout while trying to "crush it." But honestly, Friedrich Nietzsche’s will to power isn't about bullying people or winning a cage match. It’s way weirder than that. And honestly, it’s much more useful for your actual life than the memes suggest.
Nietzsche was a sickly guy. He spent a lot of his time in the Swiss Alps, nursing migraines and stomach issues, writing books that almost nobody bought during his lifetime. When he talked about "power," he wasn't talking about being a dictator. He was talking about the internal drive to grow, to expand, and to overcome yourself.
Forget Everything You Think You Know About the Will to Power
Most people trip up because they think "power" means "power over others." That’s a massive misunderstanding. In the 1930s, Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, heavily edited his unpublished notes to make them fit Nazi ideology. She basically hijacked his legacy. Because of her, people associated the will to power with racial superiority and military conquest for decades.
It’s a tragedy, really.
If you actually read Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Beyond Good and Evil, you see a different picture. Nietzsche argues that the most "powerful" person isn't the one with the biggest army. It's the artist. It's the philosopher. It’s the person who can control their own impulses and create something beautiful out of the chaos of their life.
Think of a tree. A tree doesn't grow because it wants to hurt the grass around it. It grows because its very nature is to reach for the sun, to push its roots deeper, and to become more of what it is. That's the will to power. It's the "becoming" of things.
It's Physics, Not Just Psychology
Nietzsche sometimes went even further. He didn't just think humans had this drive; he thought the whole universe was made of it. To him, the world wasn't just a collection of atoms bumping into each other. It was a clash of forces.
Every living thing is trying to discharge its strength.
He didn't see the world as a place seeking "balance" or "peace." He saw it as a constant, restless process of self-overcoming. If you aren't growing, you're decaying. There is no middle ground where you just "stay the same."
Why This Matters for Your Mental Health
We live in a culture that obsesses over "happiness." We want to be comfortable. We want to be safe. Nietzsche thought that was a trap. He called it "the religion of comfortableness."
If you view life through the lens of the will to power, you stop asking, "Will this make me happy?" and start asking, "Will this make me stronger?"
👉 See also: Why Your Dining Table With Candles Probably Looks All Wrong
This shift is huge.
When you face a difficult project at work or a messy breakup, the goal isn't just to get back to a "baseline" of feeling okay. The goal is to incorporate that pain and use it as fuel. Nietzsche famously said, "What does not kill me makes me stronger." It’s a cliché now, but he meant it literally. He viewed suffering as the necessary resistance that allows the will to power to manifest. Without resistance, there is no growth.
The Master vs. Slave Morality Connection
You can't talk about this concept without mentioning Nietzsche's critique of morality. He looked at history and saw two ways of valuing the world.
"Master morality" is the morality of the strong-willed. These people define "good" as what is noble, powerful, and life-affirming. They don't look for permission. They create their own values.
"Slave morality," on the other hand, is a reaction. It's the morality of the oppressed who are too weak to exercise their will to power directly. So, they flip the script. They say, "The powerful are evil, therefore the weak must be good." They value pity, humility, and patience—not because these are inherently better, but because they make life safer for people who can't stand up for themselves.
Nietzsche wasn't saying we should all be jerks. He was warning us that if we suppress our natural drive to excel and grow out of a sense of "guilt," we end up nihilistic and bored. We become "The Last Man"—a creature that just wants warmth, food, and Netflix, with no ambition to be anything greater.
Misconceptions That Just Won't Die
Wait.
✨ Don't miss: Low Sugar Rhubarb Recipes: Why Everyone Over-Sweetens This Stalk and How to Stop
Does this mean Nietzsche would love modern "hustle culture"? Probably not.
The will to power isn't about mindless accumulation. It's not about having $10 million in the bank if you're a slave to your own greed. For Nietzsche, a person who can't say "no" to their own cravings is weak. A person who follows the crowd is weak.
True power is self-mastery.
It's the ability to give style to your character. To look at all the messy, contradictory parts of yourself—your anger, your fear, your talent—and weave them into a single, cohesive work of art.
Real World Examples
- The Athlete: Think of a marathon runner at mile 22. Their body is screaming. Every "rational" part of them wants to stop. The will to power is the force that says "keep going" simply to prove that the spirit can dominate the flesh.
- The Scientist: Marie Curie didn't handle radioactive isotopes because she wanted a comfortable life. She did it because her drive to know and to conquer the unknown was more powerful than her instinct for self-preservation.
- The Recovering Addict: Choosing not to take a drink when your brain is begging for it is a supreme act of the will to power. It is the higher self overcoming the lower self.
The Dark Side: When Will to Power Goes Wrong
Nietzsche wasn't a "good" guy in the traditional sense. He was dangerous. He knew his ideas could be misused.
If you take the will to power and remove the "self-overcoming" part, you just get a tyrant. You get someone like Napoleon (whom Nietzsche actually admired, but with plenty of caveats). You get people who think that because they have the strength to take, they have the right to take.
Nietzsche didn't believe in objective "rights." He thought rights were just power dynamics that had reached a stalemate. This is a cold way to look at the world. It’s why he’s often called a nihilist, even though he spent his whole life trying to fight nihilism.
He wanted us to create meaning in a world that doesn't have any built-in. But that's a heavy burden. Most people can't handle it. They'd rather have someone else tell them what is "good" and "bad."
How to Apply Nietzsche to Your Life Right Now
Stop waiting for life to get easier. It won't. And if it did, you'd just get soft.
👉 See also: Finding death records Miami Dade County Florida: Why it is harder than you think
The will to power is about leaning into the friction. If you’re feeling stuck, it’s probably because you’re trying to avoid the very challenges that would actually make you feel alive.
Here is how you actually use this stuff:
- Audit your "Shoulds." Look at your life. How many of your goals are yours, and how many are "slave morality" things you've adopted to look like a "good person" to others? Nietzsche would tell you to ditch the performative virtue and find what actually makes your spirit expand.
- Seek Resistance. If you have two choices, and one is comfortable while the other makes you nervous but offers growth, take the scary one. That is you exercising your will to power.
- Practice Self-Discipline. You aren't "powerful" if you can't control your phone usage, your temper, or your diet. Mastery starts inward. If you can't command yourself, you'll be commanded by someone else.
- Reframe Suffering. When things go wrong, don't ask "Why is this happening to me?" Ask "How can I use this to become more?"
Nietzsche’s will to power is ultimately a philosophy of "Yes." Saying yes to life, even the parts that hurt. It’s about being the architect of your own soul rather than a tenant in a building someone else designed.
Next Steps for You
- Read the primary source: Pick up The Will to Power (the Kaufmann edition is generally considered the most reliable translation).
- Journal on your obstacles: Identify one major struggle in your life and write down how overcoming it—rather than just "getting through" it—could fundamentally change your character.
- Identify your "shadow": Determine which parts of your personality you suppress because you’re afraid of appearing "not nice." Find a productive, creative outlet for that energy.
---